Impact Shares celebrates the three-year anniversary of the Impact Shares YWCA Women’s Empowerment ETF. Impact Shares is the first non-profit ETF sponsor in the U.S.
Centering women’s empowerment and gender equality
WOMN allows investors to deploy capital to companies with strong policies and practices in support of women’s empowerment and gender equality. It is backed by the YWCA. Since its inception on August 24, 2018, WOMN has generated a 25.08 percent annualized total return. This places it within the top percentile of the 1,256 funds in Morningstar’s U.S. Fund Large Blend Category (as of 8/25/21).
“WOMN’s track record for the past three years speaks for itself, clearly illustrating that investors don’t need to sacrifice performance in order to invest in line with their values,” says Ethan Powell, CEO of Impact Shares. “We’re grateful for the ongoing support from our partners at the YWCA and Morningstar Indexes. We look forward to continuing our mission to harness the power of capital to drive social change.”
WOMN tracks the Morningstar Women’s Empowerment Index. It uses Equileap data to include companies that align with the YWCA’s vision advancing women’s empowerment and gender equality. YWCA USA began in 1858 as a voice for women’s issues. It represents more than 200 YWCA associations in 46 states and the District of Columbia. YWCAs across the United States serve over two million women and families each year in over 1,200 communities.
Impact Shares aims to equalize power
“The WOMN ETF puts the ability to empower women in everyone’s hands. It allows us to leverage the capital markets to further an essential part of our mission – to empower women,” said Elisha Rhodes, Interim CEO and COO, YWCA USA. “It is my hope, and that of almost 200 local associations, that female and male investors alike seize an opportunity like this one to encourage companies to work more proactively to address the issues impacting women today and advance gender equality.”
“Applying an ESG lens to all levels of portfolio management and asset allocation has been a rapidly growing focus for investors. This is particularly true in the area of gender diversity, where history has shown that forward-thinking social policies often go hand-in-hand with competitive performance,” said Amelia Furr, Head of Sales for Morningstar Indexes. “We are proud to provide the index that has helped power WOMN to success in its first three years.”
Impact Shares is itself a 501(c)3 nonprofit ETF issuer. It donates the net advisory proceeds it receives from each ETF it sponsors back to the collaborating nonprofit partner1. In addition to WOMN, the firm has three other ETFs currently on the market. They are the Impact Shares NAACP Minority Empowerment ETF, the Impact Shares Sustainable Development Goals Global Equity ETF and the Impact Shares Affordable Housing MBS ETF.
For more information on Impact Shares, visit: https://www.impactetfs.org/
About Impact Shares
Impact Shares is an ETF issuer and investment manager. It is creating a new and innovative platform for clients seeking maximum social impact with market returns. The goal is to build a capital markets bridge between leading nonprofits, investors and corporate America to direct capital and social engagement on societal priorities. This is a tax-exempt non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. For more information about the company, visit impactetfs.org.
Impact Shares ETFS are distributed by SEI Investments Distribution Co., with is not affiliated with Impact Shares Corp.
About YWCA USA
YWCA aims to eliminate racism, empower women and promote peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all. We are one of the oldest and largest women’s organizations in the nation. We serve over 2 million women, girls and their families.
YWCA has been at the forefront of the most pressing social movements for 160 years. This includes voting rights, civil rights, affordable housing, pay equity, violence prevention and health care reform. Today, we combine programming and advocacy to generate institutional change in three key areas: racial justice and civil rights, empowerment and economic advancement of women and girls and health and safety of women and girls.
Read about children’s clothing brand Posh Peanut’s limited edition Women’s Empowerment collection!
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