What is impact investing?

Ellevest Digital, Premium, & Ellevest Plan Impact Portfolios are designed for positive social impact by advancing women in three areas:

• Women In Leadership: Funds investing in companies with more women leaders and policies that advance women.
• Sustainable, Accountable Companies: Funds investing in companies working to meet higher standards for sustainability and ethical practices.
• Thriving Communities: Funds investing in companies that build stronger communities by supporting affordable housing, job creation, healthcare, and infrastructure projects that foster sustainable economic development.

Our impact investing vehicles include:

• iShares MSCI USA ESG Select ETF: Exposure to large and mid size US companies that have been screened for positive, environmental, social, and governance characteristics.
• Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund: Invests in companies highly rated by Pax World Analytics for advancing women’s leadership. 99% of companies have two or more women on the board, and 91% have three or more.
• Access Community Capital Fund: Securities that help build stronger communities through its support of low-and moderate income home buyers, affordable rental units, small business loans and economic development projects.
• iShares MSCI EM ESG Optimized ETF: Large and mid-cap stocks of companies in emerging markets with positive environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics as rated by MSCI.
• iShares MSCI EAFE ESG Optimized ETF: Large and mid-cap stocks of companies in international developed market with positive environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics as rated by MSCI.

For each of your goals, you have the option to remain in a core portfolio or transfer your investments to an Ellevest Digital, Premium, or Ellevest Plan Impact Portfolio. Both options are customized and designed to give you the best chance to reach your goals. If you change your mind, you can switch portfolios at any time. (But note that switching portfolios may create capital gains, on which you may owe taxes.)

To see the details of the portfolios we’ve designed for each of your goals, you can click on the Investments tab. You can also find a complete list of our investments here.

Why isn’t 100% of my Ellevest Impact Investment Portfolio in impact funds?

As a fiduciary, our first priority is to select the appropriate mix of investments to help you reach your goals.

For Ellevest Digital, Premium & Ellevest Plan, this means a low-cost, globally diversified portfolio invested across many asset classes. At this time, there are not sufficient impact investments that meet our fiduciary criteria for all of our asset classes. We continuously monitor the marketplace for new impact investments that we believe are suitable for your Ellevest Impact Portfolio.

So, we research each impact investment in your Ellevest Impact Portfolio to ensure it meets our fiduciary standards. Then we make it even greater by investing to make a positive impact in the world.