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In episode 74 of the Investing in Impact podcast, I speak with Scott Saslow, Founder of ONE WORLD Investments, on his journey into impact and sustainable investing, family offices, and his new book.
Scott is an accomplished entrepreneur and impact investor with a proven track record of developing successful businesses and products.
He is the founder ONE WORLD Investments, and performed key roles at The Institute of Executive Development, Microsoft, and Siebel Systems, among others.
Scott is the author of the book, "Building a Sustainable Family Office: An Insider's Guide to What Works and What Doesn't," published by Greenleaf Publishing Group and available on Amazon.
As an impact investor, advisor, and consultant, Scott works with both for-profit and non-profit social enterprises.
He founded ONE WORLD Investments, an organization that provides training and investment capital to social impact enterprises in the Bay Area, aimed at improving lives globally.
ONE WORLD Investments leverages its Silicon Valley base to offer innovative and profitable approaches to increasing social impact.
The organization supports a diverse network of entrepreneurs, investors, and corporate professionals, and provides capital through various investment vehicles to early-stage companies, impact private equity and venture capital funds, and public markets, all aimed at scaling social impact.
Scott discusses his journey into impact investing and the importance of building sustainable family offices. He explains that family offices are the infrastructure created to manage wealth and philanthropy for wealthy individuals and families.
However, many family offices are not sustainable and fail during generational transitions.
Scott emphasizes the need for a new model in managing family offices to ensure their longevity and impact. He also explores the role of family offices in impact investing and the ripple effect their failures can have on society.
Family offices are increasingly interested in sustainable and impact investing, but many are still in the early stages of incorporating these strategies.
The younger generation within family offices is often the driving force behind these initiatives, as they have a socially minded approach and a desire to make a positive impact.
While many family offices already engage in philanthropy, there is an opportunity to go beyond traditional giving and use investment capital to address social and environmental concerns.
The change towards more sustainable and impact-focused family offices can come from both the principles themselves and the non-family professionals they work with.
Grant (01:52.462)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Scott, for joining me today. Really excited to chat about, you know, your journey and everything you've built so far with sort of one world, what that path was and what that trajectory looks like going forward. And we'll touch on building a sustainable family office, your book that I'm jealous that you wrote. But before we get into all that, talk about your your sort of journey into impact investing, maybe sort of your career arc and maybe what was the catalyst, you know,
Scott Saslow (01:56.551)
Thank you.
Grant (02:21.358)
for making that, not necessarily pivot, but just a new chapter in your life, kind of focusing on capital and sort of having impact in the world through sort of business.
Scott Saslow (02:32.071)
Absolutely, Grant. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it and really appreciate the work that you guys do with CauseArtist and the related funds. Okay, my backstory. So I grew up in Chicago. I studied economics undergrad at Northwestern. I knew I was interested in business. I didn't know what industry or, you know, kind of type of business, quite honestly, big, small startup, big company. And I had a chance to work out
after undergrad in Chicago in a couple different kind of startup scenarios. One was in a, let's call it mid -sized manufacturing company where I helped to start a new product line. I then actually before that went to a management consulting company where I had a chance to work on companies big and small going through turnarounds and having to kind of restart their business efforts.
So I saw a few different industries at a pretty early age and played a different variety of roles, operating, finance, management, that sort of thing. I then went on to get my business degree. I got an MBA, which was a great experience for me that exposed me even further to a whole host of different industries and ways to think about business and the ways that business can be used.
I joined Microsoft right out of my MBA, which was a really interesting time. This was actually in the late 1990s. The internet was just taking off and I had a chance to go work on some really cool internet businesses at Microsoft. I then moved to Silicon Valley after that experience. So I've been in Silicon Valley now 25 years and my time in Silicon Valley has been certainly in tech, as you might guess.
Grant (04:03.886)
Hmm. Yeah.
Scott Saslow (04:22.951)
I had a chance to go work for an enterprise software company called Siebel before the days when Siebel was ultimately sold to Oracle. So that was kind of cool seeing software from kind of the business side. And then my job right after that, I actually took a timeout from tech. I wanted to do something that was still connected to business, but I felt like it had a little bit more of a...
kind of human slash humane element, if you will, after working in kind of grinding it out in tech.
Grant (04:54.638)
So this was after .com bubble maybe. Okay.
Scott Saslow (04:58.279)
Exactly. Yeah, right. The dot com bubble, you know, that was around that period is when I moved to Silicon Valley. So then I had my Siebel years, which were like early 2000s. And then around 2005, I started a leadership development company. Leadership development was a field I had some exposure to because actually I was building learning and development products at Siebel. But then I had the chance to really do this as my own company and
help leaders in big companies get from point A to point B through customized services. That might be everything from like one -on -one executive coaching to working with groups of leaders, 20, 30 at a time in a cohort. It was fascinating work and very kind of intellectually stimulating. I enjoyed it, again, saw a variety of industries. And I had done that for about 12 years when I...
I kind of then really took a time out and said, okay, what's kind of the next chapter going to be for me? This was now forward up to 2015. And that's where I first learned of what I call the impact economy. So I had, I remember very clearly, I had a meeting with someone in one of the impact hubs. There used to be these impact hubs. I think there's some around, but I know some have struggled. Basically these co -working spaces for
Grant (06:18.606)
Yeah.
Scott Saslow (06:21.095)
for social entrepreneurs and impact investors to kind of get together, meet one another, help one another. It was a very cool model. And the ones in San Francisco are pretty interesting. And I remember first going into one of those for a meeting and I was meeting a friend there who kind of worked out there and I was like, wait, what is this whole economy? I mean, I never, of course I know about like for -profit businesses and I know about, you know, not -for -profits and foundations and, you know, the like, but what is this kind of animal? It kind of sits in between.
And as I did more digging and learning about this field, both from kind of the social entrepreneur perspective, the investor, what I saw was that it was professionalizing, that there was a lot of institutional capital that was coming into the space. I saw that the corporate, you know, this might be thought of as CSR type activity, that that was getting more and more interesting. It was, it was less of, let's say a side project and just
Grant (07:06.606)
Yep.
Scott Saslow (07:20.199)
You know, a big corporation that has some of its employees do some volunteering for nonprofits, that's all fine and well. But I was seeing a whole nother layer and kind of approach where corporates were saying, you know, there's actually some things that we can do that will help us from a business perspective also scale our social impact. That might be, you know, targeting certain customer sets with our products and services that are underserved today. That might be innovative ways in which we think about
our hiring so we can bring in a more diverse workforce. That might be some innovative ways we think about our carbon footprint and what are some things that we can do to mitigate our impact that are also good business moves. They're gonna save us energy, they're gonna save us water usage, real win -wins as I like to think of them. So I got very excited about entering this field. It was 2015, I had come from the learning and development.
field with my previous consultancy. So for me, that was a logical starting point. And I said, well, look, let me see if I can stand up a business, a for -profit, but social impact type business that will help people in this impact economy. I really wanted to target them as my customer set. And I knew a bit about training and development. So this was the first one world organization we stood up. It still exists today. It's our one world training public benefit corporation. And,
Grant (08:31.342)
Mm -hmm.
Scott Saslow (08:44.519)
You know, it earns its money through delivering products and services to, yes, entrepreneurs who are needing to learn more about social entrepreneurship and running their businesses and growing and financing and all that. We've also served investors over the years, impact investors, people that want to become impact investors. How do we do that? And so we would build programming and activities and consulting services to help this community. Fast forward to 2018.
We created our second One World entity and that is the One World Impact Fund. So yes, among the things we do, we are investors. We invest in early stage seed and pre -seed social impact for -profit companies. We're pretty agnostic around the industry, but in practice, most of our companies are either EdTech, digital health companies, sustainable energy, sustainable food,
And then we also have a few kind of in the economic opportunity realm. And this is a very exciting part of our work. So we have kind of the services and the training piece. We now have the investing piece. And then there's a third entity we've created, which is what we call One World Global. And that is where we are allocating capital into other asset classes. The Early Stage Impact Fund, that is one type of, you know, one class of assets, specifically venture capital, early stage.
Grant (09:48.974)
Yeah.
Scott Saslow (10:09.447)
But we also deploy capital into later stage private equity, into the public markets, into public equities, fixed income. So we're really trying to build really the goal for the broader one world is to help organizations scale their impact. And where we as an investor are showing up, we're trying to do this in such a way that we have built a portfolio across all asset classes that is yes, of course, sustainable, but also market rate.
Grant (10:15.534)
Hmm.
Scott Saslow (10:39.143)
I'll say a quick word on this, which is we believe it's very important for not just those of us who work in the impact field. We already kind of get it, the importance of doing this and that it can be done at market rate without concessions. But what we really want to influence is those that are maybe on the fence. They know a little bit about impact in sustainable investing or they've heard about it or whatever investor type they may be or capital holder.
Grant (10:41.358)
Mm -hmm.
Scott Saslow (11:08.903)
There's a lot of rumors and kind of legacy thinking and legacy data which exists in the field that, you know, impact investing, yeah, that's a nice idea, but you won't make money. You're gonna lose money doing it. Or, it's kind of like philanthropy, right? Like you're giving away money, it's just instead of giving it to a not -for -profit, you're giving it to a for -profit. We believe it's really important. We have this kind of phrase, profitable social impact.
that for the next wave of capital to come into the impact field, which is what we want, that needs to be done and that will only be done when investors believe that they can have it both ways. They can both make money as they would expect in different asset classes, a risk adjusted return, and they can do something that's good for the planet and good for people.
Grant (11:59.342)
You mentioned the fund, the early stage fund, and then you mentioned the other one world entity where it's PE and public equities. How do you look at, I think it's much more simplified, early stage startups. If you're invested in an ed tech company or a tech company delivering a software system for farmers to become more regenerative or something like that, there's...
very clear sort of impact model right there and very clear sort of profit metrics and impact metrics. When you look at.
private equity or public equity is much harder, I think, to put that lens on things. So how do you in one world look at, you know, taking off your early stage, you know, impact lens for startups and kind of putting a similar hat on, but it probably could be different when looking at opportunities in PE or sort of public equities.
Scott Saslow (13:02.087)
Great, great question. And not to confuse anyone out there with kind of more terms, because I know that's one of the things the impact field is already kind of rightfully so criticized around. But when it comes to public market investing, so for stocks and bonds, as they used to be called, now they're called equity and fixed income, I would actually use a phrase. I think what we're doing and others are doing, quite honestly, I think of that more as sustainable investing.
Grant (13:11.278)
Sure.
Scott Saslow (13:31.431)
And I think it's very important. I don't think it's like, you know, impact investing is better than sustainable or vice versa. No, no, it's just, I think it's a little different. And so what I see we're doing, let's just, I'll speak for ourselves in the public markets is we're providing capital to businesses. And this also, you know, gets into the whole ESG kind of alphabet soup. But what I believe that's all about in essence is are you putting money into companies?
Grant (13:36.91)
Right. Yep.
Grant (13:53.486)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Scott Saslow (14:00.999)
that you feel values align the way that they operate. The way that they operate, it might not be what they create, okay? So to contrast that, as you kind of said, you started, well, if you have like an early stage ed tech company that's focused on, I'm just gonna make it up here, dyslexic children, okay? And maybe, maybe just maybe that's an underserved category of students, but we know that they need the right kind of training, development, education, but.
Grant (14:07.854)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Scott Saslow (14:29.831)
an impact, a social entrepreneur might say, I want to build a business just for them. And I'm going to figure out a smart business model. So there would be an example, I think, of what the company is actually creating. There's good in that they're doing something that's very important for an underserved population. Or maybe a fintech company that's targeting certain minority groups that typically don't have access to credit. You contrast that with public market investing where like, well, you know, look,
Grant (14:41.646)
Mmm.
Scott Saslow (14:59.495)
As an investor, I want to have some percentage of my portfolio in, quote, the stock market. And we're not going to just pick one or two stocks, but we probably want a basket. So we want to have some IBM and we want to have some Caterpillar. We want to have some pharmaceutical companies. We want to have some. But I care deeply about how those companies are run. And I don't want to invest in ones that have terrible ESG scores, that are terrible track records in terms of their environment.
or how they treat their employees or how they think about their supply chain. So that's what I believe as an investor we are able to achieve. We are funneling capital, our little piece of it, into companies that we think are operating in a way that, again, aligns with our values. And we also don't, it's called negative screening, right? We're pulling out of companies that we might not be excited to support. Now, sometimes the lines get blurry.
Grant (15:52.974)
Mm -hmm.
Scott Saslow (15:57.799)
let's take something like Tesla. Okay. I would argue Tesla, you know, put the Elon shenanigans aside. Just think about what Tesla as a company has done for the auto industry and many others, which I think it's not an understatement. They've really revolutionized that industry. They've really helped in a major way. The auto industry and now some adjacent industries go electric. And that's, and their intention.
Grant (16:22.174)
for sure.
Scott Saslow (16:25.703)
because intention comes in a lot with impact investing. Their intention, if you really look at what was written in the very early days, the founding of the company, it was all about supporting sustainable energy and getting to electric. So I would argue as a company, what they're actually doing is tremendously valuable for the planet and society. Now, does that? Well, but there's a lot of Tesla because of the CEO.
Grant (16:49.07)
I don't think many people would argue that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There's a lot of Elon haters, but that's different, right?
Scott Saslow (16:56.263)
There's a lot of you in here and to be fair, there's a lot of people that look at some of the company policies and those again, maybe are intertwined with tech with Elon and be like, I don't like how they bully employees. I don't like how they force NDAs on their employees. I don't like how they, what their gender track record is terrible. So long way of answering your question when it comes to public market investing.
Grant (17:07.982)
Hmm.
Scott Saslow (17:21.159)
I call that more sustainable investing. And what I'm looking for is companies, the way they operate. Now it could be a great win if not only the way they're operating is positive and the research shows that companies that have good ESG scores tend to correlate with good financial performance. If they also are creating, you know, the direct end of what they're doing is good for planet, good for people, you know, that's a double win, but often you don't get that.
When it comes to what I call impact investing, that's in the private markets. That can be seed where we play. That can also be later stage growth and other forms of PE that can be real estate. Now you're talking about investing in solutions to actual problems. And now you could also have, same thing could exist there, quite honestly. You could have a company whose end product or service
Grant (18:05.582)
Hmm.
Interesting.
Scott Saslow (18:20.679)
would be deemed as beneficial and making a positive impact. But the way in which they run their company is lousy for employees, for suppliers, for the community. So sometimes you can't have it all. And that's what I say about Tesla is like, look, sometimes you can't have it all. I wish Tesla had a better record on a lot of things. So anyways, that's how to approach that one.
Grant (18:31.726)
That's how that happens. Yeah, no.
Grant (18:45.902)
Yeah, there was a, there was a, Albert's, you know, raised a lot of, a lot of funding as a startup and then it went public. And, you know, I think, I mean, they, their stock price is like a dollar, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's been rough in the public markets for them, but they're what they solve for and sort of their supply chain is a, is amazing what they've, what they've done from a solution standpoint.
has been really, really amazing. Like they have sort of built a lot of really interesting ecosystems, new materials they brought to market. Like they've done some amazing sort of sustainable impact things, but as a public company, they've been ran really poorly, right? They've expanded too many products and now it's, they're looked at, I think a bit differently. And it goes back to your point of like sometimes
the solution and the company can be, you know, two different things. You might have a company that does impactful or sustainable things as their like foundational method, but their hiring practices are valuable. If you, if you're an employee, they'll send you to college for free. There's a lot of really powerful benefits that a company can offer to their employees.
But they can only offer that they stay in business. And so part of the, this sort of sustainable and impact ecosystem is like the sustainable part is not necessarily just environment, but it's also like existing, you know, and being sustainable over years to provide that impact to local economies or the environment, whatever your solution is you're trying to solve. But that, I think that's the way into, into the book, building a sustainable family office.
Scott Saslow (20:22.215)
Absolutely.
Grant (20:39.726)
I want to kind of get your insights into family offices in a couple of things. One kind of, where do you see that they fit in this stack of, you know, we just talked about early stage investments, private equity, public markets. You know, when you have conversations with them and your relationships with them, you know, let's say over the last 10 years or so, how has...
take us into their world and sort of what do they look at from a, hey, I wanna be a sustainable family office in that we are here for the next 100 years, right? As if, you know, sustain our family wealth. And then most, obviously have a philanthropic arm to this as well as what most family offices have. How have you seen maybe that kind of maybe blend into more of, hey, how do we also...
have our philanthropic mind, but put that maybe to allocate businesses that are maybe trying to solve, like you said, the solution that a nonprofit might be able to solve. But hey, maybe these companies can solve this too. And we can also sustain our family wealth by investing in certain startups. I guess, how do they look at this whole ecosystem of sustainable finance or impact finance, whatever you want to call it.
Scott Saslow (22:00.263)
Yeah, yeah. No, you're bringing up some really great questions. So let me see if I can unpack that a bit. First off, just definition for any of your listeners maybe that are less familiar with what is a family office. Family office generally refers to the infrastructure, the people, the process, some of the legal entities that a wealthy person, but it's usually family, group of families, it could be husband, wife, it could be husband, wife and their kids. Sometimes they extend multiple generations.
It's that infrastructure that's created to help them manage their wealth, yes, but also their philanthropy. Also, if they're doing impact investing, about half of family offices actually are already doing impact investing. If they're doing other things, they own operating businesses, for example. So that's what a family office is. The reason I wrote the book is there are small...
number of family offices. The estimates are somewhere in the ballpark of 10 ,000 globally. However, the problem is, many of them are not sustainable. And we're going to not use the kind of the definition of sustainable that refers to investing. We're actually going to talk about kind of biggest sustainability. You referred to it like, are these organizations built to last?
Are they robust? Are they durable? Are they effective? It's that element. And what I found in doing the research, and from some of my own experience, family offices generally are not as sustainable as they need to be or can be. About 40 % of them fail each time there's a transition from one generation to the next. But we know...
Grant (23:41.166)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Scott Saslow (23:45.031)
that all family offices and the owners of the family office are generally referred to as the principals. All principals care very deeply that their office, which means their wealth, but plus, plus, plus is sustainable, that they have a way to pass it on. They continue to make a mark on the world, that if they're doing philanthropy, they can continue to do that because the investments are being managed properly and intelligently. So there's enough money to go around and do all the
philanthropic work. So that's just a little bit about these offices and the fact that they're not sustainable. When they're not sustainable, it has a major impact on all of us on society, right? I mean, one can argue, you know, the societal value of having, you know, a small number of people and families that have a large concentration of wealth. That point is not lost on me. I'm not not here to say that's a good thing or a bad thing. But the point I would make is we're all we all are connected to that.
fact in some way, shape or form. Family offices provide about 10 % of all dollars into all new startups. They're incredible. You know, they've an incredible important role in helping us start new businesses. Family offices on average give about $11 million annually to philanthropy. Those are big, big dollars. So when a family office fails and that investment activity and philanthropic activities stops or slows down, there's a major ripple effect.
So that's what gets me excited is trying to help these offices become more sustainable the way I defined it. And what I ultimately believe, and maybe we can get into a little bit is essentially there needs to be a new model in how the family office principals manage their family office, because it's pretty clear the old model is not working.
Grant (25:33.422)
What is that old model?
Scott Saslow (25:35.527)
Well, the old or let's say existing model for most is a lot of principles, quite honestly, this might come in a surprising way, they're not very connected to the office. Either it might be a situation where a lot of wealth was created by one of the members in the family and either that person has kind of gone on to do other things that he or she.
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