Q&A with Scott Saslow of ONE WORLD

Impact Profile

Scott Saslow, CEO & Founder

Impact Profile: Q&A with Scott Saslow of ONE WORLD

As Founder & CEO of ONE WORLD, Scott is focused on executing the organization’s mission to enable organizations to scale their social impact and improve the lives of individuals globally.  One of the organization’s key beliefs is that for social impact to scale and be sustainable, it must be profitable.  We caught up with Scott to hear more about what ONE WORLD calls, “Profitable Social Impact.”

What role does ONE WORLD play in the social impact ecosystem?

Our role is to provide training and capital to the startups, which by definition means we interface with start-up CEOs, other investors, and also corporate professionals in our work.  We seek to provide education to the impact field, inspire other professionals to participate in the “Impact Economy”, and support the ecosystem in building better connections across all participants.  We also want to educate traditional investors who may be interested in impact investing that financial and social returns are possible to achieve, and that there is not an inherent tradeoff between the two.

How and why did you become involved with the impact space?

While I was involved in social causes and organizations over the years since college, I was a traditional “business person” during the day working in a variety of corporate roles and did my social impact work at night and on weekends via volunteer activities with not-for-profits.  A few years ago, when seeking to find a new professional opportunity, I took a fresh look at the Impact Ecosystem and saw many professional elements emerging, and decided to combine my business and social work into one role and one company.

How should traditional investors transition towards social impact investing? Are there any particular issues or areas of interest that would be a good place to start?

Traditional investors have multiple “on ramps” to sustainable investing or impact investing.  Starting with the early stage/ private market investing, there is an explosion of for-profit social impact organizations.  University graduate programs (MBAs, Engineering among others) are great places to learn about the opportunities, as well as ONE WORLD and our resources such as our Impact Directory.  For public market investing, increasingly wealth advisors are aware of sustainable investing and impact investing opportunities.  There are even opportunities in other asset classes- real estate, fixed income, cash, etc.  

In terms of performance, how does social impact investing compare to more traditional investments?

As social impact investing covers a range of approaches- sustainable investing, ESG investing, and impact investing- and each of those have various risk/ return goals- the performance question is highly dependent on what is being compared.  If the question is, “Can you get a market rate return making impact investments via Venture Capital into private companies, as well as investing in public markets?”, the answer is “Yes”.  Some impact investments are designed to not have market rate performance, so those might be considered differently.  In the public markets, sustainable investing and ESG strategies often have better risk/ return profiles than the traditional market.  There is plenty of what we call “profitable social impact” in the world of investing, it simply depends on investor goals, and finding the right vehicles.

Do you have any advice for how entrepreneurs should face the setbacks and economic challenges that have come with the recent pandemic?

I think the opportunity is to make “lemonade from lemons” as the expression goes.  Social entrepreneurs are deeply committed to their social/ environmental cause, and while the pandemic and other crises of the time are really troubling for us all to process, for social entrepreneurs it often feels like an assault on their core belief system, their very fiber of existence.  I believe it is important for the entrepreneurs to revisit and in some cases reset their expectations of themselves, their family and co-workers, to use the negative events of 2020 to add fuel to their core which drives them to pursue their causes and passions, and to chart out a realistic path of business success given the context in which we all operate.