A scan of the entrepreneurs and leadership teams of our portfolio companies showed us that five enterprises were founded or co-founded by women; and only one was founded by men with a specific  focus on benefiting financially disadvantaged women. With regard to xchange’s investment philosophy, process, and incubation, there is no explicit application of a gender lens. Further, while gender equity is likely to be addressed by social enterprises, there is no intentional application of a gender lens in how we assess an enterprise’s impact model.

In 2018, we attended a workshop delivered by the Criterion Institute on gender lens investing. Since then, we have wanted to learn more about how to apply a gender lens to our work but never really knew how or where to start. The GLIA toolkit provided us with an opportunity to learn about the gender lens application process, kickstart this process, and ultimately improve the way we do things.

Whilst reading through the toolkit, we realized that xchange needs an articulation of the values of diversity, inclusion, and gender, captured in a diversity statement. Since xchange is in the process of codifying its values and processes, the toolkit came at a perfect time to take stock of where we are vis-à-vis the gender lens agenda, determine where we want to make an impact, and chart our path forward.

We felt that in order for xchange to have the credibility to promote the application of a gender lens in our engagements with the broader ecosystem, we needed to look inward first. Specifically, we wanted to ensure that everyone within our organisation understand how to apply a gender lens to their respective work and engagements.

We reviewed the entire toolkit before selecting a specific area to focus on, and then used specific parts of the toolkit to inform the sessions we facilitated (e.g. sharing the glossary of key terms before the first brown bag lunch or using the reflection questions as a guide). Before the last lunch session, we shared the entire toolkit with the team, but as it is a long resource, not everyone was able to go through it.

The Awareness and Knowledge Building piece was originally supposed to be a workshop or learning session conducted by a gender lens expert. However, it was a challenge finding an expert to conduct workshops so we had to change the format to a self-study and discussion.

From the survey responses, we believe that the team now has a better understanding of what applying a gender lens means, as well as the concepts of gender equality, diversity, and inclusivity. Furthermore, as this is a continuing learning journey, it has encouraged them to find and share their own resources with the team. While three brown bag lunches are not sufficient to fully understand the concepts and their applications, we can say that the process has been an important first step.

Through the discussion, we’ve also been able to achieve better alignment and appreciation of how individual work ties in with xchange’s work. Through the brown bag lunches, the team felt inclusivity in action and one responded that there was a sense of belonging coming from the discussion as we got to know each other better and were able to share our thoughts freely. In the last brown bag lunch we were also able to identify some core values that will serve as guidance on decision making, behaviour, and will serve as the underlying principles of policy.