We improve the health and well-being of women and girls through the creative use of philanthropic capital, with 100% mission alignment of our assets. Learn more.
News & Updates
Equileap’s newest gender equity report with healthcare metrics launches at BlackRock-hosted event. 2019. Gender equality data nonprofit Equileap unveiled a new report earlier this year on U.S. companies and their healthcare benefits — including maternal healthcare and family planning benefits. Equileap cofounders Jo Andrews and Diana van Maasdijk presented the takeaways at a reception hosted at the San Francisco office of BlackRock, the world’s largest institutional asset manager. At the event, BlackRock director David Johnson underlined the company’s commitment to gender equality, while Tara Health Foundation president Ruth Shaber spoke about the foundation’s commitment to using evidence-backed standards to measure and track progress in gender equality in the workplace. In particular, she stressed the importance of ensuring investors have access to good data as part of the foundation of building the field of gender lens investing. Read more here.
In The News: A Doctor’s Scientific Approach to a Grant Maker’s Investments. Chronicle of Philanthropy. January 8, 2019. The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s January 2019 edition includes a profile of Ruth Shaber, President and Founder of Tara Health. “‘Ultimately, I believe that the traditional paradigm for how foundations drive social change should be turned upside down,’ Shaber says. Most foundations say they drive change through their grant making and that the purpose of their endowments is to enable grants. That leads to thinking the maximization of returns from investments should be a top priority. Instead, Tara Health uses all of the tools that it has — investments, grants, and hands-on support — to drive social change, Shaber says. So its grant making focuses primarily on women’s health, as might be expected, but also on research to improve results through impact investing. ‘That is going to unleash a huge amount of capital and really drive change in a way that we could never have dreamed of,’ Shaber explained.” Read the full article here.
Report Release: Four for Women: A Framework for Evaluating Companies’ Impact on the Women They Employ. November 2018. Tara Health was pleased to support Four for Women: A Framework for Evaluating Companies’ Impact on the Women They Employ, authored by Katherine J. Klein, Shoshana Schwartz, and Sandra Maro Hunt as part of the Wharton Social Impact Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania. Four for Women is an evidence-based framework to use in evaluating companies’ impact on the women they employ. Based on the review and synthesis of hundreds of academic studies – rigorous, independent, peer-reviewed studies of diverse industries, employers, and locations – this framework identifies the critical outcomes that determine the impact that a company has on the women it employs. These four outcomes include: Representation, pay, health, and satisfaction. The intention of the framework is that it will contribute to a growth in the number of companies that are good, even great, employers for women. Read more here.
Launch of New Interactive Map. November 2018. Tara Health Foundation was pleased to see the launch of the Gender Finance Ecosystem Map on November 1st at the Gender-Smart Investing Summit in London. Ruth Shaber, Founder & President of Tara Health, was pleased to team up and co-create this map with Suzanne Biegel and Nexial’s Marshall Clemens and Alexandra Kanitz. This interactive map presents a comprehensive picture of the actors, tools, initiatives, and types of capital that comprise the gender finance system, as well as the barriers to and leverage points for systemic change. Users can zoom in, zoom out, drill-into more detailed information and links, and explore the map through an array of different layers: from the role of individual financial life and community roles, to sexual and gender-based violence, to “Womenomics.” Read more here.
Our Areas of Focus
We take care to ensure our entire portfolio supports our mission. Our grants focus on our areas of expertise, including domestic reproductive health and maternal health. Our endowment is invested in companies and funds that meet our social impact criteria. Learn more about our portfolio.