For those involved in the slow crawl to gender parity, the 21st century has provided plenty to cheer about. On the campaign trail, in stadiums, on the big screen, in corner offices and in boardrooms, women are filling more roles and making their voices heard.

But that’s not entirely true in investment management, where funds run by women are rare, by some estimates less than 5% of the total. That doesn’t mean these women aren’t making their voices heard, however.

Throughout 2015, representatives of a global association called “100 Women in Hedge Funds” have toured the world, ringing opening bells on stock exchanges in cities such as Hong Kong, Chicago, New York, Toronto and London and holding educational events.

“We had women as young as 4 years old who came to those events,” says Amanda Pullinger, the association’s CEO. “When girls walk into an event that is predominantly women, they get a sense that this is something that women do, this is something that they can be excited about.”

100 Women in Hedge Funds, abbreviated as “100WHF,” is a global networking group for professionals in the investment management industry, particularly in the realm of alternatives and hedge funds. 

Since it was founded in 2001, the group has grown to 13,000 members in 20 different locations across three continents, hosted more than 400 education events and connected more than 250 senior professional women through peer advisory groups.

The association has also grown beyond hedge funds.

“100 Women in Hedge Funds is where we began, but as the industry has broadened out and morphed, so have we,” Pullinger says. “We’re no longer just representing women who are in hedge funds. We’re now representing women in the financial industry globally, and we do have male members too.”

In June, the association established a Bermuda chapter, which reached its requisite 100 registered members in just three months.

“Every single location we’ve expanded to has started not because we planted a 100WHF location there but because a group of women located there said to us that ‘we want to bring this organization here,’” Pullinger says. “So it’s genuinely been a grassroots effort. We had no location in Bermuda a year ago.”

The association aims to enhance opportunities for women in fund management through three pillars: philanthropy, education and professional peer leverage. Its organic approach has attracted big names: In 2010, Prince William became a patron of the organization, and was joined in 2012 by his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince Harry. In December 2012, Ivanka Trump, executive vice president for the Trump Organization and daughter of Republican presidential candidate and real estate tycoon Donald Trump, joined 100WHF’s board of directors.

This year, the association launched a campaign to bring more women into the investment management industry’s pipeline, beginning with its philanthropic efforts.

“This year we’re going to raise money for our own foundation, which is a first for us,” Pullinger says. “We want to reach young women at university and at business school who are already studying the right subjects to succeed in the industry. We want to inspire these young women by demonstrating through our senior and Next Gen membership that there are women on the investment side of this industry. That it’s a great career for a woman. We want young women to see that in aiming for a role such as a CIO of an endowment or a foundation you can have a stimulating career and make a substantive difference in the world.”

The group has raised more than $34 million for philanthropic causes and holds annual gala fund-raisers in New York, London, Hong Kong and Geneva. It has so far raised money for organizations such as the Clinton Foundation, DonorsChoose.org, the Child Bereavement Charity and schools damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

Much of 100 Women in Hedge Funds’ work has an educational focus, but it hasn’t addressed the pipeline problem: Women are pursuing undergraduate business degrees at a level similar to men, yet only one-third of the students in business schools are women. Of those, few are in the pipeline to become fund managers. Instead, they are using their education to become planners or to work on the sell side of private equity.

“From my experience, there’s a lack of knowledge of what this industry is,” says Erin Molloy, an association member. “In my college business classes, hedge funds and alternatives were not being discussed. The industry was very much under the radar in the classroom.”

Molloy, who works in marketing and communications at New York-based Gruss Capital Management, suggests that the industry’s image might be one reason for the silence. “Good things aren’t making headlines,” she says. “For hedge funds, there are a lot of negative headlines that can intimidate people in general. They have no idea that there are so many small firms out there that are wonderful places to work.”

That’s why 100 Women in Hedge Funds has turned its sights on women at the beginning of their careers—or still in school—to maximize its impact.

“That’s where it starts, building the bench early,” says Nancy Davis, a hedge fund veteran and CIO at Quadratic Capital Management in Greenwich, Conn. “At larger firms, it’s about building a culture where leaders encourage and promote women to go into these sorts of roles. So it’s education, but it’s also mentorship and coaching.”

Davis says the problem is that women are diverted into other fields before they can test the alternatives industry.

Though 100 Women in Hedge Funds is only now addressing the pipeline problem, it already has a growing Next Generation (Next Gen) initiative, where committees of women with 10 years or less of industry experience in New York and London focus on career development.

Yulia Galasyuk, a sales and trading team member at Citigroup in London, heard about 100WHF through her employer. A native of Russia, she found camaraderie at the association’s events and quickly became an active member.

“Right before Christmas last year, Amanda Pullinger met with me and three other ladies to brainstorm the launch of the London Next Generation committee,” Galasyuk says. “As I met other 100WHF members, who were also at the start of their careers, we benefited from arranging informal gatherings, which helped us to build our network further and strengthen relationships.”

Through Next Gen forums, women may establish professional relationships that can persist through every stage of their careers.

“We wanted to provide a safe forum for younger members to have an open dialogue and equip them with the tools necessary to build a successful career in this industry,” Galasyuk says. 

Molloy, co-chair of the association’s New York Next Gen committee, says young professionals need help networking outside of the workplace.

“When I graduated college, my first firm was small, and many of the women in my office were not within my age group,” Molloy says. “I was interested in meeting other women in the same stages of their career. I had a lot of friends who didn’t end up in finance or hedge funds. I was really looking for a peer group. Having that resource, someone to talk to who is going up against the same issues that we’re going against, is important.”

That means 100 Women in Hedge Funds’ most valuable resources are its members and the networks they develop. 

“We engage our membership in terms of connecting senior practitioners to their peers and also connecting junior members to their peers,” Pullinger says. “So we play an industry association role of connecting and educating our members.”

When the association’s peer leverage pillar was established, it was concerned with connecting individuals within the industry.

“I think if you’re going to have a process or establish a goal, you have to have someone to coach you along the way,” Davis says. “You have to work by your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses, and good mentors help you identify those things and grow.”

To that end, 100WHF created 70 peer advisory groups to allow members to share experiences and resources. These groups’ concentrations include investor relations, endowments and foundations, strategic leadership, law and compliance, and operations. 

But peer leverage also means linking members with external organizations. 100WHF hosts an online forum and job board directly linking firms with its established pool of female investment managers. A “Women on Boards” initiative attempts to elevate more women to non-profit and corporate boards. Members are surveyed about their interests and expertise, and the results are placed into a database. When the organization receives an inquiry for potential female board members, it shares information on qualified candidates (with their approval).

From its base of support in a close-knit group of female industry leaders to a burgeoning next generation of women inspired to pursue investment management careers, 100WHF has the potential to reshape the financial services industry in the coming decades.

“I’m a huge believer in the importance of your professional and personal network, and I am sure it does make a difference,” Galasyuk says. “That’s why I’m so involved in Next Generation and spend a large portion of my free time [at the expense of weekends, evenings and holidays] working together with other committee members on building the group. Hopefully, sometime down the line, a woman like me will be telling successful stories about how the Next Generation group helped to open the doors within a successful career.”