What is impact investing?

Ellevest 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 providing loans to support women-owned businesses and companies that provide community services — child education, performing arts, housing and care for seniors and individuals in need.

Our impact investing vehicles include:

• SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity ETF: Invests in U.S. companies demonstrating greater gender diversity in senior leadership than other firms in their sector.
• 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 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.