Adasina Social Capital
Building a Gender Lens Investment Strategy through Community Engagement
location: USA
Gender lens investing has been gaining traction over the past few years, with investors seeking to align their values with their financial goals. However, the lack of reliable data and metrics has made it challenging for investors to make informed decisions that have a real impact on gender equity. This case study explores how Adasina Social Capital (‘Adasina’), an investment and financial activism firm, mobilized community groups, activists, and investors to build a gender lens investment strategy through community engagement.
Background
The #MeToo movement, which gained momentum in 2017, brought to light the widespread problem of sexual harassment in the workplace. This prompted Adasina to ask survivors groups and social justice organizations how they could support them. They found that many investment managers had built gender lens strategies to meet investor demand, but these strategies were based on board composition or other readily available but pretty much irrelevant metrics that didn't actually address the core issue of workplace safety and sexual harassment.
The Challenge
Adasina realized that to make a real impact, they needed to know where companies stood on the crucial issue of workplace safety and sexual harassment. Unfortunately, there was no database that contained this information. Adasina needed to gather the data themselves, which involved creating an industry coalition of investors, workers, and consumer activists to find out which publicly traded companies had the practice of forcing employees to sign away their right to go to court in the event of sexual harassment claims. This practice, known as forced arbitration, had been shown to disproportionately favor the employer and perpetuate a culture of acceptance of sexual harassment in the workplace.
The Solution
The industry coalition gathered data on which publicly traded companies had ended the practice of forced arbitration in response to employee demands. When the coalition started, only five publicly traded companies had publicly disavowed the practice. However, through their efforts, they were able to get over 300 companies to end the practice, impacting over 10 million workers. Additionally, the coalition was able to get a minimum of $54 billion in assets to sign on to a public statement that they could take to these companies to show that institutional investors were interested in ending this practice.
The Impact
Adasina’s efforts had a real impact on workplace safety and sexual harassment in the workplace. They were able to build a gender lens investment strategy that was grounded in the real-world experiences of survivors and social justice organizations. They engaged directly with the impacted communities to determine the right metrics to measure and build the data set needed to measure them. By doing so, they were able to make informed investment decisions that had a real impact on gender equity.
Conclusion
This case study illustrates the power of community engagement in building a gender lens investment strategy. By engaging directly with survivors and social justice organizations, Adasina Social Capital was able to identify the core issues that needed to be addressed and build a data set that allowed them to make informed investment decisions.
Through their efforts, they were able to get over 300 companies to end the practice of forced arbitration, impacting over 10 million workers.