The Criterion Institute Podcast

In this episode, Joy Anderson reflects on her journey to the US SIF conference and receiving the Joan Bavaria Award. She discusses the collaboration between herself, Jackie VanderBrug, and the late Suzanne Biegel in building the field of gender lens investing. The episode highlights the importance of radical collaboration, the challenges faced in integrating equity and gender considerations into f...

In this episode, Joy revisits the pioneering Structure Lab, an initiative that guided thousands of entrepreneurs in balancing complex business paradoxes. From understanding the foundational relationships and assets of an enterprise to navigating the dualities of autonomy and engagement, constancy and nimbleness, complexity and simplicity, and security and risk, we'll uncover how these elements sha...

This episode explores the impact of everyday language and family sayings on our perception of life, money, and investments. Joy delves into her recent experiences in Kenya and Ghana and outlines some key cultural differences in the way we exchange pleasantries. Then, Joy's conversation with her father highlights the importance of understanding deep-rooted beliefs when considering investments and p...

In this episode, Joy interviews BE Alink, the CEO of Alinker Inventions and inventor of the Alinker bike. They talk about the power of language and how it can be used with kindness, and delve into the impact of diagnosis in healthcare and the financial systems surrounding it. The concept of language as a lens is discussed, along with the importance of understanding and empathy - with a reflection...

In this episode, Joy's conversation with Vanessa Roanhorse looks at the importance of creating safe containers and building right relationships, friendships, and trust when navigating the complexities of the financial sector and creating transformative systems change. They explore strategies for healing and empowerment - from the neuroscience of trauma to the power of friendships and trust in fina...

This episode explores the journey of creating an investment portfolio intentionally designed to address gender-based violence. The discussion highlights the importance of finance as a tool for transformative systems change and the reduction of gender-based violence in the Core Pillar of the Criterion Institute's Strategic Plan. Joy's conversation with the InFaith Foundation delves into the process...

This episode begins with a reflection on the inception of Convergence, highlighting its origins as a space for transformative dialogue. Convergence is a series of hour-and-a-half-long conversations that bring together people from different fields to discuss topics related to impact investing, development finance, grassroots activism, and social justice campaigns. Then Sana Kapadia shares her...

In this episode, Joy Anderson explores strategies for building movements and the tension between going broad and going deep. She discusses the concept of preaching to the choir and the importance of engaging with new audiences while also supporting those already doing the work. Sana Kapadia then joins Joy in conversation about working within mainstream systems and the balance between incremental p...

In this episode, Joy Anderson and Sara Wolfe discuss the concept of the kitchen table as a space for creativity, collaboration, and transformative change. They highlight the importance of relationships, informal processes, and listening, and challenge traditional norms of success. Then, in a new section called "Practices", Joy explores the practice of carrying around ideas and testing them in conv...

In this episode, Joy Anderson and Teresa Wells discuss systemic risk in finance and the need for different choices to address it. They explore the evolving understanding of risk in investment decisions, the short-termism of financial decision-making, and the challenges with benchmarking. They also emphasize the importance of better data to identify systemic risks and the role of indexes in driving...

In this episode, Joy Anderson speaks with Denise Hearn about the role of finance in transformative systems change. They discuss various themes, including misconceptions about competition and collaboration, identifying leverage points in market systems, unmasking the narrative of free markets, the power of paradoxes in systems change, understanding emergence in market systems, and envisioning alter...

As the fields of gender lens and impact investing mature, the need to advance the way we do analysis and set benchmarks for better practice has become ever more pronounced. We’ve seen a growing number of standard setters, from governments to investors, willing to use their power to ask for more from their investments, but not quite sure where to start. Meanwhile, progress towards critical social c...

As the fields of gender lens and impact investing mature, the need to advance the way we do analysis and set benchmarks for better practice has become ever more pronounced. We’ve seen a growing number of standard setters, from governments to investors, willing to use their power to ask for more from their investments, but not quite sure where to start. Meanwhile, progress towards critical social c...

As the fields of gender lens and impact investing mature, the need to advance the way we do analysis and set benchmarks for better practice has become ever more pronounced. We’ve seen a growing number of standard setters, from governments to investors, willing to use their power to ask for more from their investments, but not quite sure where to start. Meanwhile, progress towards critical social c...

Today we introduce something Criterion has been working on for years in partnership with various funders, but which has only started to really take shape more recently: the system of Standards of Practice, which looks at how to address power, privilege and bias across systems of finance. These are a particular focus of Criterion’s because we believe they are a missing piece of the implementation p...

Lenses – like a gender lens - do not change reality. They just allow us to see what’s happening more clearly. They simply show us patterns, and then allow us to use those patterns to do a more careful, more appropriate, more comprehensive analysis to see what might happen - including unintended consequences. In this episode, we look at two examples of unintended consequences in the field of innova...

Criterion is a systems change organization. We’ve been working with governments, investors, and civil society for over two decades to create systems change that reduces inequities, by using or changing systems of finance and investments. We have figured out a lot about how to do systems change works. But undergirding that is the assumption that systems can change. Even finance. Markets and monetar...

A few years ago, Criterion launched a ten-year strategic plan, which solidified our commitment to direct the power of the financial system to be a positive force against systemic injustice. This is part two of a five-part series on the core pillars of our 2020-2030 strategic plan. Each episode will give our listeners an inside look at how these pillars came into focus for Criterion, why it’s so im...

A few years ago, Criterion launched a ten-year strategic plan, which solidified the organization’s commitment to direct the power of the financial system to be a positive force against systemic injustice. This episode kicks off a series on the five core pillars of Criterion's 2020-2030 strategic plan. Our host Joy Anderson will give listeners an inside look into how these pillars came into focus f...

Today’s episode explores the power of relationships. Having relationships with people from different sectors, different disciplines, different countries, and different cultures can help us make sense of things we haven’t experienced ourselves. Hearing other’s experiences helps us to understand other worlds and the systems that drive them, and to make connections between ideas we may not see on our...

It’s no secret that the finance sector tends to undervalue and even demean non-financial expertise, in particular expertise on gender equality, social justice issues, and local context. This failure to embrace the value of diverse expertise reinforces biases in financial decision-making and has a direct impact on the outcomes of investments. This leads to overlooked opportunities, unseen and there...

What if, when we think about finance for social change, we didn’t think solely about the amount of money we can move to a certain impact goal? What if we focused instead on HOW that money moves and who holds the power to influence financial design and decision-making processes?    This episode discusses five strategies Criterion has developed to equip social change leaders across sectors and...

At Criterion, we mostly try to focus on positives: possibilities, solutions, insights for how things could work better. But sometimes we need to call out when things just aren’t working.  This episode is comprised of three rants about approaches to impact investing and gender lens investing which Criterion founder Joy Anderson believes are fundamentally limiting the positive impact these rema...

There is a common belief that, when we are creating something, we need to know specifically what to look for and how it will contribute to our end creation. In this episode, our host Joy Anderson flips that assumption on its head and focuses instead on the possibilities that can emerge when we allow ourselves to “wander around looking for nothing in particular.”   The first segment discu...

In March of 2023, Silicon Valley Bank suddenly collapsed after its sale of long-term US treasury bonds at a hefty loss triggered investor panic and a run on the bank. The collapse has had widespread and catastrophic effects on start-up companies and the technology sector and has led many to speculate that we may be heading toward a banking crisis like that of 2008.   On this episode, our...