Jewish Women INVEST Continues its Mission to Mobilize Women towards Values-Aligned Impact Investing
[New York + Virtual, November 2021] In early 2020, Samantha Anderson and Robyn Polansky Morrison identified a need to blend financial literacy and impact investing education with Jewish values - specifically for women. In response, they created Jewish Women INVEST Education Projects, the first educational investing network for Jewish women, to inspire confidence, demystify investing and especially impact investing, and unleash investment capital for positive change.
“We learned so much from our extraordinary members who participated in and completed our inaugural educational Circles in 2021! Their passion, intelligence, dedication, and candor continue to captivate us and motivate us to do more. We have enhanced the program to include additional sessions on bridging the gap between philanthropic activity and impact investing, and we have also launched an Alumnae Network to continue connecting, learning, and discovering investment opportunities,” said Robyn Polansky Morrison, Co-Founder & Facilitator of the Program.
The Jewish Women INVEST program is a series of education Circles, a small community of 8 to 12 women who are committed to increasing their personal knowledge of money, investing, and power.
And this from one participant, “Finally - a robust, serious deep dive into finance, investing and Jewish values. This was no knitting circle - the topics were complex and of the moment led by key strategists and leaders in each curated sector. There was no condescension or dumbing down of concepts nor endless roundtables about whether women can really have it all. It was real, on the ground, cutting edge finance for women with a thoughtful Jewish lens.”
The next two Circles, starting on January 6th, 2022, will be virtual and will include members from across the United States. One Circle is designed for women who have access to their personal assets and/or family or philanthropic giving funds. The second Circle is for professionals - women who steward financial capital including but not limited to nonprofit organizations, family offices, and other foundations. or work at a Jewish Federation or Jewish Community Foundation supporting lay leaders.
The Jewish Women INVEST program curriculum will be delivered in nine sessions over six months. Specific dates are available on the website. Sessions will run for approximately 75 minutes. Members can expect three components in each session; (1) impact investing content taught by Jewish women who are experts in their fields, including Erika Karp, Chief Impact Officer at Pathstone, and Vanessa Bartram, Founder and CEO of Zora Ventures; (2) Jewish values-learning delivered by Rabbi Mary Zamore, Executive Director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network and author of “The Sacred Exchange: Creative a Jewish Money Ethic”; and (3) time to network and share ideas with other participants.
“Money, investing, values, impact, gender justice – these are not always easy topics to discuss. There are all sorts of cultural assumptions and obstacles to action. We are hoping to change that with education and conversation, one Circle at a time,” said Samantha Anderson, Co-Founder & Facilitator of the Program.
The application deadline for the 2022 National Circles is December 15th, 2021. Apply here! Jewish Women INVEST is planning to launch additional Circles in the second half of 2022.
The longer-term goal of the initiative is to create a more formal investment group for Circle graduates, currently part of the Alumnae Network, through the creation of an investment platform to drive more Jewish women to deploy capital for change. The group will seek to simplify some of the complexities of impact investing as well as provide access to more investment opportunities and deal flow.
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For additional details on Jewish Women INVEST, email info@jewishwomeninvest.org and to apply, visit www.jewishwomeninvest.org.