Sweef Capital Gender ROI™

Across the world, women are moving into roles of potential influence and impact in areas they see as vital to individual and collective wellbeing, sectors such as education, healthcare and sustainability.

About Gender ROI™

Across the world, women are moving into roles of potential influence and impact in areas they see as vital to individual and collective wellbeing, sectors such as education, healthcare and sustainability.

These promising developments are heralding positive effects in how organisations are led and operated and how businesses and entrepreneurial ventures are funded and supported. To accelerate this trend, we need a more granular understanding of how to identify and address gender barriers and enablers and relative performance against other organisations, industries and sectors.

The Sweef Capital Gender ROI™ has been developed for this express purpose. The tool provides a common language around gender, and clear systems and processes with which to translate aspirations into superior financial performance and positive social, economic and environmental impact.

 

Gender ROI™ Pillar Assessment Results

Spider diagram -Gender ROI

Three Outcome Pillars

Our focus is on creating measurable improvements in resilience, opportunity and inclusion for people and communities, particularly women.

Resilience

Resilience

Access resources and participate in decision making processes that affect their lives and family
Opportunity

Opportunity

Equal opportunities to allow women become economically active and advance to leadership and decision making position
Inclusion

Inclusion

Address existing barriers to ensure their continued employment and advancement

Four Enterprise Dimensions

By applying different levers of change across the 4 Enterprise Dimensions of leadership, workforce, value chains, and society targeting women’s economic and social roles, contributions, and constraints and vulnerabilities, women’s economic empowerment is demonstrated through resilience, opportunities and inclusion.

Gender-diverse Leadership & Governance

Leadership

Women leaders promote gender equality and diversity within their own spheres of influence
Workforce

Workforce

Leadership champion women through its value systems, policies and practices, and is one of the key foundations of business resiliency
Value Chains

Value Chains

Leadership enable women’s economic empowerment through its customers and suppliers
Society

Society

Active contributions from other dimensions lead to improvement to women’s wellbeing, their families and communities

Gender ROI™ Practitioner’s Manual

The Sweef Capital Gender ROI™ Practitioner’s Manual sets out how any company, private equity/venture capital firm or their investors can conduct deep gender analysis and track performance.  The measures outlined in the manual have been designed by practitioners for practitioners and are flexible enough to integrate into existing reporting and governance regimes.

Download Manual

Who And Why Use

The Gender ROI™ informs both practice and performance as a diagnostic assessment for addressing inequalities while highlighting significant opportunities to improve and monitor outcomes for women and girls.

  • Enterprises: Integrates a gender lens into value systems, policies and practices, by improving DEI over time.
  • Investors: Advises on gender equality and diversity frameworks, investment strategies and related Due Diligence (DD) monitoring.
  • Fund managers: Provides a defined DD framework to identify gender equality and diversity improvement areas.
  • Gender specialists/policymakers: Advises on program gaps relating to DEI.

How To Use

The Gender ROI™ tool addresses the needs of a diverse audience, such as investors, financial institutions, companies of all sizes, and entrepreneurs, who are dedicated to promoting gender-smart corporate practices and investments.

To conduct the Gender ROI™ assessment, a series of interviews are conducted with relevant stakeholders within an enterprise, including key leaders in human resources, procurement, marketing, and gender champions. The primary objective is to identify gaps in policies and practices that hinder gender equality within the organisation. The baseline assessment is crucial as it identifies areas requiring improvement, establishes a reference point to measure the impact of interventions, and guides the development of targeted strategies for advancing gender equality.

The assessment typically consists of three sessions, each lasting approximately two hours. To effectively monitor the progress of gender interventions, it is recommended to conduct quarterly assessments to track advancements in gender equality initiatives, which can be completed in about four hours.

Get Started

Insight Series

The Insight Series features ground-breaking research, case studies and perspective articles exploring different facets of the Sweef Capital Gender ROI™ impact framework.

Testimonials

The Sweef Capital Gender ROI™ Practitioner’s Manual is a collective effort, enriched by the practical insights of peer reviewers who recognise the long-lasting value of a gender-positive approach.

"The Gender ROI™ framework is a very useful mechanism by which angel networks like ours can begin to incorporate gender lens-related indicators within our pipeline and portfolio development and support processes and educate the rest of the community, including entrepreneurs and investors. We are in the process of getting our portfolio companies to share data onto the tool, and plan to track improvements over time."

Nirjhor Rahman, CEO, Bangladesh Angels Network

“The Gender ROI™ tool was developed with detailed consultation from ecosystem stakeholders. In addition to providing a comprehensive analysis of gender metrics, it also allows users to customise the type of data collected to the size of the venture. Contextual customisation is essential when adapting external frameworks and guidelines to a particular program or organisation, and the Gender ROI™ manual demystifies some of this process.”

 Mallory St. Claire, Impact Manager, ANDE

“As we build our approach to diversity, equity and inclusion at Mercy Corps Ventures, we are constantly learning from others in the sector. This Gender ROI™ tool has been an invaluable resource in shaping our thinking around how we provide value to entrepreneurs when it comes to building diversity into their business models.”

Hebe Foster, Platform Associate, Mercy Corps Ventures

“As a government-run company that supports Jamaican entrepreneurs at all levels and stages, and as a dedicated advocate for social and economic development, we have witnessed firsthand the transformative power of incorporating a gender lens into development initiatives. The Gender ROI™ is an invaluable tool that propels the development sector forward. It enables organisations to optimise their efforts, generate measurable impact and unlock the full potential of gender equality.”

Roxine Ricketts, Gender Specialist, Development Bank of Jamaica

“Eliminating gender-based discrimination is both a moral imperative and an economic opportunity, but organisations often lack understanding of the problem or practical and effective ways to address it. The Gender ROI™ tool and its supporting manual provides a framework for assessing the level of equality, inclusion and diversity within an organisation and across the people it impacts, as well as a pathway for improvement. It also provides those seeking to deploy capital to achieve social outcomes with a means for selecting and managing their investments for greater impact. There is no first-mover disadvantage here - you just have to get started!"

Brett Nan Tie, Chief Integrity Officer, Huber Social

“We are excited to see the launch of the Gender ROI. The tool will be an asset to companies, investors, and the broader ecosystem, that want to understand where their organizations are positioned in relation to gender equality, diversity, and inclusion. The customizable roadmap will then get them started in addressing these important issues across leadership, their workforce, value chains, and the societies in which they operate.”

Nilah Mitchell, Director, 60 Decibels

“We are excited to see the launch of the Gender ROI. The tool will be an asset to companies, investors, and the broader ecosystem, that want to understand where their organizations are positioned in relation to gender equality, diversity, and inclusion. The customizable roadmap will then get them started in addressing these important issues across leadership, their workforce, value chains, and the societies in which they operate.”

Nilah Mitchell, Director, 60 Decibels