Equality impact pioneer EIIP and leading UK impact law firm Bates Wells today co-launch the Equalising Deal Terms Key Investor Principles (the EDT Principles), which aim to address power imbalances between impact investors and their investees arising from current practices relating to investment terms, legal documents and processes.

Equally Ours' Head of Enterprise Development Programme Tanishtha SenGupta outlines how EO are tackling root causes of inequality and rights abuse and not just the symptoms.

By Sung-Hyui Park, Bates Wells

To what extent do impact investment terms replicate forms of power, privilege and control that are poorly aligned with mutual trust, respect, and collaborative partnership? Given this, how can investment terms, legal documentation and processes within impact investing better embed the principles and values of equality?

By Paulina Kowalke, Social Tech Trust Programme Manager & Chris Blues, Social Tech Trust Programmes Director

Over the last 6 months we have been holding some key questions – how can the Social Tech Trust, as an impact investor, identify and support ventures that truly foster equality transformation?

The Equality Impact Investing Project welcomed over 50 senior execs and equalities managers on their latest course: Leading Equality Impact Investing: From Principles to Practice (LEIIP).

By Rana Zincir Celal, EIIP Co Director

Addressing inequality needs more than Diversity, Equity & Inclusion policies. With interest growing in equality impact investing (EII), investors are realising the need to embed new skills and knowledge within their organisations to drive forward the EII agenda.

By Ceri Goddard, EIIP Director

EIIP Roundtable’s on equality impact measurement identified a need for more guidance in the here and now and a radical shift of emphasis in future practice.

EIIP is to convene strategic actors from both investing and equality and human rights to explore where impact management practices need to be further developed to advance equality, and how EIIP and others can progress this.

By Rana Zincir Celal, EIIP Co Director

With interest growing in equality impact investing (EII), investors are realising the need to embed new skills and knowledge within their organisations to drive forward the EII agenda.

By Joanne Bauer, Rights CoLab and TIFD

Inspired by the successful uptake of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), a wide range of stakeholders from the Global North and Global South are collaborating to launch a Task Force on Inequality-related Financial Disclosures (TIFD).

By Ceri Goddard, EIIP Director

We are delighted to announce that the Connect Fund has agreed a two-year core grant towards further developing EIIP.

By Aimee Dorsett-Brown, Equally Ours

The Enterprise Development Programme offers tailored support to civil society organisations looking to explore new models of trading or grow existing ones as a way to build up financial resilience, grow unrestricted funding and foster innovation across the charitable sector.

We're delighted to share our new Equality Impact Investing Toolkit, our introductory guide for social and impact investors on EII fundamentals and how to put them into practice.

By Dr Jess Daggers

EIIP is seeking to bridge two fields of practice: the field of impact investing, and the field of equality and human rights. Both of these fields have developed their own measurement practices and frameworks

By Kevin Osborne, KO Management

I was optimistic about the possibility for change to the stark and urgent problem of only 2.4% of regular arts funding going to BAME* organisations when the BAME population is 14%. But as I plan to launch Create Equity’s campaign for arts funders to pledge to distribute their funding equitably within the next ten years, that optimism has waned.

How can investment terms, legal documentation and processes within impact investing better embed the principles and values of equality? To what extent do investment terms replicate forms of control and power that are poorly aligned with trust and collaborative partnership?

We’re pleased to share here a vibrant discussion at the book launch of Ben Wrobel and Meg Massey’s Letting Go: How Philanthropists and Impact Investors Can Do More Good By Giving Up Control hosted by Equality Impact Investing Project, Centre for Knowledge Equity and Big Society Capital (15 July).

By EIIP Senior Associate Rana Zincir Celal

With the training materials from our very first EIIP training programme now available on our website, impact investors now have access to our full course content, covering both the theory and practice of equality impact investing.

A key recommendation of EIIP’s foundational research is that impact management and measurement (IMM) frameworks used within the impact investment sector need to be better aligned with equality and human rights considerations.

Government has set out bold ambitions to close the gaps between which areas, and which groups, get a real chance to flourish in, and contribute to, our economy, society and culture. But what would a levelled up UK actually look like, and how can equality impact investing play an effective role?