Working in social finance, I’m motivated by a desire to help create a society that is more equitable across gender, race, and class—and my fellow financial activists are too. We know one thing we need to address is unconscious bias. We want to combat it, and yet, we have work to do in even recognizing it. A recent humbling experience showed me how far I—and I suspect many of us—have to go on that score.
In order to really do the work of social finance, I have had to acknowledge how systemically flawed the current financial system is and that it was built on gender and racial bias. It’s also clear that the people who are building the social finance space still come from a position of power and could easily recreate the system that we are trying to dismantle.
Lynne is former senior director of credit at RSF.
