Minderoo Foundation in Dalkeith, Western Australia, has announced the launch of an impact investing fund led by women, with an initial allocation of $100 million.

Led by the foundation’s Investment Committee chair Felicity Gooding, head of impact investing Jenna Palumbo, and co-chair Nicola Forrest, the Strategic Impact Fund invests in businesses that deliver impact in Minderoo Foundation’s areas of focus. With the goal of “empower[ing] businesses to become a force for good and take on tough, persistent issues with the potential for massive change,” the fund already has made six investments totaling more than $20 million in organizations working to address modern slavery, ethical supply chains, plastics pollution, and sustainable fishing.

The foundation also will use the fund’s investments to advance gender equality by investing in businesses that directly address inequality and promoting gender diversity in the governance and management ranks of businesses in which the fund invests. Palumbo said the foundation had already appointed women to the majority of governance roles in the companies in which the fund was investing.

Funds and businesses receiving investments include Toronto-based Ulula, a platform that enables workers to anonymously voice their grievances and provide feedback to reduce and address risk within supply chains; London-based Ocean 14 Capital, an impact investment manager focused on the blue economy; Singapore-based Circulate Capital, which invests in scalable solutions to the global plastics crisis; and Humanity United’s ethical supply chain fund Working Capital.

“All businesses need to be accountable to their customers, employees, investors, and communities. The Strategic Impact Fund is backing businesses that are building sustainable models for tackling long-standing social and environmental challenges,” said Forrest, who joined the Giving Pledge in 2013 with her husband, Fortescue Metals Group chair and Minderoo Foundation co-chair Andrew Forrest. Andrew and I have always believed that, at a minimum, no business should do harm. Beyond this, business is uniquely positioned to create opportunity for positive impact, as well as financial return....It’s time to unlock business as a force for good. There is a groundswell of discontent, particularly among young people, at businesses failing to account for their impact on people and planet.”