2025 Impact Tear Sheet

Our 2025 impact data is the result of a comprehensive survey and analysis of the environmental and social impacts of the firm’s active portfolio companies. Read more for a summary of our portfolio’s impact in 2025.

Our 2025 Impact

Every year, SJF Ventures conducts a comprehensive survey to assess the social and environmental impacts of our portfolio companies. The survey comprises a set of standard questions about employee experience and job quality, as well as common ESG metrics. Each company also has a set of key impact indicators, tailored metrics unique to the company’s business model that it reports on annually. Our goal is to “bend the curve” by accelerating the positive benefits these companies deliver, and bending the curve begins by collecting data, benchmarking, and sharing it back with our portfolio companies. Following the collection of this data, we then share insights and resources back with portfolio companies to help them improve.

This year 33 of the 35 portfolio companies who received the survey participated in the process.

What We Learned in 2025

SJF analyzes impact performance primarily at the company level, rather than at the Fund level due to the diversity of sectors, business models, and types of impacts our portfolio creates. Each year, SJF reviews this data in context of each company.

Fund V made a meaningful amount of new investments that began reporting this cycle. As such, the performance across several indicators related to benefits, the employee value proposition, and the maturity of key operational programs and processes decreased from 2024 to 2025. However, this is driven by the average reporting company now being smaller and less mature than previous reporting years and is to be expected. The YE2025 data allows SJF to identify opportunities within these newer companies to establish strong employee value propositions and good governance practices early on.

Even with the influx of new companies, a few indicators saw improvements in 2025, including across the diversity, both racial and gender, of our portfolio companies’ employees and in key governance measures such as implementing responsible AI practices.

Many of our portfolio companies had exciting impact achievements this year, and we encourage you to read below for the highlights and check out our full impact website, sjfventures.com/impact for more detailed impacts across our sectors.

In 2025, SJF also relaunched the SJF Institute – our affiliated 501(c)(3) non-profit – with a new mission, to catalyze and accelerate new models of impact in collaboration with communities, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and investors. We created a new grant program, Wider Reach, to enable underserved organizations and communities to access the innovative products and services backed by the impact investing industry.

Measuring Job Quality

From our inception in 1999, SJF has backed businesses that empower people — particularly those historically marginalized. Creating quality job opportunities in healthy, diverse, and ethical workforce environments can generate deep societal impact.

Employees

SJF tracks employment numbers, diversity, and employee engagement, among other indicators like turnover, to understand our portfolio’s workforce.

19,363
total jobs across SJF's portfolio
and 15,128 new jobs created since our initial investment
44%
women employees
on average within our portfolio
This is higher than the average for industries like tech (35%), but just below than female representation across the US workforce (47%).
36%
of employees are from under-represented racial/ethnic backgrounds
on average within our portfolio companies
This is above the US workforce benchmark (25%), and in-line with industries like technology. However, SJF aims to benchmark each company's data to relevant industry benchmarks to encourage diverse working environments.

Benefits and Professional Development

SJF collects data on the benefits and opportunities portfolio companies provide employees.

100%
offe healthcare benefits
and 1 in three offer additional wellness benefits
88%
offer retirement benefits
and 58% offer contribution matching to employees.
Comparable industry benchmark: ~70% of private US businesses offer retirement benefits (58% of small businesses)
80%
offer paid parental leave
and 70% offer secondary caregiver leave
Nationally, around 50% of small businesses offer some paid parental leave, and about half of those offer one month or less of paid leave. However, the duration of leave is, with 53% of these businesses offering one month or less of paid leave. The average minimum weeks offered by SJF portfolio companies was 11 weeks, significantly outperforming US averages. Additionally, 70% of reporting SJF companies were also offering paid parental leave to secondary and/or non-birthing caregivers.

Good Governance

For startups, policies related to ethical best practices can help shape company norms early on.

63%
have an Ethical AI policy or program
This includes AI policies, advisory boards, terms of use, and more
This increased from just one company in 2023, and 29% in 2024, demonstrating the growing significance of responsible AI practices.
100%
have a formal data privacy and security policy
and 69% are SOC 2 certified, indicating strong practices to protect employee and customer data rights.
85%
have an employee code of conduct
96% of companies reporting also have an employee handbook and 83% have an anti-discrimination and harassment policy in place

Impact Highlights

SJF’s portfolio companies report on product-specific impact indicators. Below are highlights from 2024!

Stories from our Portfolio

SJF in the Field

About SJF Ventures

Sustainable Jobs Fund was formed in 1999. Our original name set out the impacts we still pursue today—a clean, resilient environment and equitable opportunities. Though our strategy has expanded over our 25+ years of experience, we remain committed to these fundamental themes. Since SJF’s founding, we have helped 86 portfolio companies to scale their impact.

For more on SJF’s impacts, visit our impact page.