Women in Social Finance is a private community that fosters connection, advancement and collaboration between experienced women in the field of social finance.
Don’t just stand for the success of other women – insist on it.
Gail Blanke, President and CEO, Lifedesigns
Our mission
- To raise the visibility of women working in social finance and of WISF itself
- To increase insight and knowledge of women in social and sustainable finance with a particular focus on empowering our members’ through learning, professional and personal development.
- To advance control of capital for and by a diverse group of women
Find the smartest people you can and surround yourself with them.”
Marissa Meyer, CEO of Yahoo!
How we are different:
Trusted
We are a trusted community that encourages our members to make connections in a supportive and non-solicitous environment.
Intimate
We keep the group private in order to protect the integrity of our culture and to ensure those involved respect it. We hope our members will make real connections with each other over time, and believe a large membership with high turnover and inconsistent participation will not lend to real connections.
Member-driven
Our annual income of less than £8k per annum is entirely from member dues and the network is run on the significant voluntary time and creativity of all our members. We encourage our members to speak at WISF meetings and suggest topics to be discussed at our meetings. From time to time we invite guests who have a particular topic or presentation of interest to share with the rest of the group. Our biggest asset is our members and the connections, ideas that stem from our members.
We endeavour to:
- Share strategic insights and trends in the field
- Share upcoming events in the field
- Highlight job openings and exciting candidates
- Encourage and share speaking, Board and Investment Committee opportunities
- Share relevant articles and resources
- Create opportunities to connect and discuss work- related topics with discretion
- Provide a supportive, non-solicitive space to dialogue and offer constructive feedback
- Share experiences, offer co- mentoring opportunities, and support career development including explicitly getting more women on boards, into senior roles, and investment committees in relevant social and sustainable finance settings.
- For some, foster a specific agenda around women as investors, gender lens investing and gender lens in our work
Social and sustainable finance – a common tie across our membership
Social and sustainable finance means different things to different members, but we believe we can interpret it in its very broadest sense to mean capital directly invested in or supporting and catalysing investment in debt and equity instruments delivering social and environmental as well as financial returns.
Special thanks to the Connect Fund for supporting us in 2018, for a strategic review and for getting this website up and running!
