Designing gender-holistic funding and futures with Tania Cheng
Tell us a bit about the gender lens in your work.
SheEO is a global community of women and non-binary folks who support each other, and contribute towards a perpetual fund that is pooled together and loaned out to the ventures the community collectively selects. These ventures are working on the world’s to-do list (i.e. the UN Sustainable Development Goals), and are majority women or non-binary owned. Entrepreneurs apply to be ventures, and the activators (community members) collectively vote and select. The selected ventures come together on a retreat and experience activities and coaching to eventually decide how the funds will be divided amongst one another. Our only rules are: (1) the money cannot go all to one venture; and (2) it cannot be split equally. This helps the cohort practice negotiation, collaboration, supporting one another, and building a sense of community — instead of the normalised “pitch competition” where it’s about winning and losing. We are shifting from the concept of winning at all costs to winning for all. Beyond the programming for our ventures, the community of activators meet via learning circles and self-organised working groups. When a venture returns that loan, it recycles back into the fund — so the contribution that activators make is a contribution, as an act of radical generosity. This is how we are able to continually fund more and more ventures.
How does SheEO approach inclusion?
When SheEO started 6 years ago, it was very much about changing the system by funding women. Today, we’ve evolved to transforming economic and financial systems and how business operates, and that is not possible without considering equity and justice. We are intentionally conscious of our community design, what we stand for, and how we are being inclusive. This is embedded across what we do, from how we are in relationship to one another, to the kinds of collectives and working groups that are formed within the community, to the ventures we collectively select, and how we partner across the ecosystem to transform systems. Our values of radical generosity, abundance, co-creation, and transformation are core to our approach and theory of change. These values also inform activities and the way we practice designing for gender and inclusion.
What have you learned about designing for gender?
When we talk about gender, we are clear about the distinction between sex (assigned at birth) and gender (social construct), and clear about who our community is for: women (includes both cisgender and transgender women) and non-binary people. We’re intentional about pushing back on the traditional conditioning of what makes us “men” or “women” and re-thinking cis-heteronormativity by asking who does this thinking actually serve? We’re asking: how do we design systems that include everyone?
Encourage the practice of asking for what you need and offering what you have
This sounds simple, but it’s not – especially for women for whom, because of societal conditioning, it can feel really difficult to ask for help and support. So in our community calls, entrepreneurs actually practice asking for help from each other on whatever they might be working on. This is deeply connected to our values: when you ask for help and receive that support, you feel a sense of abundance and when you can offer support, that’s you being radically generous. It also creates a circle of gratitude and giving which is healing and transformative.
Practice true co-creation via trust
This shows up especially in our collective voting process where many of our community activators come to the table feeling like they do not have the expertise to make this voting decision. Part of the exercise is to bring that hesitation to the table and remind the collective that if you’re a consumer, you have expertise! We trust the collective intuition of our community and we talk about why we do it in this collective manner.
Prioritise opportunities to build relationships
We are intentional about creating opportunities for activators and ventures to connect. Venture funding is only a small piece of how that happens. There’s opportunity for coaching and learning from each other so that when you do have a challenge, you are able to turn to a community you know to ask for help.
Move beyond traditional definitions (of success)
There is a deep capitalist and extractive mindset that can show up in the old definitions of “business success.” At SheEO we talk about building and funding a future that we actually want to see, because the extractive ways do not serve anybody. It’s not even about “doing good” anymore – we’re at a time in the world where we just can’t afford to be creating businesses and business models that aren’t in line with our planet, humanity, and human dignity. The ventures we fund do business differently; and they do the work that needs to be done.
Actively weave in a lifecycle design piece
We’ve been around for 6 years and we have a 5 year loan cycle – so although we’ve been designing our onboarding and in-process journeys – we are now really starting to think about what that graduation experience looks like, in Canada. There’s also a group of community activators who are designing a follow-on fund which is structured slightly differently and incorporates some form of return, but it’s built from our core values – it’s not about extraction and unequal investor-entrepreneur dynamics. Ventures have on-going support in many ways: once you’re in, you’re in – you’re always part of the community.
Designing for the potential costs of “failure” via relationship building
Our community is a community of entrepreneurs — the activators understand the challenges of entrepreneurs. We have mechanisms in place to be flexible and be supportive when ventures struggle to pay back the loans. We ensure that our activators who aren’t entrepreneurs understand the challenges involved in starting a business — all through relationship building. We always know what’s going on with our ventures beyond financial statements. It’s about asking about how can we support you as a human doing incredible work, how can we activate your gifts and talent?
About Tania Cheng
Tania Cheng (she/they) is the Director, Process Innovation at SheEO, where they lead initiatives related to community experience design, community co-creation, and online community engagement. SheEO is a global community of radically generous women and non-binary folks working on the World’s To Do List. Tania’s work is informed by 15 years of experience working and volunteering in charities, nonprofits, social enterprises, and foundations to advance youth engagement, climate action, and entrepreneurship. Tania is based in K’jipuktuk (Halifax, Canada) on the unceded lands of the Mi'kmaq people.