Arianna appeared on Squawk Box Thursday to discuss the $100 trillion of social impact investing opportunities with Judith Rodin, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Social impact investing gives companies and individuals the opportunity to make investments that offer both a financial and societal return. One recent prominent example of the practice is Goldman Sachs’ decision to invest $10 million in a New York City program aimed at lowering the recidivism rate through social service bonds.
In the past five years Rodin’s Rockefeller Foundation has brought together power players and spent philanthropic dollars to create more opportunities for social impact investing.
Many companies “are looking for double bottom line, they want to have financial impact and really robust financial impact but they’re also looking for a social and environmental return as well,” Rodin said on Squawk Box.
Arianna noted that even companies and individuals that want to both make money and do good may find it difficult to do both at the same time, which is why social impact investing is such a great opportunity.
“There are a lot of people and a lot of companies that want to do both and they are separate and social impact investment is a way to combine them,” she said on Squawk Box.
Another way to make money and impact society? The Rockefeller Foundation is offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can come up with the best idea for creating jobs in a partnership with The Huffington Post.