"Lens Investing" Is Just Admiring the Problem

There is a language taking over the world of impact investing. It speaks of 'lenses': a 'gender lens' for this, a 'climate lens' for that, a 'racial equity lens' for good measure. The promise is seductive: that if we just apply the right filter to our portfolios, we can align our capital with our values and help build a better world.

But what if the entire metaphor is wrong? What if a lens, by its very nature, only lets you see the bars of the cage more clearly, but never hands you the key to unlock it?

The Allure of the Passive Gaze

The "lens" has become the dominant metaphor in impact investing precisely because it demands nothing of the system itself. It is a framework of observation, not transformation.

It allows asset managers to create a new product, slap on an ESG-style label, and have a new story to tell. It allows investors to feel they are "doing something" without the difficult work of divesting from the extractive core of their portfolios. A lens implicitly accepts the S&P 500 as the starting point; it just asks you to squint at it differently. It’s the ultimate impact placebo, making us feel good while changing very little.

This approach mistakes seeing the problem for solving it. But we are well past the point where a clearer view of our broken system is sufficient.

When the Lens Fails: A Few Case Studies

The inadequacy of the lens approach becomes obvious when you compare it to a tool designed for action: a lever. A lens lets you analyze. A lever lets you move something.

• On Gender: A lens helps you find the publicly-traded bank with a great parental leave policy and a few women on its board. A lever builds a new system of affordable, worker-owned childcare cooperatives that liberates working mothers and builds community wealth.
• On Racial Justice: A lens screens for corporations that have a Chief Diversity Officer and issue press releases on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A lever funds a non-extractive loan fund, governed by Black leaders, that provides capital to Black-owned businesses on their own terms.
• On Disability: A lens might celebrate a tech giant for its accessibility compliance. A lever invests in a startup creating new assistive technologies and commits to ensuring the disabled founders—and the community they serve—retain majority ownership and control.
• On Climate: A lens would help you find companies that buy carbon credits to offset the emissions they create so that they can continue their current practices. A lever would involve direct action to reduce emissions, invest in renewable energy infrastructure, or develop truly sustainable practices within the company's own operations or in the community. It would be about building new systems that create fundamentally more equitable outcomes, rather than simply offsetting existing ones.

The lens asks: "Which of these existing corporations is less bad?" The lever asks: "What new structure can we build to create a fundamentally more equitable outcome?"

The True Meaning of a Lever: Shifting Power

This brings us to the core of the issue. A lever isn't just a tool you wield; it's a tool you can hand to someone with the right expertise to move the world. This shift from lens to lever, from observation to empowerment, isn’t a novel invention born in a boardroom. It’s an echo of ancient wisdom.

It’s the practice of what Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer calls the Honorable Harvest, where capital and resources are not commodities to be extracted, but gifts to be stewarded with reciprocity. It’s the long history of Black cooperative economics documented by Jessica Gordon Nembhard, a resilient strategy of building community-owned wealth in the face of systemic exclusion. It’s the Andean worldview of Buen Vivir—“good living”—which prioritizes community well-being and ecological balance over the empty pursuit of endless growth.

The ultimate act of catalytic investing is not just funding new models, but relinquishing control to hold on to existing structures and power.

The top-down, expert-knows-best model of traditional finance is a relic of the extractive system. A wealthy, predominantly white-led fund applying a "racial justice lens" from on high is still a form of paternalism. It keeps the power dynamics of the old world intact.

A lever-based approach cedes decision-making power to those with lived experience. It trusts that Indigenous leaders know best how to deploy capital for their communities. It understands that Black leaders are the undisputed experts on building Black wealth. True impact investing involves finding these leaders, giving them capital, and getting out of the way. The critique is simple: a "lens" keeps you in the driver's seat. A "lever" asks you to trust the expertise of others and hand them the keys.

Levers for Everyone: How to Act Without Being Accredited

This shift isn't just for foundations and the ultra-wealthy. You don't need millions to help build a new system. Everyone has levers at their disposal.

• Move Your Money: Your checking and savings accounts are a powerful lever. Shift your daily banking from a Wall Street giant that finances fossil fuels and private prisons to a local credit union, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), or a Black-owned bank. This starves the extractive system and feeds the regenerative one.
• Join a Democratic Investment Fund: Invest in models where the community governs the capital. Organizations like the Boston Ujima Project have built funds where community members are the decision-makers, collectively choosing which local businesses and projects to support. This is economic democracy in action.
• Support Worker Ownership: Consciously shop at and support worker-owned cooperatives. Your consumption becomes a direct investment in a more democratic and equitable form of enterprise. Give to Unlock Ownership Fund to invest in shared ownership models to shift wealth and power to communities.
• Advocate for Policy: The most powerful lever of all is often political. Support campaigns for public banking, changes to accredited investor laws that democratize access to capital, and policies that favor community ownership over corporate consolidation.

Stop Looking, Start Building

The industry will continue to sell you new lenses. They are comfortable, profitable, and ultimately, a powerful distraction. They allow us to admire the problem from every conceivable angle while the house burns down around us.

We are past the point of admiration. It's time to stop looking and start building.

For the accredited investor, your challenge is not just to invest differently, but to cede power. Find the leaders on the ground and give them the capital and control to build.

For everyone, your power is in your bank account, your wallet, and your voice. Use those levers every single day.

It's time to put down the lens and pick up a lever.