AsianNGO Magazine 16th Edition

NONPROFIT

CIVIL SOCIETY

CSR

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

Philanthropy

Insights & inspiration for social innovation

12 From Renewed Commitment to Sustained Action

Edition 16 | APR-JUN 2016 |

44 CSR & the New ASEAN

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52 India’s Next Big Social Innovations

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68 Making Bets for Impact Investing in Asia

Rethink poverty. Reshape giving.

Send money directly to the extreme poor. ★ GIVEWELL TOP CHARITY 2012, 2013, 2014, AND 2015 ★ ★ WINNER 2012 GOOGLE IMPACT AWARD ★ ★ FAST COMPANY'S TOP 10 MOST INNOVATIVE COMPANIES IN FINANCE 2014 ★

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 Editor’s Note 5 Punchline 8 News Roundup

featured interviewS From Renewed Commitment to Sustained Action

10 Events Roundup

Nonprofit & Civil Society interviews

12 From Renewed Commitment to Sustained Action 24 Tapping into Asia-Pacific’s Hidden Wealth

Amanda Lundy Global Advocacy Advisor Plan International Page 12

Commentary

17 An Agreement for Humanity

How This Singaporean Company Placed 10th in Global Sustainability

19 What Civil Society Has to Say About the New Climate Agreement 20 Greening Your Nonprofit From the Inside Out 22 6 Fundraising Insights for Asia 28 Your Post-2015 Advocacy Strategy 31 IN NUMBERS

Esther Tan Chief Sustainability Officer City Developments Limited Page 32

CSR interviews

32 How This Singaporean Company Placed 10th in Global Sustainability

featured CONTRIBUTOR An Agreement for Humanity

44 CSR & the New ASEAN Commentary

37 The Overlooked Opportunity

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39

The Makings of Humanistic Management

42

CSR as a Branding Tool in Emerging Markets

48

How to Prepare Your Supply Chain for Natural Disasters

50

Sustainability & Corporate Philanthropy: Un-Blurring the Lines

51

IN NUMBERS

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

Mary Robinson Special Envoy on Climate Change United Nations Page 17

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Social Enterprises interview

52 India’s Next Big Social Innovations

featured interviewS India’s Next Big Social Innovations

Commentary

57 Shifting an Equilibrium

59

5 Ways to a Successful Launch

61

Tips for Scaling Your Social Enterprise

64

Capitalizing Your Social Enterprise

67

IN NUMBERS

Avisek Barla Founder Micro Life Innovation

Dr. Arumugam Muruganandam Managing Director Affigenix Biosolutions Page 52

philanthropy interview

68

Making Bets for Impact Investing in Asia

Making Bets for Impact Investing in Asia

Commentary

73

Can ‘Effective Altruism’ Really Change the World?

77

How to Become a Really ‘Effective Altruist’

79

When Am I Ready to Fund?

82

Planning for a Ramp Up in Giving

84

8 Philanthropy Trends to Watch in 2016

87

IN NUMBERS

88

Reviews

90

Classifieds

Scott Lawson CEO SOW Asia Page 68

featured CONTRIBUTORS Shifting an Equilibrium Roger Martin Institute Director Martin Prosperity Institute Rotman School of Management

Sally Osberg President & CEO Skoll Foundation Page 57

/AsianNGO

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EDITOR’s note Insights & inspiration for social innovation

The Shifting Sands of Development The hourglass has finally tipped over, setting in motion some big changes in the international development sector.

Johanna Morden Editor-in-Chief

I liken these changes to what Roger Martin and Sally Osberg call a shift in equilibrium (See Page 57)—social transformation that alters pervasive, self-reinforcing and persistent systems. Systems which have prevailed through the passage of time despite their shortcomings.

editor@asianngo.org

For the past 15 years, the eight Millennium Development Goals have acted as a compass for our social progress. While having led the achievement of significant gains, the framework has failed to attain its ambitious goal of ending extreme poverty. This year, the Sustainable Development Goals (2030 Agenda) have taken over to tackle what inequalities remain, culminating lengthy plans and consultations among its 193 signatory governments and other development stakeholders.

Already, the 2030 Agenda has brought forth a welcome change of direction. Its strong focus on climate issues has prompted the adoption of the Paris Agreement, a milestone pact to reverse climate change and boost clean energy use worldwide (See Page 9). The Agreement is seen by some as the first expression of political will to implement the terms of the 2030 Agenda.

Whether or not this political will—or commitment—can be translated into sustainable, equitable action is another thing altogether. This question is especially vital as intergovernmental cooperation continues to drive equilibrium shifts in the development space. In Asia alone, another important transnational accord broke ground in 2016: the ASEAN Economic Community.

Development efforts come with a hefty price tag as most of us working in this sector would agree. Financing for the 2030 Agenda is expected to cost up to US$3 trillion annually and the climate deal: US$100 billion per year. Meanwhile, official development assistance (ODA) to least-developed countries (LDCs) has hit a 10-year low, with the poorest nations receiving only less than 30 percent of global aid flows, according to the latest figures from OECD. This is not an optimistic prospect. If we are to truly “leave no one behind,” as the 2030 Agenda vows, priority must be given not only in terms of the most taxing social challenges but also of the most disadvantaged countries, of which we count many in Asia. The new shifts happening today mark an opportunity to finally put the spotlight on those who need it the most.

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Publisher & CEO Sreenivas Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Johanna Morden Senior Editor Karthikeyan Subburaman Development Director Robert Ferguson Staff Writers Ashley Venerable Kristine Azcona Veda Bongalos Partnerships & Editorial Associate Nicole Razo Creative Director Kelvin Tee Creative Associate Jessica Pantalla Multimedia Artists Kevin Dizon Kim Calimquim Joseph Emil Lontoc Web Administrator Chris Daria For Subscriptions: subscribe@asianngo.org For Contributions: contribute@asianngo.org For Partnerships: partner@asianngo.org For Sponsorships & Advertising: advertise@asianngo.org For General Enquiry: info@asianngo.org

AsianNGO is a publication of Asian Development Media, with address in 21B, Kwong Fat Hong Bldg No.1, Ramsey St. Central, Hong Kong 1226. The print and online edition of AsianNGO is released on a quarterly basis. Opinions expressed in this magazine are solely those of the writers and are not necessarily endorsed by Asian Development Media.

For more of AsianNGO Magazine, visit www.asianngo.org/magazine.

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AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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PUNCHLINE

What do you get when you cross a program director, a volunteer manager and a janitor?

Answer: A situation that is not too uncommon in most nonprofit organizations.

A development director found a magic lamp and rubbed it. Presto! A genie appeared and offered the development director one wish. Not wanting to be greedy, she said, “I wish for US$1 million to support my nonprofit organization.”

“Done,” said the genie. “Come to your office tomorrow and it will be there.”

The next day she arrived at the office, and when she opened the door, out fell three million binder clips.

“What in the world?” she said to the genie. “I asked for one million dollars!”

An executive director was walking through the woods when he ran into a unicorn, who said, “I am a magical fundraising unicorn, and now that you have stumbled on me, I will grant you three wishes.”

“First,” said the executive director, “I want Bill Gates on my board.” “Done,” said the unicorn. “Second,” said the executive director, “I want an endowment fund of US$10 million.” “Also done,” said the unicorn.

“Third,” said the executive director, “I want all funders to provide general operating support.” And at that moment, he woke up and realized he had fallen asleep while writing a 10-page grant for a restricted US$5,000.

Source

Vu Le, www.nonprofitwithballs.com Carol Friedman, www.friedmanconsulting.blogspot.com

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“Yes,” said the genie, “but you didn’t say it couldn’t be in-kind…”

If they had worked in DEVELOPMENT...

“When you gaze long into the Abyss of Sustainability, the Abyss of Sustainability also gazes into you.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

“Some minds are like special parachutes.

They only function when they’re opened by a consultant.”

Sir James Dewar

“You miss 100 percent of the grants you don’t write.”

Wayne Gretzky

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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www.acer.com.ph www.acer.com.ph w.acer.com.ph 6

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news Roundup of hungry populations in the region by half by 2015, compared to its 1990 levels.

Photo: Noel R. Ubaldo / TPSW 2012

Economic growth halves hunger in Asia-Pacific Robust economic and agricultural growth has halved the incidence of hunger in Asia-Pacific down to 12 percent over the past 25 years, top U.N. officials said.

“This is a historic achievement, a great milestone of which the Asia-Pacific region should be proud,” said Hiroyuki Konuma, regional representative of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The Asia-Pacific region has achieved the U.N. Millennium Development Goal to reduce the number

Southeast Asia and East Asia have reduced hunger by 68.5 percent and 58.5 percent, respectively, making them the most successful subregions.

The following countries have contributed to the significant reduction: Thailand (78.7 percent), Vietnam (75.8 percent), Indonesia (61.6 percent) and China (60.9 percent).

According to David Dawe, FAO senior economist, Asia’s economic expansion over the past two to three decades of about 7 percent per year, has led to an increase in the region’s access to food.

“One of the key determinants of food security—probably the single most important one—is basically economic growth,” said Dawe.

“Along with general economic growth, it’s important to have agricultural growth as well. These are the two things that Asia has really excelled at, compared to the rest of the world,” he added.

New ASEAN Economic Community underway The ASEAN Economic Community has been implemented, signaling a more “resilient, inclusive and dynamic” future for the region.

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is a regional agenda that creates a single economic market across all ASEAN nations. Founded on Dec. 31, the AEC has met with the delay of its initial Jan. 1 launch to give its member countries more time to prepare for its establishment.

Now that it has come into effect, the Southeast Asian region can expect a Cont. Page 9

New SDG advocates named

Photo: United Nations

To drive forward the achievement of the new global agenda, 17 influential individuals have been appointed as Sustainable Development Goals Advocates.

Members of the new Sustainable Development Goals Advocacy Group have been announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21.

Handpicked by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the group is comprised of “eminent” individuals having the resources, networks and specialized skills to help deliver the 2030 Agenda.

The group is co-chaired by Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway, and John Dramani Mahama, President of Ghana.

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AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

Some of the influential advocates include Queen Mathilde of Belgium; Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden; Jack Ma, Founder and Executive Chair of the Alibaba Group; Sheikha Moza bint Nasser; Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever; musical superstar Shakira Mebarak; actor Forest Whitaker and; Noble Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank.

“The SDG Advocates will promote the universal character of the SDGs, including their commitment to leave no one behind; to promote the engagement of new stakeholders in the implementation and financing of the SDGs; to encourage partnerships with governments, civil society and the private sector to share knowledge and resources; and to raise awareness for the integrated nature of the SDGs,” a U.N. spokesperson said.

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fully “integrated and cohesive economy.” According to the AEC Blueprint 2025, the community seeks to set up and reinforce “a resilient, inclusive, people-oriented and people-centered ASEAN.” The blueprint has set out four pillars for the establishment of the AEC: a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, a region of equitable economic development and a region fully integrated into the global economy.

The blueprint, which has replaced the AEC Blueprint 2015, has been adopted at the 27th ASEAN Summit on Nov. 22 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Paris climate agreement opens for signing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited all world leaders to sign into effect a historic agreement to slow down the effects of climate change worldwide.

The accord, dubbed the “Paris Agreement,” has been adopted by 195 countries on Dec. 12 at the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference held in Paris, France, with the goal of keeping global temperatures below 2° C. On Earth Day on April 22, a signing ceremony will take place at the U.N. Headquarters in New York, U.S. to put the agreement into action. After the signing event, the agreement will be open for signatures until April 21, 2017.

Only when at least 55 Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change have signed the agreement will it come into full, legal force.

“We have entered a new era of global cooperation on one of the most complex issues ever to confront humanity,” said Ban. “For the first time, every country in the world

/AsianNGO

2015: 4.5%

Growth of Developing economies in Asia-Pacific

has pledged to curb emissions, strengthen resilience and join in common cause to take common climate action.”

the lowest rate since 2010

US$12.1 trillion

Cost of Financing the Paris Agreement Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance

US$329 billion

Amount of Clean Energy Investments in 2015

72 countries

Photo: U.S. Department of State

Kerry visits Mekong to boost ASEAN-US ties A senior U.S. diplomatic official has paid a visit to Cambodia and Lao PDR to strengthen ties between ASEAN and the U.S. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has traveled to the two nations to meet with Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, respectively, in a series of day-long visits to the capital cities of Vientiane and Phnom Penh that began on Jan. 25.

Freedom in 2015, the

The leaders discussed a broad range of issues concerning the Southeast Asian region, including promoting security in the Mekong region and bilateral economic cooperation between the Southeast Asian countries and the U.S.

Freedom is Lowest in

Kerry’s visit has underpinned a special summit held between the leaders of 10 ASEAN member countries and U.S. President Barack Obama on Feb. 15 to 16 at Sunnylands, California.

showed a decline in largest number in a decade.

Middle East, North Africa, Eurasia Freedom of Expression & the Rule of Law continues to wane worldwide.

Source: Freedom in the World 2016, Freedom House

Later this year, Obama will become the first U.S. president ever to visit Lao PDR when he attends an ASEAN summit in Vientiane.

ASEAN member countries include Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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Events Roundup

9.

1.

Colombo, Sri Lanka | January 26-28 World Disability & Rehabilitation Conference 2016 was a platform to address issues in disability and rehabilitation to unravel challenges and improve the quality of services for the many disabled people across the globe.

2.

Mumbai, India | February 17-18 Now on its 5th year, World CSR Congress’ theme “What Next?” focused on driving social action through CSR success and on using CSR as a key to achieving sustainability goals.

3.

Manila, Philippines | February 17-19 The 2nd Asia Inclusive Business Forum promoted inclusive business models in Asia and highlighted the latest innovations to job creation by the private sector.

4.

Bangkok, Thailand | March 7-11 Bringing participants from ASEAN and East Asia, the 2nd SEAMEO Youth Leadership Forum honed the leadership skills of youth attendees and ultimately help them contribute to the betterment of the ASEAN community.

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AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

Bangkok, Thailand | March 16-18 Intelligence-Sec’s inaugural Disaster Relief Asia conference and exhibition looked at the different catastrophes that took place in Asia and evaluated the response efforts made, in order to develop better warning systems for future disasters.

ASEAN | February 22-23 The ESPRIEX: ASEAN Business Model Competition is the first and largest business model competition in ASEAN, offering ASEAN students the chance to win funding for their business ideas.

5.

6.

7.

Bangkok, Thailand | March 18 Organized by Resource Alliance and Rockefeller Foundation, the Thailand NGO Awards honored nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations fostering good standards and practices in resource mobilization, transparency and accountability in Thailand.

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Upcoming Events Global Philanthropy Forum April 4-6 Redwood City, USA Global Sankalp Summit April 20-23 Mumbai, India Global Corporate Governance & Transparency Summit April 22 Bandung, Indonesia Responsible Business Forum on Food & Agriculture April 27-29 Jakarta, Indonesia

8.

2nd Smart Cities India May 11-13 New Delhi, India

2.

5,6 ,7.

1.

3.

10.

11.

GRI Global Conference May 18-20 Amsterdam, The Netherlands World Humanitarian Summit May 23-24 Istanbul, Turkey AVPN Conference May 23-25 Hong Kong, China

8.

Dubai, UAE | March 21-23 The 13th edition of Dubai International Humanitarian Aid & Development Conference & Exhibition (DIHAD) was a forum for the humanitarian sector to interact, foster partnerships, seek donors and gain information on the latest trends beneficial to global humanitarian and development assistance.

9.

California, USA | March 23-25 Assembling over 2,000 of the best and brightest nonprofit professionals around the world, Nonprofit Technology Conference was a space for nonprofits to collaborate and discover new ways to spark innovation through technology.

10.

Singapore, Singapore | April 12-13 Tech in Asia was a technology conference uniting entrepreneurs, investors, developers and corporations to share knowledge about the startup ecosystem and technology community in Singapore.

11.

Jakarta, Indonesia | April 13-14 Power & Electricity World Asia brought together power producers, IPPs, investors, governments and other industry stakeholders to discuss opportunities and new ideas to transform the power sector.

/AsianNGO

RISE Conference May 31-June 2 Hong Kong, China Social Innovation Summit June 7-8 Washington DC, USA Aid & Development Asia Summit June 21-22 Bangkok, Thailand 4th Annual Sustainable Development Conference July 7-9 Kuching, Malaysia Singapore International Water Week July 10-14 Singapore, Singapore InsideNGO 2016 Annual Conference July 12-14 Washington DC, USA 2nd International Conference on Public Health July 28-29 Colombo, Sri Lanka

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From Renewed Commitment to Sustained Action

by Ashley Venerable

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www.asianngo.org/magazine

interview

G

oals are set. Countries have committed. All stakeholders are now being guided towards one direction—sustainable development. But in a divided world, how can a unified effort to implement the new global goals begin?

The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) revolve around ending extreme poverty, fighting inequality and injustice, and reversing climate change worldwide.

193 countries have committed to the global consensus consisting of 17 goals and 169 targets. The SDGs, launched at the onset of 2016, will frame international development efforts until 2030.

How can the momentum and political commitment surrounding the SDGs be leveraged to secure better outcomes for all? Amanda Lundy, Global Advocacy Advisor for child rights organization Plan International, discusses the steps to be taken as the world shifts from planning to implementing the new global agenda.

What is Plan International working on at the moment?

We’ve just launched a five-year strategy to influence the implementation of the SDGs at the national level, and we’re starting this work in 15 or so countries that will hopefully be “early actors.” This strategy focuses on strengthening national policies, strategies and plans to meet the ambition of the SDGs for children, especially girls—including monitoring government progress and holding them to account for improved outcomes, and working with young people as advocates for SDG progress.

An example of this is one of our country offices successfully joining a government planning body on SDG implementation as a core civil society partner, specifically contributing on issues related to children and young people.

Another will be working with the many youth networks that we already support in order to raise awareness on the SDGs, and empower them to advocate and bring awareness to their own schools, communities and governments.

How different is the backdrop of the SDGs from that of the MDGs? It’s hugely different—the political will and buy-in around the SDGs is much higher than with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Every government belonging to the U.N. has been involved in developing the SDGs, so the awareness level is higher, the ownership is higher and the relevance of the agenda itself to all countries is of course much higher. I think thats a good thing. /AsianNGO

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Photo: United Nations

NonProfit & Civil Society

interview

It’s daunting, of course, to see a list of 17 goals and 169 targets, but we live in a complicated world and we shouldn’t shy away from the challenges we face.

By signing up to the SDGs, 193 governments have stepped up to the challenge and that’s a welcome change.

Governments will, however, need a huge amount of support to integrate the SDGs into their existing plans and to identify solutions that will improve outcomes for everyone, especially those most likely to be left behind such as girls, people with disabilities and indigenous groups.

What lessons can we take from the MDGs? Recent research from the Overseas Development Institute and Columbia University shows that the adoption of reforms linked to the MDGs were most likely in countries most dependent on foreign aid, suggesting that donors tied their aid to the MDGs. Countries that were less dependent on aid were less likely to have adopted reforms associated with the MDGs. /AsianNGO

We’re working in a very different environment now, with donors decreasing their aid portfolios, and more and more countries rising out of the least developed country (LDC) category.

This suggests that the pressure to meet the ambition of the SDGs will now come both from international dynamics—donor and regional agenda—but also most significantly from civil society and other actors at the national level.

This is why international NGOs like Plan International are focusing their support on national-level influencing of governments, including by supporting local civil society and young people.

The SDGs are a powerful framework, but they are nonbinding, and their impact will only be felt if they’re brought into national agenda and plans.

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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interview

How can NGOs help put the SDGs into action?

NGOs have a very important role to play in raising awareness of the SDGs, including by working with traditional and social media, schools, universities, community groups and others. Local groups will then be better equipped to advocate on those issues most relevant and important to them.

NGOs can also support governments by undertaking gap analyses in their own areas of expertise, identifying where existing policies and practices fall short of meeting the SDGs. These can be helpful input for governments, including parliamentary committees and inter-ministerial groups, as they review national plans.

This “watchdog” role will be particularly important during national-, regional- and global-level reviews of governments on progress—the modalities for these are still to be discussed at the international level.

In what areas can the nonprofit sector improve to better contribute to SDGs’ implementation?

NGOs have an important role to play as “watchdogs,” both supporting and putting pressure on government actors to make strong efforts to meet the SDGS, in order to ensure that no one is being left behind and to secure a transparent sharing of information on progress and gaps.

I think that the SDG era presents a lot of opportunities for the nonprofit development sector. In addition to traditional programming approaches, I’m seeing increasing emphasis placed on empowerment programs that aim to support communities, young people, women’s groups and others to advocate for themselves.

For Plan International, civil society strengthening is core to the way that we work, and that will be important for building ownership and momentum around the SDGs with local communities and countries so that they can hold their governments to account. Targeted support will be needed for those countries most at risk of being left behind, for example conflict-affected states, LDCs and countries affected by climate change.

How optimistic are you about the success of the SDGs?

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AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

Photo: Plan International

I’m optimistic. There’s no doubt that the SDGs are a clarion call and a daunting one at that. But there’s a huge amount of momentum and support around these goals and targets, and I think that if governments take concerted action to achieve the SDGs—with the support of the international community, civil society, private sector and other actors—then we can make huge improvements in the lives of people and secure a better future for today and tomorrow’s young people.

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NonProfit & Civil Society

Commentary

An Agreement for Humanity

A statement made on the day of the adoption of the Paris Agreement.

AUTHOR

The unprecedented call for climate justice has echoed from all corners of the world and was brought inside the walls of the negotiating rooms at COP21 in Paris. We see it reflected in the pages of the Paris Agreement—even if the means to achieve it will have to come in the coming years.

Climate change is already affecting us all and the Paris Agreement adopted tonight provides the opportunity to transform our way of life to one that is fairer and more sustainable. It establishes the need to keep global temperature rise below 2°C and closer to 1.5°C. It also compels countries to act urgently to increase the capacity of communities to cope with climate change and to uphold human dignity in the face of unmanageable climate impacts.

I am pleased that the agreement is more people-centered than its parent Convention, building on our growing understanding of climate change as a social, economic and environmental issue. While falling short of adopting a rights-based approach to the implementation of the provisions of the agreement, the Paris Agreement recognizes the need to respect and promote human rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, gender equality, women’s empowerment and intergenerational equity to achieve a just transition.

Mary Robinson Mary Robinson, the seventh President of Ireland, is the U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change and the President of the Mary Robinson Foundation—Climate Justice.

As a result, the agreement and its accompanying decision have the potential to set in train the steps needed to protect people living in the most vulnerable situations. They also provide a foundation to deal with any shortcomings which remain, including the provision of support for developing countries.

/AsianNGO

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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This will require the continued engagement of governments working in partnership with citizens, businesses, local authorities and civil society. The inclusive process that enabled countries to come together in Paris is the key to strengthening the values signaled in the agreement so that they inform the design and implementation of climate actions over time.

In the years leading up to this agreement, more and more people, businesses and civil society organizations have engaged with the climate agenda; as an issue of development, justice, rights and human security. The reference to climate justice in the preamble of the agreement is evidence that the calls of people through marches, petitions, online campaigns, music and the arts have been heard.

PARIS AGREEMENT The Paris Agreement is the first universal, legally-binding global climate deal, adopted by 195 countries at the Paris climate conference (COP21) held on Dec. 2015. Scheduled to enter into force in 2020, the agreement will replace the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty requiring emission reduction targets inked in 1997.

We need to keep building this momentum between now and 2020, to translate the agreement into ambitious actions both at the national and local level.

Despite their differences, 195 countries came together to prove that a multilateral process built on trust and dialogue, and that respects the capacity of smaller delegations to engage, can yield strong results. By applying this Principle of Climate Justice, ensuring that decisions on climate change are participatory, transparent and accountable; the voices of people in vulnerable situations were heard and will be acted upon.

We have set the direction of travel in 2015 with this Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Together they send a strong message of hope that we can achieve a safer world with opportunity for all.

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Photo: Danilo Victoriano / TPSW 2012

www.asianngo.org/magazine

NonProfit & Civil Society

What Civil Society Has to Say About the New Climate Agreement

Sanjay Vashist, Director, Climate Action Network, South Asia “The Paris agreement has [given] clear signals to countries across the globe to now take deeper actions domestically to keep temperature rise to 1.5°C. It also creates the momentum for countries like India to further scale up their already ambitious renewable energy and energy efficiency targets. Now the onus is on developed countries to fulfill their promises and scale up climate finance flows to support mitigation and adaptation efforts, especially for the most vulnerable countries.”

Helen Szoke, Executive Director, Oxfam “This deal offers a frayed life-line to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

Only the vague promise of a new future climate funding target has been made, while the deal doesn’t force countries to cut emissions fast enough to forestall a climate change catastrophe. This will only ramp up adaptation costs further in the future. Governments across the world have now come together in the global fight against climate change, but must play catch up. We’ll be holding them to account with the millions of people who marched in cities all around the world, so that dangerous warming is averted and the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities get the support that they need.”

Paul Cook, Advocacy Director, Tearfund “We welcome the agreement brokered at these crucial climate talks. This is a good step forward, but let’s not be complacent. This doesn’t give us everything we need—nations will need to go further in reducing their emissions over the next few years to ensure that global temperature doesn’t rise by more than 1.5° to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. What has been exciting is to see the growing movement these talks have fostered—people from all walks of life, including the church—have raised their voices for climate action in Paris.”

Krishneil Narayan, Coordinator, Climate Action Network, Pacific Islands “Rapid action to address climate change is a matter of survival for my Pacific people and, as such, how can we accept any compromises? That’s why the Pacific region always puts forward the most ambitious proposals on the table at the negotiations. The Paris Agreement didn’t reflect all we asked for in the Suva Declaration on Climate Change, but Paris was never meant to be the last step. It was meant to be a progressive step in identifying new common grounds to address climate change together collectively through a new, universal agreement.”

Jaden Harris, REPRESENTATIVE, Australian Youth Climate Coalition “This historic moment gives young people hope that a safe climate future is still within reach and the era of fossil fuels is ending. But we’re still on track for a 3° warmer world, which paints a bleak future for vulnerable communities. We now have a structure to increase ambition to stay below 1.5°, and young people will lead the call to use it.”

Source

/AsianNGO

Climate Action Network International www.climatenetwork.org AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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Greening Your Nonprofit From the Inside Out If you’re ready to make a commitment to “going green,” congratulations! You’re joining the ranks of a growing number of nonprofits, companies and communities that have decided to make environmental sustainability a key.

Now the real work begins.

Remember that environmental sustainability is a long-term journey, and it’s more like a marathon than a sprint. Like running a marathon, you need to start slow, build up momentum, set smaller milestones and celebrate your progress.

Most of all, you need a plan—a strategy from getting here to there. Like all strategic initiatives, a green plan should be undertaken methodically, with clear direction and goals. The following section outlines a process for creating such a plan, including four steps.

As a first step, try a quick self-assessment to find out how your organization stacks up in major environmental impact categories like utilities, commuting, business travel and paper use. Once you get a sense of the magnitude of your impact, you’ll know where to focus your efforts.

By following these steps, you can create a green plan that is ambitious but also realistic—a plan that is cost-conscious but also designed for maximum impact.

Most important of all, you’ll design a plan that incorporates employee enthusiasm to actually transform the fabric of your organizational culture into a larger sense of mission and purpose.

Step 1: Measure Your Impact There are literally thousands of things you can do to make your organization a greener, more environmentally-friendly place. But with a limited amount of time and money, how do you decide what initiatives are the most important? How do you make sure that you’ll see progress after a few months?

The key is to measure your environmental impact first, before you begin any green initiatives. That way, you can ensure that your attention is focused on the most important issues. In a nutshell, you make sure that you’re getting the most “bang for your buck.”

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Sample of an organization’s environmental impact.

www.asianngo.org/magazine

For a more thorough green assessment, consider hiring a sustainability consultant. Not only will a good sustainability consultant know what details to include, they’ll also know how to estimate and extrapolate for missing data, facilitate employee workshops and help you set goals against the results of your green audit.

Step 2: Survey Your Employees By making a green commitment, you’ve created expectations among your employees. How you manage these expectations will play a big part in the long-term success of your green initiative.

Some employees are going to be enthusiastic and ready to pitch in immediately, but perhaps also a little overwhelmed with all of the improvements that need to be made.

Others may be completely clueless about environmental issues—and will need lots of hand-holding along the way.

And don’t forget the inevitable curmudgeon, that one environmental naysayer who just doesn’t see the point.

Identifying these different groups within your workforce and then delving deeply into their motivations, levels of awareness and concerns is important for three reasons: It helps you to identify green leaders, anticipate roadblocks and connect areas of employee enthusiasm with areas of major environmental impact.

Step 3: Determine Your Priorities The next step is to decide on your priorities—ideally a mix of high-enthusiasm and high-impact areas. Then get ready to do a little brainstorming, preferably in a small group with other employees.

First, identify three to five green issues that you’d like to tackle over the next year. Then brainstorm specific actions that you can take to “go green” around the issue.

Place each of these items in a grid and map out the answers to the following questions: • • •

Does this measure move us in the right direction?

Is it flexible so that we can adapt to changing circumstances?

Does it make good business sense?

Step 4: Create an Action Plan If you’ve been following along with this process, by now you’ve strategically identified several overarching green issues to focus on over the coming year. You’ve also identified which specific actions make the most sense to pursue, given their relative environmental impact, their potential for success and other business considerations.

Now it’s time to allocate the resources. For each of the high priority action items, complete the following questions: • • • •

Who will have the responsibility for accomplishing this task?

What resources are needed?

What is the timeline?

How will we measure progress?

Make sure you have input from a variety of people during this process, since it’s important to have an accurate and reasonable action plan before you begin to try out specific actions. Additionally, be sure to put it all into a single document—an action plan needs to be something everyone can see and touch and edit.

Having the plan in your head, or in a scattered set of notes and emails, invites confusion and conflicting expectations—especially about the time and effort being allocated to different initiatives.

Once you have a green plan on paper, the next step is to begin actually making the improvements! As you get started, you’ll go through a process of trial and error.

Don’t be afraid to go back and modify your green plan document—in fact, plan to regularly evaluate your plan to tweak and adjust accordingly. Remember that your plan is a living document.

Source

/AsianNGO

NonProfit & Civil Society

There is a saying in the sustainability industry: What gets measured gets managed.

Greening Your Nonprofit from the Inside Out: A NeighborWorks® Guide for Community Development Organizations

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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6 Fundraising Insights for Asia

by Usha Menon

01 More INGOs are mobilizing

funds in Asia for their Asian programs

A large number of international NGOs have set up their fundraising operation across Asia. These include various U.N. agencies such as UNAIDS, UNHCR, UNICEF and World Food Program; environment-focused organizations Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, WaterAid and WWF; child-focused ChildFund, Plan, Save the Children and SOS Children’s Villages; poverty alleviation-focused Oxfam and ActionAid; medical NGOs like Medecins Sans Frontieres, Orbis and Operation Smile, as well as advocacy organizations like Amnesty, among others.

Many of these organizations began investing in local fundraising in Asia around the start of the decade and are now seeing the return on their investment, with an annual growth rate of 11 to 15 percent.

02 Individual Giving Currently, the key income driver for many NGOs with the ability to make a sizable fundraising investment is face-to-face fundraising. Over 50,000 regular donors are recruited each year in markets like Thailand. Hong Kong NGOs have recorded a 20 percent upswing in income from individual giving programs, having donation amounts averaging at around US$19 per month.

Meanwhile, rights-based organizations, “non-glamorous” and niche causes like leprosy have seen success in recruiting oneoff donors with an average gift size of US$54 in India. In the Philippines, average giving is around US$25 per one-off gift.

03 Major Gifts Major gift and capital campaigns held by healthcare and arts organizations, as well as universities are seeing US$7-figure gifts in Asia. Some NGOs that have embarked upon strategically seeking major gifts are seeing substantial benefits.

Innovative donor recruitment and recognition methods, like the one initiated by a large museum in the Philippines through “tenured” naming rights, where portions of the museum is named for a specific period of time, have seen willing major donors.

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www.asianngo.org/magazine

04 Corporate Fundraising Corporate philanthropy, sponsorships and donation of gifts-in-kind co-exist across Asia depending on the philanthropic maturity and the size of corporations. CSR has also seen a coming of age. In India, an analysis of disclosures made by 1,181 listed companies in compliance with the recent Companies Act, has highlighted that more than 90 percent of the 1,181 companies complied with CSR norms. 87 percent of the eligible listed companies have spent around Rs 6,400 crore (approximately US$1 billion) on CSR projects in the last financial year.

Going Forward The following factors will ensure that local fundraising and philanthropy will continue to thrive in Asia in the coming year: •

Address the lack of trained and experienced fundraising professionals to take on senior level position as well as service providers experienced in the very diverse Asian markets.

•

In many Asian countries like China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia, the government is the key driver of progress, having incorporated CSR into their domestic legislation or policies.

Overcome the public distrust of NGOs, including complaints related to methodologies like face-to-face or commission-based fundraising.

•

Create an enabling legal framework and tax systems that promote fundraising, social entrepreneurship and philanthropy.

05 Digital Giving

•

Promote enlightened leadership among policymakers, NGOs, corporate sector and institutional funders to understand various fund mobilization models.

•

Leverage technological advancements and innovations that can be adapted into the fundraising arena to increase the effectiveness of communications, ease of engagement and supporter relationships.

In Asia, factors such as rising smartphone penetration and a more tech-savvy population have helped ecommerce grow strongly and, along with it, the digital giving culture.

China’s exceptional digital infrastructure has provided digital fundraising a major boost. In September last year, Tencent, one of the largest internet companies in the world, launched a RMB99.99 million (over US$15 Million) matching fund to encourage Chinese charities to use its mobile crowd funding platform. Within 72 hours, over two million donors made online donations totaling RMB128 Million (US$19.5 Million), exhausting the matching fund.

Digital fundraising has become one of the most important sources of funding for many NGOs, especially those recognized by the public and those with causes with a strong emotional appeal.

06 Social Venture Unlike traditional grantmakers, venture philanthropists are keen to resolve social challenges through cross-sector collaboration among governments, the corporate sector, civil society and private individuals. The technology to address social needs is increasingly being funded by venture philanthropists both at the incubation and the scaling-up levels. Social entrepreneurship, for its part, has become a popular vehicle for student-led solutions, and a rising number of corporates and venture philanthropists are backing their efforts.

/AsianNGO

NonProfit & Civil Society

Family foundations in Hong Kong with its many cross-generational philanthropic projects have benefited medium to small NGOs. Hence, NGOs like Global Fund for Children and Room to Read have launched fundraising operations in Hong Kong to leverage on these opportunities.

While there are inherent challenges, there are also exceptional opportunities that Asia presents to the rest of the fundraising world.

AUTHOR Usha Menon is the executive chair of Usha Menon Management Consultancy (Asia), an international training and consultancy service focused on shaping the world through empowering social-impact organizations across Asia. contact@ushamenonasia.com @UshaMenon_Asia www.ushamenonasia.com

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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interview

Tapping into Asia-Pacific’s Hidden Wealth

by Ashley Venerable

W

hat began in 1947 as a desire to assist an underprivileged child in China is now one of the world’s leading humanitarian organizations.

World Vision International, a Christian relief and development organization, today houses more than 40,000 staff in nearly 100 countries, implementing programs for ending poverty, fighting hunger and transforming lives that benefit up to 70 million people each year.

With a budget of about US$326 million, World Vision serves 18 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, covering five strategic priorities—health and nutrition, child protection, humanitarian and emergency affairs, migration and urban poverty, as well as literacy programs for youth.

More than 1.3 million children in Asia-Pacific have been registered under World Vision’s sponsorship program. Internationally, the organization counts 4.2 million registered children and reaches a total of 32 million children through its community programs.

How did World Vision grow from its humble beginnings to what it is today? Christy Davis, World Vision’s South Asia & Pacific Regional Director for Partnerships Development, gives her insights.

Please tell us more about World Vision’s supporter base.

The number of supporters we have is a dynamic figure but, as a general rule, around 85 percent of children registered with World Vision are sponsored at any given time of the year.

Our sponsors come from 35 countries and their numbers vary during the year. Sponsors are a subset of our total supporter and donor base, which would include donors who provide funds for projects or periodic unrestricted donations.

Our budget for the Asia-Pacific region is around US$326 million. That supports our long-term development programs, of which we have about 700 at present. There’s a multiplier effect, because the funds that have been generated through sponsorships also benefit our community programs.

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www.asianngo.org/magazine

NonProfit & Civil Society

What are your other sources of funding?

Aside from sponsorships, another source that we have is our robust grants program, which includes private and public donors who support us. Last year, we had US$170 million in grant funding from a variety of international donor agencies. That’s a focus area for us.

We provide evidence-based information and reports, as well as information on which interventions work best for the communities that we serve. This way, it’s community- and need-driven rather than donor-driven.

What strategies do you have for expanding your supporter base?

First, you must have evidence and real-time information, and must be able to show what the value of their support is. Second is consistent, authentic, regular and responsive communication. It’s important to respond to what they need to know, as well as their requirements.

It’s not just about submitting a report, but also about actively engaging in a conversation with donors.

Telling them about the impact of their contribution is really important. For example, we want to make sure that child sponsors are seeing stories about their sponsored children—we’re implementing children videoing messages and are constantly looking at ways to communicate with donors. It’s treasuring and honoring the relationship and the trust that we have with them.

What best practices can you share on retaining supporters?

You must demonstrate that you value and honor the existing supporter base that you have. /AsianNGO

Photo: World Vision International

We recognize how important grants are. So, to supplement our sponsorships program, we’re engaging regularly with our donor partners at all levels to make sure that they understand our work and successes.

You have to be vigilant about maintaining regular open dialogue, because contacts are constantly in the midst of change and you want to build a longterm relationship with them. If things have changed on your side, they have to know so they can plan accordingly and, hopefully, return.

Another thing is to improve the donor experience.

For instance, use technology and social media to connect with donors. Giving donors a bigger, more holistic picture of not only beneficiaries, but also the context in which they live is very helpful.

How are you implementing these at World Vision?

To continuously get closer to our supporter base and provide them with the most authentic and accurate information about their donation and investment in children and communities, we strive to be responsive to them, communicate consistently and provide evidence of the child’s life.

We’re constantly looking at ourselves, understanding what our strengths and capabilities are, and making sure that what we offer are aligned with our supporters’ interests.

Donors look to us to stay current with the changing context and offer innovative solutions that in turn offer them tangible value for their investment.

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

25

z

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www.asianngo.org/magazine

Photo: World Vision International

NonProfit & Civil Society

interview

We’ve developed an end-to-end project management system, which allows us to provide a better sponsor experience alongside global child well-being measures. This means that the evidence of change is captured in the child’s Annual Progress Report (APR)—a traditional vehicle that reports on how a sponsored child’s life is improving, and how the community in which that child lives is benefiting, changing and becoming more resilient.

At the same time, we’re also providing “small bites” more often in new ways to supplement the APR, such as information and videos via a mobile app.

What funding trends in the region have caught your attention recently?

Asia-Pacific is characterized by a swiftly-expanding youth population and a digitally-connected one. There’s also a growing, socially-conscious middle class.

We’ve got significant pockets of untapped wealth. We have quiet philanthropists, which brings forth a lot of donor expectations.

There’s so much wealth in Asia and the question is how we can work with those who have that kind of wealth and encourage their investments.

Private funding in Asia is increasing. For instance, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia are all countries contributing to other Asian countries. As countries move to /AsianNGO

middle-income status, there has also been an increase in our supporter base in those countries.

In the area of institutional funding, the usual donors are there, but we’re seeing some changes. That means we’re looking for new places to tap for grants. We now see governments providing grants for partnership solutions.

Another trend is institutional donors not necessarily wanting to give to a single agency, but to give to coalitions or partnerships, because they’re looking for a multiplier effect. There’s also a proliferation of cross-industry forums. Conversations in this space are definitely growing.

What exciting projects does World Vision have in store?

We’re looking at iCash and our work with cash- and market-based approaches to humanitarian work, as well as urban programming to effectively respond to the massive shift associated with continuous urbanization.

In Nepal, we’re piloting an innovation lab that will promote the use of affordable, 3D printing as an answer to humanitaian needs in emergencies. We’re collaborating with a couple of partners to create a supply catalogue for aid agencies, so that anyone who has a 3D printer can actually “open source,” download designs and print them out.

One more initiative in which I’m personally very involved with and very excited about is our new Asia-Pacific P3 Incubation Hub. This Singapore-based hub will be a cross-sector incubator of partnerships, innovations and inclusive business models for new solutions to development problems in the region. Our initial thematic focus area is water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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Your Post-2015 Advocacy Strategy

Advocacy is the strategic and deliberate process to bring about change in policies and practice.

In the case of the post-2015 development agenda, advocacy should aim to directly and indirectly influence decision-makers and other stakeholders to support and implement actions that contribute to the fulfilment of an ambitious, universal and inclusive policy framework and set of Sustainable Development Goals.

Why craft an advocacy strategy?

An advocacy strategy is a prescribed course of action to achieve your advocacy objectives. Being strategic in advocacy is the key to ensuring maximum impact and effectiveness.

Developing a strategy can help you to put resources to their most effective use; minimize risks and maximize opportunities; identify opportunities for coordination and collaboration; minimize duplication of effort, and; align advocacy with other areas of work and organizational objectives, both long-term and short-term.

There are eight steps to forming your own advocacy strategy. These steps don’t have to be taken in sequence, as advocacy-planning is a cyclic, rather than a linear process.

STEP 1: Select Your Post-2015 Priorities Every advocacy strategy needs to start with a decision on what it is that you want to accomplish.

Deciding on how many issues you want to address will depend on the partners you’re working with, and the capacities of you and your partners to implement a national, regional or global—or combined—advocacy strategy.

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As a first step, you need to identify three or four possible priority issues upon which you can base your post-2015 advocacy strategy. Tackling a small number of strong, focused issues will have a much greater impact in the short- and long-term.

STEP 2: Identify Your Target Audience The next step is to understand which people and institutions you need to influence to make sure your impact is achieved.

Conducting a stakeholder analysis will help you understand which institutions and individuals have a “stake” in your issue, as well as their interests, support or opposition (to you and your priorities), influence and importance.

Finding where different stakeholders stand on your post2015 priority issues will help protect your advocacy efforts from any unforeseen surprises and false assumptions.

STEP 3: Develop Your Messages A strong overarching message will hold your entire advocacy strategy together. If your messages are numerous, vague or too complex, they might not grab the attention of your target audience or have real, memorable impact.

In advocacy, there can be two types of messages: •

Primary message: usually the most universally compelling message for your target audience. It should include a statement, evidence, example, goal and a desired action. www.asianngo.org/magazine

Secondary message: explains how the objectives of the primary message will be met. You can have several secondary messages. These may be tailored to wider, more specific audiences, such as decision-makers, the media and the general public.

Sample of a Good Primary Message “Climate change is the greatest threat to lasting poverty eradication and sustainable development. Poor and marginalized communities worldwide are already feeling its effects, and expert opinion indicates that the window of opportunity for avoiding dangerous impacts is rapidly closing. A sustainable development goal on climate change will signal to the international community the need for accelerated and coordinated action on this crucial issue.”

STEP 4: Choose Your Messengers Your message can have a very different impact, depending on who’s delivering it. Messengers are those who may not have the direct power to make decisions or achieve your goals themselves, but have influence over your target audience and, therefore, may be best-placed to deliver your message.

You should choose your messengers strategically and may wish to have different messengers for different forums or audiences, and at different geographical or political levels.

For example, a well-known celebrity could be very effective at delivering your message to the general public, whereas a scientific expert could bring credibility in a political forum.

STEP 5: Identify Opportunities & Activities for Delivering Your Messages Where possible, you should analyze the post-2015 processes at national, regional and global levels to decide how best to get your message heard by your target audience. It will simply not be possible to engage in all opportunities at all levels, and spreading your messages too broadly can result in them losing clarity and appeal.

There are a number of different mediums you can use to deliver your advocacy messages. Three of the most common ways for delivering an advocacy message are lobbying or negotiating, public campaigns and working with the media.

/AsianNGO

STEP 6: Take Stock & Identify Gaps Before putting your advocacy strategy into action, you should take careful stock of your advocacy resources.

This includes previously established advocacy work, partnerships and alliances, the capacities of staff and other partners, and information and political intelligence available to you.

To avoid developing advocacy plans that require more resources than you have available, it’s vital to set out a realistic budget. When budgeting for your advocacy strategy, include the core costs of maintaining and strengthening advocacy capacity, as well as resources needed for specific actions.

STEP 7: Manage Risks No matter how much you plan, there are still a number of risks you could face. For example, when you “go public” with your post-2015 advocacy strategy there’s always the risk that reputations, relationships and partners will be affected.

Before you’ll be able to manage risk in your advocacy strategy, you should spend some time identifying and analyzing potential risks. Examine the likelihood of a possible threat occurring and the impact that it might have on your activities and success.

This assessment, made early on in your strategy development, can in turn help you to determine how best to plan and implement your advocacy in order to minimize risks through careful selection of activities, messages and messengers.

Risk management is often about weighing opportunity costs, and certainly about working in partnership as much as possible.

STEP 8: Monitor & Evaluate Progress & Impact You need to incorporate a system into your advocacy plan by which you can check whether your strategy is working to achieve your intended impact.

Monitoring and evaluation is all about learning from what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, and taking action to adjust your strategy accordingly. Regular monitoring and evaluation will help you assess how well you’re doing against the objectives and the impact you’ve set, and ensure you use your time and resources effectively.

Source

Advocacy Toolkit: Influencing the Post-2015 Development Agenda, Civicus, Stakeholder Forum, U.N. DESA

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NonProfit & Civil Society

•

The only individual-based professional association bringing together all parts of the humanitarian sector

More than 3 400 professional members

Active network of more than 35 000

Enhancing capacity to respond to current and future crises

Read more and apply for membership at www.phap.org 30

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

www.asianngo.org/magazine

NonProfit & Civil Society

IN NUMBERS

Top 3 Opportunities Civil Society will Advocate for in 2016 Source: Global Opportunity Report 2016, DNV GL, the U.N. Global Compact & Monday Morning Global Institute

Reduce Food Waste

The State of Trust Increase in trust, 2012-2016

2013

2014

NGOs

2015

1 in 3

Antibiotic-free Food

52%

don’t have a formal recruitment STRATEGY.

67%

don’t have a formal recruitment BUDGET.

Nonprofits

- NGOs make up the most trusted sector.

2012

Smart Farming

2016

66 55

Business

62

report that hiring is the biggest staffing challenge.

Source: 2015 Nonprofit Employment Practices Survey, Nonprofit HR

of nonprofits reported “using a network of friends and colleagues as one of their primary recruiting sources”.

91%

Most candidates for senior/executive level positions come from other nonprofits.

Nonprofit Directors

53

85%

56 49

69%

51

40%

First Time Donor Retention

are moderately or very satisfied with the performance of their organization.

Media

Government

43

Source: 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman

/AsianNGO

29%

say their organization has faced 1 or more serious governancerelated problems in the past 10 years.

say they have been unable to meet fundraising targets.

have experienced serious financial difficulties.

Source: 2015 Survey on Board of Directors of Nonprofit Organizations, Stanford Business School

19% Repeat Donor Retention

63% * Data from 8,025 survey respondents covering year-to-year fundraising results for 2013-2014.

Source: 2015 Fundraising Effectiveness Project Survey, Fundraising Effectiveness Project

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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Construct to Conserve

How this Singaporean Company th Placed 10 in Global Sustainability

by Nicole Razo 32

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

www.asianngo.org/magazine

CSR

interview

W

ith 195 countries adopting the Paris Agreement at COP21 in late 2015, the world took a fundamental step towards a zero-carbon and climate-resilient world. This time, the private sector is front and center.

The U.N. Global Compact-Accenture CEO Study has found that 91 percent of 750 business leaders it surveyed agreed that climate action is vital for the future success of their companies.

Companies now realize that sustainability must be a top priority to help them make the most out of their capital, maximize employee performance and use their resources effectively. Those who achieve high performance on a broad spectrum of sustainability indicators make up Corporate Knights’ 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World list for 2016.

City Developments Limited (CDL), Singapore’s property pioneer since 1963, ranked 10th in this year’s top 100, up from 34th in 2015. A testament to its commitment towards environmental sustainability and social responsibility, CDL is the first Singaporean company to be listed in three of the world’s sustainability benchmarks.

Esther Tan, CDL’s Chief Sustainability Officer, talks about the multi-awarded company’s journey to help create a greener and more sustainable Singapore.

How is CDL driving up its sustainability agenda?

CDL has spearheaded numerous groundbreaking innovations in green properties. To date, CDL has had over 80 Green Mark certified buildings and office interiors— the highest among Singaporean developers.

In addition, we’ve galvanized like-minded green partners to create green community spaces such as My Tree House, the world’s first green library for children, and CDL Green Gallery, Singapore’s first zero-energy green gallery.

/AsianNGO

Photo: CDL

We’ve also devoted much time and effort to communicate our sustainability vision and mission. We’ve introduced several key platforms to engage with and get the message across to our contractors and suppliers. CDL also launched several eco-outreach initiatives to influence our tenants to adopt the good habits of “reduce, reuse and recycle.” To date, over 90 percent of CDL’s existing tenants have signed the CDL Green Lease Memorandum of Understanding, pledging their commitment to monitor, manage and reduce energy consumption.

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Photo: CDL

CSR

interview

CDL ranked an impressive 10th in the top 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World.

How were you able to achieve this?

The vision of doing good for the community and the environment came at a time when the building and construction industry was widely perceived to be “destroying before constructing.” Under our late Deputy Chair Kwek Leng Joo, we made a change in the way we managed our business and operations as well as our supply chain.

The aim is to strike a balance across financial, social and environmental performance—the “triple bottom line.”

The award reflects our strong commitment to sustainability. We aim to “construct to conserve,” and we’ve committed to adopting a holistic life-cycle approach towards sustainable development.

At the operational level, we apply a three-pronged approach—designing and developing sustainable properties or green buildings, managing buildings in an energy and resource-efficient way, and engaging and influencing stakeholders to support our commitment. This allows us to pioneer visionary practices, champion groundbreaking innovations and set new sustainability benchmarks.

/AsianNGO

What makes your approach to sustainability different?

One important formula of our success is the strategic and holistic integration of sustainability into our business and operations.

For any organization to achieve success in longterm sustainability, it has to start with an in-depth assessment of the company’s business model, and devise a strategic and long-term plan to effect fundamental change.

Taking the building industry as an example, sustainable development is much more than having some eco-friendly features within the properties.

Instead, strong commitment from top management is required, so that sustainability can become deeply embedded in a company’s corporate DNA. This is crucial, as it provides the anchor in all aspects of business strategy and operations.

Let’s talk more about long-term sustainability.

For long-term sustainability, businesses must also continuously re-evaluate, evolve and seek green innovations, sustainable solutions and more efficient use of resources. This is why CDL has been investing 2 to 5 percent of construction costs of each new project into eco-friendly features and innovations.

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interview

#RBSASIA

The Responsible Business Summit Asia 2016

Photo: CDL

17-18 May 2016 | Singapore

To ensure that we remain on track, we’ve also adopted a proactive approach to sustainability reporting.

What gets measured, gets done.

Sustainability reporting is an effective tool to measure, improve and benchmark our sustainability performance while enhancing corporate governance, transparency and stakeholder engagement.

CDL also recently formalized its Climate Change Policy.

Globally, buildings account for 40 percent of energy consumption and 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

In Singapore, the buildings and construction sector is also a key contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Developers and builders can and must mitigate the effects of climate change.

In 2011, we pledged to attain low-carbon operations with reduction targets set at 22 percent in 2020 and 25 percent in 2030 against the baseline year 2007.

We’re on track to achieve our targets. In 2014, CDL achieved 21 percent reduction in carbon emissions, up from 18 percent in 2013.

Our sustainability efforts also generated S$36.5 million (about US$29.5 million) 36

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

worth of savings from annual electricity consumption from 57 Green Markawarded buildings between 2008 and 2014.

We were also able to increase our renewable energy generation by 9 percent in 2014.

Formalizing our Climate Change Policy is a natural progression towards our longstanding commitment to environmental best practices.

In your opinion, will climate change policies become a trend among Asian businesses?

Globally, and not just in Asia, companies are facing increased environmental responsibility and accountability, pushed forward by numerous factors such as green legislation and public pressure through social media backlash. This has been the driving force for companies to become proactive rather than reactive.

Consumers are also increasingly demanding that firms operate in a responsible manner.

With green consumerism on the rise across the world, there are tremendous opportunities for companies to make a meaningful impact for communities and the environment as they conduct and grow their business.

Leverage value chain opportunities & minimize supplier risks in Asia Hear from these sustainability leaders:

Rob Coombs President & Chief Executive Officer Asia Pacific

Frank Haunert VP Direct Procurement Asia Pacific

Esther An Chief Sustainability Officer

Simon Lord Chief Sustainability Officer

Saurish Nandi Vice President Procurement

William Anderson VP Social & Environmental Affairs Asia Pacific

ethicalcorp.com/rbs-asia

www.asianngo.org/magazine

CSR

Commentary

Photo: Dripta Roy / TPSW 2014

The Overlooked Opportunity

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has launched with very little fanfare. In fact, ask any passersby, and they likely wouldn’t even know that it has been established on Dec. 31. But here it is, and we’re not yet ready—particularly with regards to our region’s huge and rapidly growing refugee and migrant population.

It’s no longer enough to merely be reactive and respond to crises and influxes when they happen. The problems we face as a regional community can no longer be seen as ad hoc, but rather as a long-term, continuous occurrence that will only become normality alongside the AEC. The mass migration of those fleeing conflict or natural disasters, or to seek a better living elsewhere, can no longer be perceived as a humanitarian consideration, but as an overlooked development issue that will ultimately determine our sustainability and success as a community.

If the vision of the AEC is to build one united ASEAN community, then its launch gives us another chance to prove that we can truly provide status mobility opportunities for all, wherever they are, and not only for those who we perceive as our fellow citizens.

Evidence from the field suggests that the majority of refugees and migrants are willing and able to learn their host country’s language and assimilate into society. Many of the Myanmar refugees in Thailand, for instance, have firmly expressed that they wish to learn the Thai language, in order to contribute to both Thai and Myanmar societies in the future.

/AsianNGO

AUTHOR

Oranutt Narapruet Oranutt Narapruet is a Project Development Coordinator at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Thailand, where she leads corporate engagement initiatives and oversees the progress of multi-million dollar refugee assistance and development programs.

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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Refugees from Myanmar undergo computer training under the International Rescue Committee in Thailand. Photo: IRC

For these people, the increasingly porous national borders offer protection and opportunities. We’ll need people who can speak more than one language, and who can communicate effectively with others from different cultures. These much sought-after “soft skills” will need to permeate throughout all levels of an organization and not merely at the top.

For businesses and governments, opportunities for trade will need to go hand-in-hand with locals willing to migrate, if they are to form a sustainable AEC. Efforts to converge these two sides can, and must, increase.

A Paradigm Shift But first, there needs to be a paradigm shift in our stance on protecting national sovereignty. By placing migrants and refugees—many of whom are highly skilled in their own right—into a box of low-income manual labor without capitalizing on their potential strengths in the hopes of protecting jobs for our own people, nations will only become less competitive.

Although real wage growth in Asia and the Pacific has continued to outperform other regions in the past few years, the inequality gap has also widened, with benefits not trickling down to the poorest in our society.

A large proportion of those who remain at the bottom of the wage spectrum are migrants who moved to another country to seek better economic prospects. The majority of these, in turn, aren’t formally registered as migrant workers, but work informally with no social safety nets or protection from their employers, host governments or from the wider society. Most of those still classified as refugees, on the other hand, are earning nothing as they remain in camps.

The likelihood of refugees returning home is usually very low, because there’s usually very little for them to return to. Many younger refugees—particularly those whose parents fled prolonged crises, such as the one seen in Myanmar—were born and grew up in camps and, therefore, have no emotional ties to their countries of origin. Making it difficult for refugees and 38

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

migrants to register to legally work in a host country will only mean that they’ll try to work illegally, thereby causing governments additional social problems. Or they’ll try to migrate to another country, where those problems will be replicated.

Governments must reconsider their policies on refugees and migrants and find a way to incentivize, rather than restrict, the private sector in offering opportunities for quality training and employment. This way, refugees and migrants who have the right skills can sustainably integrate into society.

Providing quality, high-level career opportunities for migrants and refugees would organically advance labor conditions throughout an organization.

Those with higher skills and positions would inherently understand the challenges—both cultural and proficiency-related—that their lower-paid peers face, as well as what would need to be done in order to improve.

We already see this happening in the refugee camp setting, where refugees who are employed as managers by an international NGO, for example, consult their supervisees regularly and advocate for and address their needs and priorities without the need to be prompted. This scenario can only be amplified in a larger organization. Employees at the lower rungs of the ladder would, on the other hand, place increased trust in their employers, boosting workforce loyalty and diligence.

In this light, the private sector must continue to work with civil society to advocate for a broad policy change, so that we can secure an elevation of market competitiveness and social welfare in the future. In the meantime, businesses should meet with the refugees and migrants in their countries to begin building upon their skills and aspirations—it’s a start that can only lead to progress. www.asianngo.org/magazine

CSR

The Makings of

Humanistic Management

Photo: Humanist Learning Systems

by Ernst von Kimakowitz

In making progress towards addressing the main challenges we face as a global community, businesses can play an even greater role than it does today.

Doing so is contingent, however, upon re-establishing a meaningful relationship between the means and the ends of business and its role in society. In essence, we need to depart from a one-dimensional goal-setting where maximizing profit is the only aspiration of a business organization, and shift towards the “triple bottom line” in assessing business success.

Being profitable is a necessary condition of sustainability for any business organization, but it’s not its raison d’être—profit is a means but not an end in itself.

The reason why we want prospering businesses in our communities is because they deliver goods and services that meet genuine human needs, because they provide livelihoods through employment opportunities, and because they allow us to collaborate in creating value and finding innovative solutions to the challenges we face.

In short: the end of business is to serve society. Healthy profits are only a means to gain and maintain the capacity for doing so, not vice versa.

The 3-Pronged Approach to Humanistic Management As a guiding framework to support the positive impact that businesses can generate, we’ve developed the ThreePronged Approach to Humanistic Management at the Humanistic Management Center.

Combining theoretical insights with empirical evidence has led us to define the three main characteristics of companies that seek to do well as much as they do good. These are the unconditional respect for human dignity, the integration of ethical reflection in management decisions, and the active and ongoing engagement with stakeholders.

/AsianNGO

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

39

Energizing sustainable city Energizing sustainable city development. development.

Siemens answers for efficient energy supply help cities grow sustainably.

Siemens answers for efficient energy supply help cities grow sustainably.

By upgrading the Kirishskaya Power Plant, St. Petersburg can help meet the rising By upgrading the Kirishskaya Power Plant, St. Petersburg can help meet the rising

Siemens technology ensures the region’s growing energy Siemens technology ensures demands are met in an the region’sresponsible growing energy ecologically way. demands are met in an ecologically responsible way.

40

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

energy demand while at the same time substantially reducing CO2 emissions. energy while at the same time In Northdemand Africa our energy solutions ensure substantially reducing CO2 emissions.

In North Africa our energy solutions ensure

cities like Casablanca have a reliable electricity supply. In New York our building cities like are Casablanca a reliable solutions loweringhave energy costs. elecAnd tricity supply.

In New York our building in China we’re transporting hydro power, solutions are lowering1,400 energy generated in Yunnan, kmcosts. to theAnd city in China we’re transporting hydro power, of Guangzhou. All around the globe, generated Yunnan, 1,400 km to the city Siemens is in helping cities become the kinds of Guangzhou.

All around the globe, of places where people, businesses and Siemens is helping become the we’re kinds the environment cancities thrive.

Every day of places where people, businesses and working with the world to create answers the environment can thrive.

Every day we’re that will last for years to come. working with the world to create answers that will last for years to come.

siemens.com

www.asianngo.org/magazine

CSR

Unconditional respect for human dignity

Integration of ethical reflection in management decisions

Respect for Human Dignity Respect for human dignity may seem somewhat remote from business at first glance, but it’s central to a humanistic management paradigm. A condition for fruitful human interaction is mutual respect for one another. Doing business involves human interaction, and business leadership is first and foremost about being a human being.

Our dignity lies in our capacity to autonomously define the purpose of our existence—and business can promote as well as hamper our ability to do so. Paying living wages, ensuring safe working conditions, or avoiding environmental damages that adversely affect people’s health or their ability to farm their own food are but a few examples of how businesses can be agents for self determination and a life of dignity.

With humanistic management, businesses don’t accept that people create value for a business under undignified conditions and they don’t pose preventable limitations on their stakeholders’ ability to live a selfdetermined life.

Integration of Ethical Reflection in Management Decisions Businesses that are serious about respecting human dignity examine management decisions in terms of their consequences and the risks for all those affected. They don’t wait for costly public outcries if and when misdemeanor makes the headlines before they respond with corrective action, nor do they view CSR programs only as a tool to manage reputational risks.

With humanistic management, businesses think that protecting their integrity through adhering to self-imposed, strong values needs no further reasoning for it’s the right thing to do.

Active & Ongoing Engagement with Stakeholders Through stakeholder engagement, businesses learn about the interests and concerns of all those who are touched by their operations. Aiming for compromise where interests are in conflict and allowing for the power /AsianNGO

Active and ongoing engagement with stakeholders

of the better argument to supersede factual power, they gain and maintain a high level of public legitimacy.

With humanistic management, businesses are willing and able to make their decisions transparent, while listening to and acting upon the concerns voiced by their stakeholders.

Stakeholder engagement allows the sharing of responsibility and the gaining of insights on public perceptions. This, in turn, provides business intelligence to refine value propositions and promote ongoing success in the market place.

Reality Proves Possibility Reality proves possibility—many business leaders I talk to know that sustaining business success over time depends on a value proposition to society at large.

They have a deep sense of responsibility towards the communities in which they operate and act accordingly.

Not only at home, but around the world, not only within their own operations but also along their supply chains: they create shared value and share the value created.

Others, however, lag behind and have yet to embrace ideas that establish a meaningful relationship between the means and ends of business.

Humanistic management follows strategies and practices aimed at the creation of sustainable human welfare. Making progress towards a more sustainable and more equitable world is an imperative, not an option.

We need to step up our efforts to preserve the natural capacity of our planet to support life and we need to find more equitable ways to distribute wealth—neither will be possible without the great innovative powers of business.

AUTHOR Dr. Ernst von Kimakowitz is the director of the Humanistic Management Center, a Swiss-based think-tank, learning institution and advisory firm on business ethics and corporate responsibility. ernst.von.kimakowitz@humanisticmanagement.org @humanisticmgmt humanistic-management-center www.humanisticmanagement.org

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

41

CSR as a Branding Tool in Emerging Markets

Too often these days, branding just means design. People take it to only mean the logo, name and colors—and that’s like the final coat of paint on a finished house.

Great branding is that, plus the rest of the house down to its foundation. A company’s brand is every facet of the way they’re perceived in the minds of the public. A large and quickly growing part of this perception is a company’s commitment to corporate social responsibility.

The good news is that a company’s CSR doesn’t have to be done at a major expense and, if done well, can produce a great return-on-investment in the same way that an effective advertisement campaign can.

While each country is unique, companies all find similar challenges trying to adapt to new cultures, consumers, regulations, infrastructure and other considerations.

The key is to make sure you’re getting all the branding “bang for your buck” out of the campaign, but without seeming like that was the point all along. In general, good CSR efforts are those that are genuine. People can sniff out the fakes fairly easily, so make sure your CSR campaign is coming from the right place.

One key challenge for these companies is projecting a positive image of their brand, which is important even if only to hire a workforce, but is critically vital to build up a customer base.

CSR in Emerging Markets With the world’s traditional economic powerhouses still stuck in low-growth mode, businesses continue to turn to the developing world en masse, as that’s where all the progress seems to be coming from.

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There’s a natural human tendency to be suspicious of outsiders, and this is especially true in emerging market economies where some foreign companies have been seen to engage in questionable conduct. But consumers in these countries also tend to be open to new brands and have few fixed loyalties.

www.asianngo.org/magazine

Part of the key to winning over consumers is in making a concerted effort towards the betterment of their country and the lives of the people in it.

Charity Work as a Branding Strategy Just about any good deed a company can do can generate positive publicity. Whether it’s a company outing to do volunteer work, or donating money or essentials to those in need, it creates a feel-good story that local press will likely want to cover.

For example, a company is readying the launch of their new breakfast cereal in an emerging market. What story is more likely to run—the press release they send out with launch details, or the story of them donating truckloads of cereal to poor families in remote areas?

Of course a campaign like this can’t replace more traditional marketing, but it can certainly complement it— plus it’s the right thing to do.

Educational Initiatives One of the best ways to lift people out of poverty is through education and training, and it just so happens that most companies expanding into a developing country will need to provide extensive training to their new employees.

The smartest companies are now building actual schools for this and are teaching a range of skills much broader than simply what’s needed from their workers. Even better yet, they build and fund a school where local children can get an education and where they can hold adult education and training classes on evenings and weekends. /AsianNGO

The cost of doing this can be much lower than you might expect, and certainly is cheaper in the long term than being unable to consistently find qualified workers.

GLOBAL CSR SUMMIT AND AWARDS 2016

The incredible good will generated in the community, alongside being able to really make a difference in people’s lives, is a nice side effect.

Implement a CSR Strategy & Stick to It

Remember, CSR isn’t just a box to be checked off, it’s an integral part of defining your brand.

In developing countries, it’s one of the best ways to win over new, loyal customers.

You should approach your CSR strategy the way you do any other project—setting targets, establishing key performance indicators, measuring results and holding people accountable.

In emerging market economies, it’s about more than your responsibility to being a member of the community in good standing, it’s about presenting your brand as being dedicated to a country and invested in its future.

Event Partners

Media Partners

www.csr-indonesia.com

AUTHOR MultiVerse Asia (MV-Asia) is an independent marketing agency based in Myanmar helping brands stand out in Myanmar’s fast-growing and competitive marketplace. hello@MV-Asia.com /MultiVerseAsia /MultiVerseAsia www.multiverseasia.com

PINNACLE GROUP

INTERNATIONAL

The Pinnacle Group International

Ct Hub, 2 Kallang Ave, #07-26 Singapore 339407 +65 6444 9049 www.pinnaclegroup.global

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

43

CSR

THE 8TH ANNUAL TM

interview

CSR & the New ASEAN

by Veda Bongalos

2

016 ushered in the beginning of economic integration in a region encompassing more than 622 million people and a market of nearly US$3 trillion: Southeast Asia.

ASEAN countries have put into effect the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), bringing forth a unified market, and a freer movement of goods, capital and labor in the fast-developing region. Among its pillars is a “resilient, inclusive, people-oriented and people-centered ASEAN.” This entails businesses operating in Southeast Asia to become more inclusive and sustainable, upholding human rights by offering safe working environments, fair wages and inclusive work policies. The AEC is anticipated to instill changes in how corporate social responsibility is done in Southeast Asia, with the end goal of contributing to shared prosperity.

CSR in Southeast Asia could become more important than ever before under the AEC and Thomas Thomas, CEO of ASEAN CSR Network, explains why.

What is the state of CSR in Southeast Asia today?

The level of CSR adoption in ASEAN member countries varies widely from country to country. It remains true that philanthropy and charitable activities are considered by many as CSR. If we have a look at the number of businesses and organizations that have signed up to the U.N. Global Compact (UNGC) (Table 1), we’ll see that where there are strong drivers like leadership, progress is noticeable. This is evidenced by Myanmar. The country launched its UNGC Network on May 2012 and, within a span of three years, now has the highest number of UNGC signatories among all ASEAN member states.

44

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

Countries Brunei Darussalam

No. of UNGC business signatories

No. of UNGC signatories

UNGC Network

0

1

No

Cambodia

2

2

No

Indonesia

42

114

Yes

Lao PDR

0

1

No

Malaysia

36

47

Yes

Myanmar

229

236

Yes

Philippines

13

55

Yes

Singapore

48

65

Yes

Thailand

24

32

No

Vietnam

20

70

Yes

Table 1

www.asianngo.org/magazine

CSR

What are AEC’s implications for CSR in the region?

An AEC roadmap—the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint—identifies the promotion of CSR as a key component for social justice and rights in the ASEAN, towards sustainable socio-economic development.

The blueprint calls for a model public policy on CSR with a reference made to relevant international standards and guides such as ISO 26000 or the “Guidance on Social Responsibility.”

There has been a growing movement and demand from stakeholders that businesses working in Southeast Asia adopt CSR practices in their operations.

This is especially so for ASEAN companies that sell their products in the global marketplace.

There has been increasing scrutiny from consumers, government, civil society and other development stakeholders. They’re demanding that companies not only comply with responsible business practices, but also be held accountable for the business practices of their suppliers.

Why is CSR even more vital now to the region?

Sustainability is on the agenda of the AEC and CSR is seen as an enabler for sustainability.

A cohesive, socially responsible, people-centered and economically progressive ASEAN community holds much potential. With diversity, resources and talent, the 600 million-member AEC can be a source for improving the lives of the ASEAN people, making for a more prosperous region.

That’s the sweet spot for businesses.

By adopting responsible business practices according to international norms and standards, these ASEAN businesses will have a competitive edge and be in a better position to grow their market share. /AsianNGO

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

45

Organized by:

ABOUT THE SUMMIT On its fourth year, the ASEAN Corporate Sustainability Summit and Awards 2016 will focus on the agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as defined by the theme “Empowering Sustainable Convergence” and will bring in a detailed forum on SDGs in the Philippines as it aims to motivate and inspire industry leaders, sustainability practitioners, civil society partners, regional regulators, public sector leaders and aid agencies to converge and become more involved in sustainable development.

FOCUS SEGMENTS

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

FOR EXHIBITION | SPONSORSHIP | PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES - MS. GIAN MALIZON 46

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

www.asianngo.org/magazine

Photo: ASEAN CSR Network

CSR

interview

How can CSR enable equitable growth in Southeast Asia?

We need economic growth to create prosperity for our people. Businesses, government and civil society working together to address the challenges that are intertwined with opportunities for CSR will be a way to ensure this works.

That also means tackling various issues such as systemic corruption in businesses and government, promoting human rights and the decent work agenda, working together to tackle transboundary issues like pollution and migrant labor, and looking at other inclusive and sustainable business models in sectors such as agriculture, which forms the backbone of many ASEAN economies.

How, then, can CSR be improved on a regional scale?

We at the ASEAN CSR Network would like to see more companies in ASEAN move beyond charity and philanthropy, and embed responsible business practices according to international standards throughout their organizations.

On a regional level, we need regional action plans and collective action to address critical issues, such as food security and sustainable agriculture.

We accept that we need to do more in raising awareness among all stakeholders, providing skills and tools to implement CSR and have peer networks to share knowledge, best practices and build partnerships.

International businesses, for their part, should have CSR embedded throughout their company so that they can set a good example outside their home base.

They must ensure that their supply chains and value chains are conducted responsibly. They can also help to build capacity of local firms and stakeholders.

We need strong support from top management, business networks, civil society and government in enabling and rewarding responsible businesses. Irresponsible behavior shouldn’t be allowed to continue.

/AsianNGO

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

47

How to Prepare Your Supply Chain for Natural Disasters

Is your supply chain prepared for natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis or tornadoes? A major aspect of handling supply chain management challenges is being certain that you’ve taken the proper steps to ensure that your company’s supply chain is able to withstand emergency situations.

In developing your supply chain, it’s important to assess critical risks such as port availability, where to buy and manufacture products, where distribution centers are located and so forth. Also, the following risks that could affect your processes and should be taken into consideration:

• Political The politics of the country play a large role in your supply chain function. Even if you’ve laid the groundwork for surviving a natural disaster, politics could keep you from fulfilling your emergency operations. Before disasters occur, take into consideration local laws and how they fit into your supply chain management disaster plan.

• Logistical Consider your sources of primary and alternative logistic network modes—air, land, sea and rail. Are they readily available? What is their proximity to your supply chain? Is your infrastructure in place?

• Economical & Market The economy can take a huge hit after a natural disaster. From unstable fuel prices to inflation, your supply chain must withstand wild fluctuations.

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AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

Once you’ve considered all the factors that could have an effect on your supply chain, it’s time to develop your plan of attack. Follow these guidelines to establish an emergency-ready supply chain:

Plan Ahead An excellent way to prevent mistakes in your supply chain is to run different scenarios past your team.

Start with best case-, move to average case- and end with worst-case scenarios; this will put your organization to the test to see how they would handle pre- and post-disaster situations.

DID YOU KNOW? 4 of the World’s Most Disaster-prone Countries are in Asia: China India Indonesia The Philippines —2015 Asia-Pacific Disaster Report, ESCAP

www.asianngo.org/magazine

Establish a Crisis Team Before a disaster strikes, establish a crisis team that’s responsible for making decisions and communicating those decisions throughout the supply chain. Communication is often lost or compromised during a disaster, so establishing the roles that a select few will manage is imperative to keeping your supply chain intact.

Use a Variety of Suppliers Maintaining a good relationship with a variety of suppliers is critical to your supply chain. Use suppliers who utilize different ports of dispatch, as it allows the ability to control costs and service levels in business-as-usual times, and tremendous flexibility in times of disaster recovery. Diversify transportation and have alternate routes in case of transportation disruption.

Ask for Disaster Plans from Suppliers Part of your supply chain preparedness relies on the disaster plans from your suppliers and logistics providers. Review your suppliers’ disaster plans on a regular basis, and align their plans with your supply chains’.

Maintain Detailed Processes & Procedures Always keep your supply chain processes and procedures up-todate with the latest plans. Disasters often bring in additional people who will need to review the latest documents.

Monitor Regions for Threats Threats and trends in many countries or regions can impact the stability of your supply chain. Increase your awareness of variables that

/AsianNGO

could sideline trade: elections, political unrest, trade sanctions,free trade programs, currency exchange, labor rates, inflation, quotas, fuel prices, port and transportation strikes and pending legislation.

Analyze the Need for Products Consider a variety of disasters; what products and supplies will be in high demand in the aftermath?

Determine an outline of necessities before a disaster strikes. You’ll already know how the demand for your products will be affected by the emergency.

CSR

CSR

o

ec

al ci so

y

g lo

economy

CSR 2016

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) 30-31 st May, 2016 th

4 International Conference on

Ensure Flexibility Without question, product demand fluctuates in a disaster. Before a disaster, confirm that your supply chain has the capacity to withstand an increase in demand. Conversely, if your products are not needed, make sure you are able to slow the demand so unused inventory doesn’t bottleneck.

Organizers & Supporters

Ensure Data Backups are Offsite Back-up or save all of your traderelated documents in an electronic format and store records offsite.

If a disaster occurs onsite, your records will be in another location— safe and sound.

Don’t wait until it’s too late; it’s time to safeguard your supply chain against a potentially catastrophic situation. The steps you take now to ensure your supply chain management plan is disaster-ready can save you time, money, your bottom line and even the lives of those involved in the process.

Source

University Alliance www.usanfranonline.com

We Shape Future

Asia - Pacific Institute of Management New Delhi, India

Media Partners

Email : serd.csr@gmail.com, csr@serd.org.in

Website : www.csr2016.serd.org.in 49

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

Sustainability & Corporate Philanthropy: Un-Blurring the Lines

by Brooke Avory Today’s businesses have an opportunity to drive greater impact by exploring how their sustainability initiatives can contribute to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, such as supporting gender equality and ensuring healthy lives and well-being.

Companies might approach this by investing in inclusion in the communities where they do business—through jobs, infrastructure, and their technical capacity and expertise. In this exercise, companies should also consider how philanthropic dollars can be a part of investment in local communities.

And this brings us back to corporate philanthropy: How can companies integrate their sustainability initiatives and corporate philanthropy programs to maximize their greatest strengths?

Through our work with BSR members analyzing the relationship between sustainability and philanthropy, we’ve identified three recommendations for companies embarking on this journey:

Look for Alignment If sustainability and philanthropic activities are detached from one another, such as, in some cases, when philanthropic initiatives are run through a corporate foundation, companies may miss the chance to reinforce or complement their sustainability commitments through their philanthropic programs.

For example, a heavy manufacturing and construction company we worked with found that, while an important part of its sustainability strategy was reducing its environ50

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

mental impact, none of its community investment or philanthropy programs were related to the environment.

Additionally, philanthropic activities weren’t connected to existing programs for local community or stakeholder benefit, another key aspect of the company’s sustainability strategy.

Use Business Resources Mapping opportunities for sustainability-philanthropy strategy alignment can also reveal opportunities for maximizing the full value companies have to offer in terms of their access to finance, products, technology or human capital.

For example, investments that companies might make to help the business grow, such as roads or telecommunications infrastructure, could also bring benefits to local communities and contribute to local philanthropic goals.

Focus on Impact As companies seek to understand the benefit that their greater sustainability programs bring, they are also focusing on their philanthropy efforts. While impact measurement is a complex process, companies can move from focusing on outputs—what activity was completed or the extent of the activity—to thinking about the outcomes, or the short- and long-term changes in the external world that their programs are seeking to achieve.

Taking an outcome-based approach can help companies set and track more ambitious targets and goals, such as those in the SDGs.

Some companies are also taking steps to better capture the value of their philanthropic programs, including understanding the social return on investment of their philanthropic dollars and understanding the value of outcomes, like the improved well-being of community members due to investments in health, technology, or education.

This is another important development in the evolution of corporate philanthropy.

Source

www.bsr.org

AUTHOR Brooke Avory is the manager for partnership development and research at BSR in Hong Kong, China. bavory@bsr.org @BSRnews /brookeavory

www.asianngo.org/magazine

CSR

IN NUMBERS

On Supply Chains 72% identified

physical & other climaterelated risks.

Business saw the biggest rise in trust.

Perception of climate risks has grown from 78% in 2013 to 84% in 2015.

Suppliers with an emissions reduction target grew from 50% to 56%.

Suppliers reporting gross global emissions increased from 68% to 85%.

Source: From Agreement to Action: Mobilizing Suppliers Toward a ClimateResilient World, BSR & We Mean Business

80%

5pts

regulatory,

Global average, annual earnings Source: The Global Gender Gap Report 2015, World Economic Forum

agree that most business should play a role in addressing societal issues.

CEOs’ Focus 2006

Too much

67%

Focus on shortterm financial results

57%

Positive long-term impact

U$6k

U$11k

Not enough

57%

Lobbying

49%

Job creation 2015

Source: 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer, Edelman

Unilever was the first company

US$11k US$21k

to produce a standalone report using the U.N. Guiding Principles Reporting Framework.

What U.S. company executives think of doing business in ASEAN.

Only 4 out of 20 companies are fully open about disclosure and the way they track and deal with forced labor in their supply chains.

17 out of 20 companies have formal policies to address the potential for human trafficking and forced

75% 72%

believe that ASEAN integration is important in helping their companies do business in the region reported that their company’s level of trade and investment in ASEAN has increased over the past 2 years

Source: 2016 ASEAN Business Outlook Survey, AmCham

jobs and 8 Good economic growth

SDG #8 is the top-rated SDG in terms of business

3 Good health

Next is SDG #3 on good health and well-being.

potential.

labor, but none disclosed management incentives linked to addressing those issues.

SDGs perceived with the lowest potential business opportunity are those concerning inequality–both in terms of gender and income–as well as the goal on partnerships for the SDGs.

Source: KnowTheChain

Source: Global Opportunity Report, DNV GL, the United Nations Global Compact & Monday Morning Global Institute *A survey of 5,567 leaders from business, government and civil society across five continents. And more than 200 sustainability experts from eight countries.

/AsianNGO

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

51

interview

India’s Next Big Social Innovations

by Veda Bongalos

A

competition in India has named the forerunners of the next wave of innovative entrepreneurs in the South Asian country.

The competition, named Impact-a-preneur Quest, honors entrepreneurs in India who aim to deliver social impact and helps these entrepreneurs turn their ideas into actual solutions. The quest held on Jan. 30, is the brainchild of Villgro, an organization that incubates early-stage business ideas through its Unconvention initiative, and of TiE Chennai, a nonprofit association that supports the growth of entrepreneurship worldwide.

“Social enterprise in India is still nascent,” says Mohan Loganathan, Unconvention representative, who highlights the importance of showcasing India’s budding social enterprise sector through the Impact-apreneur Quest.

“The motto of the competition is basically to recognize and support social entrepreneurs,” he says. “It gives them the opportunity to validate their ideas. They’ll also be triggered to think more about their business models.”

Photo: Impact-a-Preneur Quest

Entries’ business models were assessed through five parameters—innovation, social impact, sustainability and scalability, expertise and skills of the entrepreneur or the team, and business feasibility. Out of 130 entries from India, two emerged as winners—Avisek Barla of Micro Life Innovations and Dr. Arumugam Muruganandam of Affigenix Biosolutions.

52

AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

www.asianngo.org/magazine

social enterprise

Winner

MICRO LIFE INNOVATIONS Avisek Barla is the Founder of Micro Life Innovations and is a final-year student at Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). Micro Life Innovations harnesses the potential of biotechnology for providing people low-cost toolkits that can impact their work and life.

Micro Life Innovations’ winning project focused on developing a Milk Adulteration Detection Kit, which would allow the detection of health hazards found in milk before it’s consumed, through a pH strip live device.

What is Micro Life Innovations all about?

We at Micro Life Innovations believe in bringing power to the hands of people in the form of technology, specifically biotechnology. We envision running low-cost diagnostic labs at relatively resource-free settings in India. Currently, we’re testing our setup to detect adulteration in dairies. Our solution consists of a cost-effective, pH strip live device that can detect common adulterants (or substances that should not be present in a certain setting—Editor).

It’s built keeping the end customers such as farmers and housewives in mind, who are unskilled and would require fast and robust results. It enables farmers to earn better cash and housewives to be better educated about urea, detergents, formalin, glucose, starch and other harmful substances that can be found in adulterated milk.

What gave you an edge over other entries?

It was a tough competition and I hadn’t anticipated on winning. Reflecting back on the event, what gave us the most confidence was our technology. An affordable and scalable technology is at our disposal, which had been developed according to the needs of stakeholders. Our product solves an issue that hasn’t been addressed with a concrete solution, and has the potential to help both producers and consumers. I hope it becomes a disruptor and corrects the many wrongs in society in terms of adulteration.

A multi-disciplinary team guarantees that we attack a problem from multiple directions and come up with a solution that is unique.

What advice can you give to other start ups in Asia?

What I’ve learned is to first have a good team, who are capable and who bring in varying perspectives.

While your aim should be the same, the ways it can be approached should be different. It’s on the team to figure out how to get along and choose one path.

Choosing a worthy problem is the next big task, which must be done by talking to stakeholders. Please don’t Google and then make a product. Assumptions are dangerous in making products, especially something for a social venture. It needs to be absolutely clear that someone will pay you for your product.

How do you stay innovative?

We generally needn’t innovate all the time, but would like to solve issues that we take up. If it requires innovation, we’re capable enough to think of new solutions.

/AsianNGO

One of the biggest factors in the death of a social enterprise is the lack of scalability of the model, so make sure to talk to as many people as you can before taking a dip.

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We’re concentrating on our Milk Adulteration Detection Kit, but we definitely have our eyes fixed on entering diagnostics. Our aim is to run labs in rural settings.

We’d like to work on tropical diseases that worry countries like India and many Southeast Asian countries— the major pain-point being the lack of point-of-care devices for such diseases.

Winner

Photo: Impact-a-Preneur Quest

What future innovations can we expect from you?

AFFIGENIX BIOSOLUTIONS Dr. Arumugam Muruganandam is the Managing Director and the Chief Scientific Officer of Affigenix Biosolutions. The biotech company’s focus is on research, particularly on antibody engineering, immuno- and molecular diagnosis.

The development of Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) Technology for the Diagnosis of Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) is Affigenix’s winning entry.

The company is developing a solar-powered, isothermal gene amplification technology that can reveal the presence or absence of UTI among women and children in just a few minutes at a target price of US$1.

What is Affigenix Biosolutions’ mission?

Affigenix is an emerging, Bangalore-based biotech company that has been in operation since 2013. Our research and development (R&D) facility is equipped to do cutting edge research in areas such as antibody engineering, immuno and molecular diagnosis.

Our mission is to indigenously develop customized products for use at low resource settings.

In the short term, we provide biosolutions to biopharma companies and have developed ~22 products or reagents for drug manufacturing and diagnostic industries. Our long-term plan is to discover and develop products for some unmet medical needs.

What made your entry stand out?

The credit goes to the Affigenix team for adopting and coming up with innovative solutions under a limited budget, in order to cater to the needs of people at the bottom of the population pyramid.

We’ve assembled a team of scientists from rural farming backgrounds with a pioneering spirit, and created a dynamic and challenging environment to develop unique best-in-class reagents. /AsianNGO

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We believe that the unique combination of market-focused research, project ideas, talent, experience, perspectives, and efficient and timely execution has given us an edge by allowing us to responsibly deliver to our clients and investors, grow the company and face any competition.

How do you keep your business sustainable?

Our commitment to Affigenix investors is to control assets, conserve resources, properly structure the balance sheet and become self-sufficient within five years of operation. We develop innovative, quality and cost-effective products and services for biopharma companies and, in the process, generate revenues for our operating expenditures.

We’re growing organically in the business-to-business (B2B) model of operating and expect to scale up the operation gradually. The revenues we gain from the B2B model may not be enough to scale up since there are only a limited number of clients, so we’ve decided to expand into a business-to-consumer (B2C) business model by catering to the diagnostic and agricultural sectors, and start generating revenues to enable R&D efforts that serve social causes.

What motivated your company to engage in social causes?

My investors, family and Affigenix team members are all from rural agriculture areas. We know the pain and the suffering of rural populations, especially the farming community caused by a lack of knowledge, resources and infrastructure, and dependence on Mother Nature to live and to earn.

We then decided to use our knowledge and experience to help the rural sector in the best way we can, by adapting modern technologies to address some unmet medical needs, such as the rapid diagnosis of diseases with no special skills and equipment required.

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How has your experience been as a social business working in India?

The upside of it is attracting experienced scientists with strong execution skills, passion for high standards, commitment to create or innovate, openness to novel ideas and the ability to take calculated risks in value creation to serve underprivileged communities. The downside is that it isn’t possible to attract huge investments from the private sector in terms of scaling up the operations, discovery efforts or projects. Government financial support is also minimal and isn’t available in a timely manner.

What changes would you like to see in India’s social enterprise sector?

I’d like to see a change in the attitude of the government, investors and consumers towards social enterprises, and be willing to give their due share of attention and resources to help social enterprises meet their end objectives.

CSR and right-to-education initiatives are also good steps in the right direction by the government, private schools and industries. An amendment to the country’s CSR regulations to channel funding to start-up companies to carry out research in areas of unmet needs is also one way of helping the social enterprise sector grow.

www.asianngo.org/magazine

social enterprise

commentary

Shifting an Equilibrium

An Excerpt from the New Book “Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works” A system is in equilibrium when it’s balanced and stable. Such systems tend to be pervasive, self-reinforcing, and persistent, even if they are not reasonable, just or fair. As a steady state, systems in equilibrium can feel natural, even inevitable, as the way things are and ever shall be.

Social transformation—that is, positive, fundamental and lasting change to the prevailing conditions—happens when individuals and groups take aim at the status quo, disrupting it by introducing new ways to see it, new actors with interest in and leverage to change it, and new ways to engage technology and stakeholders.

Envisioning a New Future

Vision matters. A compeling image of the future, and clear steps to achieve it, are essential for transformative change.

The path to such transformative change, even when conditions appear ripe, is far from inevitable; nor does it always run smoothly. But social entrepreneurs have demonstrated four essential phases.

It begins with belief in the power of human beings to transform their lives.

Its power lies in balancing specifics within a systemic approach, and its careful consideration of particular beneficiaries in the context of the system as a whole. More often than not, a vision that leads to transformation also has to be adaptable and resilient in the face of changing conditions.

Understanding the World

Building a Model for Change

For social entrepreneurs, deep understanding of a particular status quo propels all that follows. They may start out where most of us do, tacitly accepting “what is.” But then, they set out to understand how the equilibrium came be and why it persists. This involves appreciating the workings of a system even while abhorring its outcomes; drawing on their own expertise even while apprenticing with others, and experimenting with interventions to learn what works.

A powerful model for change serves as the scaffold for getting from undesirable equilibrium to the new, desirable status quo. The social entrepreneur takes a creative approach to re-align the dynamics of cost and value in a given system.

Most successful models rely on alliances with those who can be shown that the application of their resources to solve problems affecting marginalized or disenfranchised segments of society will create greater value for all.

Scaling the Solution Ultimately, it’s achieving impact at scale that matters. Scale is the stage that marks the true equilibrium shift, and the stage at which many would-be social entrepreneurs fail. It takes intentional design and hard work—to plan for scale economies from the outset, to take a systemic approach rather than trying to go it alone, and to embrace open-sourcing, encouraging others to build on and advance working models.

AUTHORS

Roger Martin Roger Martin is the Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management in the University of Toronto, Canada.

Sally Osberg Sally Osberg is the President and CEO of Skoll Foundation.

Published with permission from Harvard Business Publishing. /AsianNGO

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SAfety

for Economic Empowerment of Women & Girls

2300+ applications close

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social enterprise

5 Ways to a Successful Launch

by Divya Patel 1. Start with a Clear Social Problem Almost every social entrepreneur I’ve met has been inspired to start their social enterprise as a result of an issue that they have experienced in their personal life or through their extended environment.

While having a broad problem to solve is a great starting point, to build a product or service that can truly help address a problem, you need to go many layers deeper to understand its root cause and genuinely address the cause and not just the symptoms.

Once there is total clarity on the problem, it’s easier to understand who your end users or beneficiaries will be and make sure that your product or service is truly addressing their pain point—hence validating the market need for it.

/AsianNGO

2. Define Your Core Values in the Beginning Itself It’s very important to define in the early stages of your venture what the core values, both personal as well as for the organization, which you’d want to adhere by.

When you start up a new business, you’re never sure of the exact direction that it will take.

In particular, for social enterprises, there are often choices to be made that sometimes feel like a trade-off between financial returns and impact. When you might find yourself at such crossroads, it’s these core values that will be your anchor. As you grow, and take on partners, these values will also help you see if there are alignments and similarities in outlook.

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3. It’s Never Too Early to Start Thinking about Building a Team

5. Don’t Underestimate the Strength of the Company You Keep

When you’re just starting out, you might feel that you really don’t have the financial resources to hire a team. But don’t let that stop you from thinking about the team that you’d like to have and, in doing so, be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses, so that you can bring in people who will complement your skills and fill the gaps.

Make the effort to create a strong peer network around you by attending industry events, conferences and talks.

If you have a strong vision of what you want to achieve, you’ll be able to bring on people even as volunteers and interns who’d be more interested in joining you to make a difference and are driven by a shared purpose.

Mentors can also help in plugging in gaps around strategic thinking and in acting as sounding boards. As you think about working with mentors, look for people who share your passion, can bring their experience to shorten your learning curve, open their networks to you and, most importantly, are able to give you tough but very honest and constructive feedback.

4. Develop Impact Metrics & a Long-term Sustainability Plan Start defining how you’ll measure your impact at the onset. It’s only when you know what you want to measure are you able to actually measure it. Developing impact metrics will help you understand if you’re getting closer to the change that you want to see and if you’re meeting your impact goals. It will also be the data that you’ll use to set a future growth strategy, as well as understand which areas need to be changed or improved.

Learn to give and take within this peer network—this will help you get a better sense of what’s happening within your local social enterprise ecosystem and bring up new sources of funding and partnerships. You’ll also be able to learn through the experiences of your peers and, given that they’re on a journey similar, they will be one of your biggest cheerleaders when things seem difficult.

The Smart Mobile Messenger for Enterprises

Supports Large Teams

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In the end, most importantly: stay resilient and inspired.

There will be many ups and downs in your journey and plenty of times when you’ll have self-doubts and feel like giving up. And while the road ahead might seem long and daunting, be kind to yourself and pause regularly to look back and give yourself a pat on the back for how far you’ve come.

Source

Impact Hub Singapore

Smart Messages

Chatlets

AUTHOR Divya Patel leads Head of Incubation & Mentoring Programs at Impact Hub Singapore, a co-working space and community in Singapore offering mentorship, incubation, events, networking and corporate innovation to entrepreneurs.

Chat Applets

MARKETING PARTNER:

divya@thehub.sg /divya-patel Supported platforms:

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social enterprise

Tips for Scaling Your Social Enterprise

Scaling your social enterprise isn’t just about a straightforward increase in the number of sales made or beneficiaries reached.

As a founder, you’ll realize that you have to evolve and fortify your organization to withstand the growth phase. Based on our experience supporting Growth Challenge Fellows, we’re sharing some of our key insights for all organizations preparing to scale:

Focus on people—develop yourself, your team and your organizational culture.

This is the stage when your leadership style and skills will become extremely important and get repeatedly called upon and tested. Take time to step back and assess your strengths and weaknesses. Solicit feedback, seek out clarifying discussions and accept moral support as you navigate the changes that accompany personal and organizational growth.

Take a fresh look at your organizational structure and understand how existing roles must evolve to fit the new needs of the company. To best facilitate these transitions for your core team, it’s crucial that you have regular meetings where you prepare them for the changes ahead and start to develop them as a second line of leadership.

Finally, just as processes are the visible framework within which you operate and deliver your business, organizational culture and values are the intangible framework within which your team makes decisions, interacts with customers and engages internally with each other. Culture is particularly relevant at this stage and will shift along with the changing organizational structure.

/AsianNGO

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It’s essential that you have a clear understanding of the part you play as a founder in propagating and establishing this culture. Create spaces for the team to discuss it, define it and embed it in everyday work life.

Make sure these values reflect across all your operations and especially in the people-related processes like recruitment, training, performance reviews and more.

Prioritize processes.

Although your attention will constantly be pulled towards your growing core operations, force yourself to set aside time to build supporting processes like an HR policy, administrative guidelines, management information systems and streamlined data collection.

Putting these in place will not only allow your organization to function at a higher level, but will also ensure that your team has the support of structured systems while they adjust to their new responsibilities amidst the scale up.

You’ll need money. Get your organization ready for it.

What does it mean to be investor-ready? When investors evaluate your proposal, they’re not just looking at your entrepreneurial abilities and a tested product or service, but also for a clear vision, complementary team strengths, processes, documentation and growth projections with detailed assumptions.

It’s essential to get your house in order from a legal, financial accounting and processes perspective—seek professional help if necessary—before approaching investors.

Invest time in fleshing out and diversifying your board. Seek out new board members or advisors with appropriate experience and the right mindset for scale.

Make sure they’re willing to commit to a minimum amount of time to the company, as timely access to advice is critical given the dynamic nature of challenges.

This will put you in a good position to meet their assessment benchmark of an investable organization with the potential to deliver a successful exit.

A strong board will be able to guide your organization during its growth, as well as help maintain accountability to the vision and mission.

Have the right advisors at the right time.

Additionally, these advisors and board members often have powerful networks that can be critical to bringing in the right kind of financial and human capital.

It’s likely that until now, your board has consisted mainly of co-founders, family, friends and perhaps some core team members.

Even if you have a diversified board or advisory council already in place, you may find that the current composition isn’t relevant for this new phase your organization is entering. Thus, you risk being without key guidance during an uncertain transition time.

/AsianNGO

AUTHOR UnLtd India is a launchpad for early-stage social entrepreneurs in India. info@unltdindia.org @unltdindia /unltdindia www.unltdindia.org

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Capitalizing Your Social Enterprise

WHAT DO FUNDERS AND INVESTORS WANT FROM SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS? Funders of nonprofit social enterprises generally consider their “cause,” and the social or environmental benefits that an organization or program will generate towards this cause, as the first priority in evaluating funding opportunities.

Investors in for-profit social-purpose businesses, meanwhile, are generally looking for financial returns as their highest priority. They seek market-driven opportunities for a profitable business based on a service or a product that solves real problems.

Specific to social investors, they’re looking for new and innovative solutions to complex social or environmental issues that can be scaled in a significant way to maximize benefit for society.

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Here are the questions that both funders and investors ask to evaluate your social enterprise.

How innovative is the business or service model? Does the organization have adequate people, processes, technologies and governance structures in place to be successful? They’ll seek external validation from existing or potential users of products and services as to the benefits that will be provided.

What is the size of the market opportunity? This is a key consideration for investors and also large funders who are seeking significant impact for a particular cause, rather than funders who focus on support of local grassroots community initiatives.

Is there a viable “go-to-market” or “execution” plan to achieve significant market share and achieve economic or social returns? There are many ideas that will contribute to society in a positive way, but it’s those truly paradigm-changing initiatives that funders and investors seek from social ventures.

Can the funder or investor add value to the scaling of the venture? Can the funder or investor participate in the financing initiative based on their own legal structure?

In addition, the following includes some of the criteria that interested investors may use to assess an idea.

Always try to describe your idea in these terms. Investors use these criteria because they work. A strong fit with these criteria is a good indicator that an idea will be successful, as well as get you the funding.

A clear description of the problem that your business is trying to solve in the market. This includes proof that customers are willing to pay to solve the problem, and proof of how your product or service lessens the pain or solves the problem.

Potential for high growth. Your business must address a large or growing market opportunity, and you clearly understand the customer segments and competitive landscape in your target markets.

Sustainable competitive advantage. You should have few large competitors or well-funded new entrants already in the target market. Investors want to see a protected technology or a business model that will provide a sustainable advantage for the business and its customers.

/AsianNGO

Financial return on their investment (ROI). You need to have developed a sound financial plan that demonstrates how your business will make money and some reasonable scenarios about when your investors will receive a cash return on their investment.

An experienced management team with a thorough and credible execution plan. Ensure that your team includes people who are leaders in their field, have a customer focus and understand the specific subsegments of your target market. Ideally, your senior team will consist largely of individuals who have prior experience in a start up.

Your team should reflect the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs: passion, creativity, strong leadership skills, and an ability to be flexible and adaptable to market changes.

Source

Driving Social Change: Best Practices for Business Leaders and Social Entrepreneurs, The Network for Business Sustainability

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In just 1 year, the total value of social impact investment available worldwide has risen by 30%, from US$46 billion in 2014 to US$60 billion in 2015.

There are currently about

An estimated 150 organizations worldwide offer social entrepreneurs dedicated support at the early stage.

7,000

business incubators worldwide.

Source: From Seed to Impact-Building: The Foundations for a High-Impact Social Entrepreneurship Ecosystem, Global Social Entrepreneurship Network

Spotlight on Myanmar’s SEs Source: Social Enterprise Landscape in Myanmar, British Council

Areas of Concentration Increased access to ideas on social enterprise from overseas

TRENDS SE SPACE

Increased interaction between civil society and businesses with Government

More CSR opportunities

The majority of financially sustainable SEs focus on

/AsianNGO

Access to finance

Civic engagement & civil society promotion, targeted livelihood enhancement programs

Provision of socially beneficial products and services

More business-friendly environment Inclusion of sustainability in funding considerations

Most SEs Are Led by Myanmar Nationals

Provision of basic services

Livelihood enhancement

Vocational training

Microfinance

Challenges

Lack of Basic Physical Infrastructure

Limited Supply of Goods

Improper Donor Funding Structure

High Cost of Real Estate

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IN NUMBERS

Making Bets for

Impact Investing in Asia

by Kristine Azcona

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D

edicating one’s work towards humanity’s progress has come a long way.

Countless organizations have stepped up to take on the critical issues that have plagued society for decades.

As impact investment makes its nest in the philanthropy sector, a number of philanthropic foundations have chosen to travel this route to promote social and environmental impact, while at the same time acquiring financial returns.

One of these is SOW Asia, a charitable organization based in Hong Kong that provides the resources to help social entrepreneurs in East Asia rear their businesses. Scott Lawson, CEO at SOW Asia, takes a moment to paint a picture of the development of impact investing in Asia.

Please walk us through SOW Asia’s work in impact investing.

SOW Asia was setup as a charitable foundation to help mission-driven organizations scale their impact. We see impact investing to be a means, not an end. A lot of people invest as an end to make money. When we got started seven years ago, there was very little happening in the impact investment space in East Asia that we were aware of.

Part of our early work was understanding the market—and the market consisted of two main ingredients. One is the demand for capital among social enterprises, hybrid businesses and any organization that aims to scale its impact using an earned income revenue model. It also consists of the supply of capital, such as impact investors.

We began as an investor, but we quickly discovered that the opportunities are difficult to find and even the most promising organizations needed a lot of nonfinancial capacity building support. We kept our goal to invest into scalable businesses, but we also realized that we needed to do more intermediation.

Our mission was to make successful investments, but as a charitable foundation we also felt a responsibility to the broader community to help develop the infrastructure for greater amounts of social innovation and impact investing.

What is one monumental investment in your portfolio?

We made an investment into a China-based company called GIGA. This was a five-year, no-interest loan. Our financial goal was for the return of the capital, not the return on the capital to get our money back. /AsianNGO

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interview

Innovative Clean Enviro-Solutions for Growing Cities 10 - 14 July 2016 Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore The third biennial CleanEnviro Summit Singapore, organised by the National Environment Agency, Singapore will be held from 10 to 14 July 2016, in conjunction with the Singapore International Water Week and the World Cities Summit. This is a global platform for industry and government leaders to identify, develop and share practical, replicable and scalable solutions to address environmental challenges in the context of the waste-water-energy nexus in growing cities.

EVENT HIGHLIGHTS • High Level Plenaries – Joint Opening Plenary and In-Conversation sessions feature high level dignitaries who will discuss global issues and possible solutions.

• Clean Environment Convention – International and regional speakers share challenges, trends and solutions in cleaning and waste management.

• Clean Environment Regulators Roundtable (By Invitation Only) – A session designed for government, senior regulators and policy makers to exchange regulatory experience and discuss current and emerging challenges.

• City Solutions Singapore (Integrated Expo) – This is a new platform for solution providers to showcase their businesses to buyers.

• Business Forums – Explore business opportunities in China, India, South East Asia, and Latin America.

• Innovation Pitch – Connect with Innovators from dynamic companies who will be showcasing their latest environmental technologies and solutions.

• NEA Pavilion – Find out more about innovative environmental solutions used in Singapore, and vibrant R&D collaborations with industry and academic partners.

Register and find out more at www.cleanenvirosummit.sg ORGANISED BY

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Photo: Asian Philanthropy Forum/SOW Asia

philantrophy

interview

What is your take on the impact investing climate in Asia today?

The reason why we structured it that way is because GIGA is a company that represents the challenge that many social enterprises face—they had an interesting business model and much potential impact, but commercial investors didn’t understand why the impact was important.

Relatively speaking, the investment opportunity was quite small for them, so it didn’t make sense on a commercial basis. At the same time, GIGA was having difficulty finding commercial funding, because of the hybrid nature of their model. They were also having trouble seeking grants, because they have this business model that a lot of foundations don’t understand or can’t accept.

We found out about GIGA and understood the situation they were in—an organization caught in the messy war between profit-maximizing and being fully charitable. We sought to help grow the business and, in the process, make them more attractive for the larger sources of commercial funding.

Ultimately, we did this because we saw what GIGA was doing. GIGA is an online platform for sourcing “green” building materials in China, featuring products chosen by designers, developers and manufacturers who want to make environmentally clean products in China.

/AsianNGO

The potential is huge for the impact investment space in Asia, because there are some very substantial social and environmental challenges that need to be addressed and there are increasing amounts of capital available in Asia to address them.

The future looks very promising. This is clearly a trend and not a fad that will go out of fashion next year. It will continue to grow. On the other hand, I think the space is being overhyped. For all of the promise and all of the potential, there’s still not much investment activity that’s happening.

We need to be realistic and we also need to be constructive. And by that, I mean think about the elements and the pieces that need to be in place for the impact investment market to grow. We need stronger social enterprises, for example, that are ready to absorb impact investment capital. We need investors who really understand that these are unique opportunities. We also need strong intermediaries.

In many countries, it has been the government and a relatively small number of foundations that have taken the lead on building stronger intermediaries, as well as on creating organizations that build capacity among social enterprises.

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Photo: SOW Asia

interview

We need influential people in various countries and economies who are willing to push these ideas forward and ensure that the right capital and the right regulatory framework come in place.

What common risks face impact investors in Asia?

There are risks and there are also challenges. One of the challenges is that most impact investors don’t know where to find good investment opportunities.

That’s one place where an organization like SOW Asia tries to help.

As for risks, the first would be the loss of capital.

Many of the opportunities are what we would call low-return, high-risk, which is the exact opposite of what most investors are looking for.

The other risk is reputation mess-up. There are people of high net worth in a position to support this space, but are afraid that if they make an unwise investment into a social enterprise and it fails, it’s going to reflect badly on them. I think that’s a big concern for a lot Asian individuals and families who might do impact investing. The other risk, based on my experience with GIGA, is that these investments take a long time and that can be challenging for an investor.

What areas still need improvement in this space?

The most significant missing piece right now is strategic philanthropic capital. Funding by governments can also be improved but, in my experience, governments find it very difficult to have the flexibility to engage in social innovation while using taxpayer money.

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Another really interesting opportunity is crowdfunding. Crowdfunding makes it possible for an organization to raise smaller amounts of capital from a number of individuals, rather than a significant amount of money from a single investor.

What advice would you leave for philanthropists considering impact investing?

You should take risks and make bets that others won’t, because that’s what pioneering work involves.

For instance, before microfinance developed into a viable industry, it took US$2 billion in grants to build up. Philanthropic individuals and families would have to prime the pump to get the ball rolling. You need to be more flexible and think of the potential impact, rather than the commercial return in an investment opportunity.

First, think seriously about how to solve social problems, then think about how to leverage impact investment capital after. That’s a very different starting point from someone who says “I want to make money” and “I’m looking for a way to earn money that might also yield a certain level of social impact.”

www.asianngo.org/magazine

philantrophy

Commentary

Can ‘Effective Altruism’ Really Change the World?

Let’s imagine you have some spare cash to give away and you want to do something useful with your money. Should you spend it on food for starving children or vaccinations in refugee camps? Mosquito nets or courses in financial literacy?

AUTHOR

Whatever your whims or good intentions, there will be lots of organizations that will tell you to support their cause because it’s the most important, urgent or compeling. But a new movement called effective altruism claims that there’s a more neutral and scientific approach to the thorny questions of philanthropy.

Lisa Herzog

Promoted by philosophers like Peter Singer, William MacAskill and others, the basic premise of this movement is simple: when people want to give money to good causes, they should try to do so in the most effective way.

Lisa Herzog is a postdoctoral researcher at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. She holds a PhD in Political Theory from Oxford University, U.K.

“So much more could be done,” argue the effective altruists, to help those who are “less fortunate” in the “natural lottery” of where and when they are born. This approach leads naturally to a focus on saving lives in lower-income countries where conditions are the most acute. /AsianNGO

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Commentary

But there’s no agreed or universal definition of “most effective” in the world of social change: how do you measure, let alone compare, the impact of regime change in a dictatorship, the reduction of factory farming, and better schooling in rural India, for example? And even if these thorny issues could be resolved, is it realistic to expect people to spend large amounts of time evaluating every different option, or does this make the exercise of morality too burdensome?

Although the effective altruists are asking serious questions about what it means to be a moral agent, they seem to be missing something essential about the world in which we live: they don’t look at the structures of society that are in most urgent need of transformation. In that sense, the key issue is not that this movement is too demanding, but that it doesn’t demand enough.

Effective altruism starts from a picture in which individuals with money to spare choose between different options in order to “maximize their utility”—to do what gives them the greatest satisfaction according to a narrow definition of what that means.

This is the same picture that one finds in many economics textbooks, except that in most economic models, utility only encompasses self-interest. By contrast, in effective altruism it includes the wellbeing of other people, animals, and the environment.

What’s missing from this picture is something deep and important about human life: the ways in which social structures shape people’s decisions, habits and preferences.

The concept of “economic man” has often been criticized for being utterly unrealistic: human beings are far less rational than utility theory suggests, and they have a far broader range of motivations.

How they behave depends on the social settings in which they find themselves.

There’s also something deeply consumerist about this approach, in which people pick ways of spending their money just as they are supposed to pick /AsianNGO

the best value-for-money-deal from a menu at a restaurant.

It’s also very passive, in the sense that some other organization is expected to bring about the wellbeing of people or animals for you. There’s no close connection between giving and action, no active engagement with problems or solutions. This is an abstract, technical transaction.

But being a moral agent means much more than donating money to far-away places, important as that may be. As philosophers from Aristotle to Hegel and Marx have argued, and as the best evidence about human nature from history and psychological research confirms, human beings are social and political animals. They live in social structures that are inherited from the past.

What matters for a good human life, in which basic needs are met and individuals have some autonomy, is that these institutions and practices function to the advantage of every person, now and in the future. But most existing institutions are defective in this respect. They serve small elites, exploit the environment, and keep large numbers of people in poverty and inequality.

Such institutions are very difficult to change, not only because human beings are creatures of habit, but also because there are powerful vested interests that want to keep the current order in place.

But they are not set in stone. They are designed and AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016

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maintained by human beings, and it is up to us, collectively, to re-order them.

Because of its focus on the “rational choices” of individuals within the current system, this is the point that effective altruism misses or ignores.

If social structures are taken as given, then individuals are powerless: each person faces a system that functions according to its own logic. Therefore, the only thing that people can do is to spend some of their money to help repair the worst damage that’s done by this system in parts of the world that need immediate assistance. This is the underlying assumption of Singer and his colleagues: they take the current institutional order as given, implicitly denying that it can be transformed.

The individualistic bias of effective altruism is important here. We seldom change institutions and practices on our own. Instead, we need to develop ties of solidarity with others. And we have to use our knowledge and agency to bring about change collectively.

From this perspective, morality isn’t about picking and choosing charities from an armchair; it’s about trying to become a force for change in daily life, and supporting whatever cause we can contribute to actively, passionately, and in ways that can create institutions and practices in line with our moral values and ideals.

Struggles against climate change and global inequality are striking examples of how we all participate in structures that urgently need to be transformed.

Both in our private and in professional lives, each person can take responsibility for reducing emissions, raising awareness, and pushing for change— not only by donating money but also by changing the institutions and practices that keep us tied up in a carbon-intense, unjust economic system.

This alternative approach has one thing in common with effective altruism—it can be very demanding: we can’t simply go on living our lives, but instead must

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take responsibility for the world around us. What’s different is that it acknowledges the need to transform the underlying structures of self and society if change is going to be effective.

Therefore, one of our greatest responsibilities is to address the structures of capitalism-gone-wild that are doing so much harm. This is one of the observations that Angus Deaton, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, makes about the effective altruism movement.

The picture of the economy that has been built on the model of utility-maximizing individuals implies that—as jobholders—people are supposed to obey orders and earn money. They’re not obliged to take active responsibility for what they do in their organizational roles by asking whether the structures and practices of the economy are compatible with their moral principles.

But people are moral and political agents whatever their roles and positions are, we’re all responsible for doing what we can to repair the ship on which we’re sailing, plank by plank.

This doesn’t mean that people should stop donating money, and when they do it’s important to ask what they support and why. The effective altruists are right to raise that question.

But when we look for answers to it we have to evaluate the causes of the problems that concern us, and pay attention to the ways in which different actions help or hinder the development of new institutions, challenge power structures, and strengthen the moral and civic capacities of individuals who are disenfranchised and exploited.

That’s the only way that altruism could ever be effective in the transformation of society.

Source

opendemocracy.net/transformation

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How to Become a Really Effective Altruist

by Julian Savulescu & Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

‘Effective altruism’ is a philosophy and social movement which aims not only to increase charitable donations of time and money—and indeed more broadly to encourage leading a lifestyle which does good in the world—but also encourages the most effective use of these resources, usually by looking for measurable impacts such as lives saved per dollar.

For an effective altruist, the core question is: “Of all the possible ways to make a difference, how can I make the greatest difference?” It might be argued, for example, that charity work isn’t the best use of time; talented financiers may be better off working for a bank and use their earnings to pay for others to work for charities instead.

To this end, those in the movement often perform complex calculations to determine which charities and careers do the most good—something that’s frequently attacked.

These comparisons are not based on the worthiness of the cause, the good it does or even the levels of suffering it alleviates, but the cost-to-benefit ratio. For example, Peter Singer, a moral philosopher and icon of the effective altruism movement, has argued that homelessness and infant mortality in the developed world should have a lower priority than equivalent causes in the developing world. It isn’t that these problems are trivial or undeserving, but because of a greater impact per dollar.

Effective altruism is exciting and beneficial in many ways. It gets people to think about how to help others, and encourages people to act in ways that do help others.

Many people don’t contribute as much as they should, maybe because of doubts about the difference it will make or where to put their efforts. But while we wholeheartedly support the movement, calculating which causes are better than others may risk being oversimplified.

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So here are five practical ways to become a really effective altruist instead.

Don’t support useless or harmful causes This is uncontroversial and already a central tenet of effective altruism. We all agree that waste and harm are bad, and that many charitable causes do more harm than good—so let’s avoid them. However, there are lots of altruistic acts that do some good—often lots of good— even if they’re not the best. Different people can contribute in different ways and diversity spreads benefits to many worthwhile causes. Aiming for only the best option leaves little leeway for individuality and experimentation, and can instead turn many people off.

Do what you enjoy & excel at If people aren’t able to build sturdy houses, they shouldn’t volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. And if they don’t enjoy working with animals they don’t volunteer at the RSPCA. The same goes for financial contributions. If the most good that my money can do is to help free animals in factory farms, but I really don’t care about these animals then I’m unlikely to give as much, as often, or for as long as I would for a cause that I deeply care about.

The idea that we should work for or contribute to the most effective charity, regardless of what we care about, is self-defeating. Most people’s passions aren’t that flexible—they can’t or won’t start caring about a cause simply because a calculation tells them to. Better to follow a passion than be demotivated.

Spread the love If you really are passionate about a cause, encourage others. If they’re not passionate about your cause, encourage them to help others in their own way. We can do more to improve the world if we get other people to help out.

If we were to try to determine which person has done the most good in history, we’d get different answers. Effective altruism can come from inspiring others, by being a teacher or a good parent for example. We can do good both directly and indirectly, by inspiring others.

Use carrots rather than sticks If someone is doing good and more good than most but could still do more, then they deserve praise and encouragement. To encourage people to do better, we should be generous with praise for those who do more good than is common and add more praise for those near the top.

Criticizing those who fall short of the ideal only discourages others. If we’re right, then criticism should be reserved for those who fall well below what most people do to help the needy.

Avoid overconfidence Really effective altruism aims to do the most good over all time. The world, present and future, is a very uncertain place. It’s difficult to predict what will do the most good, either now or far in the future. Humility is necessary in the face of this uncertainty.

As the philosopher John Stuart Mill recognized: originality, diversity, and experiments in living are necessary to discover what’s the best life. The same applies to the well-being of others. Be willing to revise your goals in the light of new evidence and reflection.

Source

www.theconversation.com; blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk

AUTHORS Julian Savulescu is a Sir Louis Matheson Distinguishing Visiting Professor at Monash University, Australia and a Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at University of Oxford, U.K. julian.savulescu@philosophy.ox.ac.uk Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is a professor of Practical Ethics at Duke University, U.S. ws66@duke.edu

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www.asianngo.org/magazine

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FUNDING When Am I Ready to Fund?

by Kyle Sherman & Katherina Rosqueta From the Center for Effective Philanthropy Blog

You’ve reviewed documents, interviewed the organization’s staff, sought opinions from peers and other relevant experts, and conducted a site visit. Now, you’re faced with the question: Am I ready to fund?

At the Center for High Impact Philanthropy, we have an unusual position to study readiness from both sides of the funder-grantee relationship. We aren’t grantmakers or brokers for funding. We, however, spend a lot of time analyzing how and when philanthropy can make a difference and sharing our findings with funders.

As a result, we’ve seen how one funder’s “yes” can be another’s “maybe”—and yet another’s “absolutely not.” So, how can funders determine their own readiness?

Here are three questions to consider:

Do I understand the organization’s social impact goals & how that organization is accomplishing them?

Today, nonprofits and social enterprises need to be able to demonstrate impact, or at the very least, clearly articulate how they plan on achieving their intended goals. Sometimes an organization’s fuzzy thinking or poor communication is responsible for a funder’s lack of understanding.

Other times, however, a funder lacks the necessary knowledge or perspective to make sense of what an organization is proposing. Many organizations are addressing longstanding, complex problems.

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How can philanthropy help?

Different grants can achieve different goals in support of an organization’s mission. Understanding how an organization would spend US$10,000, US$50,000 or US$100,000, for example, not only helps you match your funding capacity with the organization’s needs, but can also yield valuable insights into how an organization functions programmatically.

For example, we recently visited a residential addiction treatment program for women. The organization’s leaders described how a one-time gift of a few thousand dollars could upgrade their kitchen, providing a more durable and hygienic environment for residents.

A larger one-time gift of tens of thousands of dollars would allow them to improve the lighting and overall security of the entire facility, further ensuring the safety of those in the organization’s care. And reliable, ongoing philanthropic support of even small amounts would allow the organization to extend care to those residents who don’t improve within the government-funded maximum of 75 days.

To be clear, leaders of this organization—like leaders of all organizations—seek and require unrestricted funds that allow them to respond to needs as they evolve.

Still, such specific and concrete examples helped one funder better understand what was required to serve these women well—and gave him more confidence that the organization’s leaders would know how to use additional philanthropic funds.

If I’m not ready now, should I stay in touch?

For some funders, a particular opportunity will never be the right one. In a world of worthy causes and worthy programs, funders will often choose a focus that excludes certain organizations’ work. Other times, even when an organization’s work falls well within a funder’s areas of interest, that funder may still not be ready to write the check.

For example, one organization in particular had an intuitively appealing model, with backers that were thoughtful and passionate about the work. A funder familiar with similar efforts and who was comfortable with backing early stage innovations might have been ready to fund then and there.

We knew, however, that this program would compare poorly against others we had already included for an audience of funders who demanded more evidence of results and cost-effectiveness.

Recently, we learned that the organization is preparing for its first outside evaluation. Not only are we are eager to learn the results, but we’re also hopeful that if those results are positive, a new and different cohort of funders will be ready to support the work.

At the end of the day, “Am I ready to fund?” depends on many factors including a funder’s tolerance for risk, time horizon, relevant knowledge, and relationships.

Our hope is that these questions allow funders to assess their own readiness, helping funders and their grantees get to impact faster and with more confidence.

AUTHORS Kyle Sherman is a Social Impact Fellow and Katherina Rosqueta is the founding executive director at the Center for High Impact Philanthropy, a trusted authority for funders around the world. impact@sp2.upenn.edu www.impact.upenn.edu

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Without knowledge of the specific context—such as what’s been tried before, characteristics of the beneficiary population and the potential grantee’s current capacity—it can be hard for funders to assess the likelihood that the organization will make progress against its social impact goals.

Planning for a Ramp Up in Giving

by Hanh Le

More foundations than ever before are facing the exciting prospect of significantly ramping up and increasing their charitable giving and other activities.

Whether resulting from the receipt of an estate, the sale of a company or simply a decision to contribute more resources and spend assets more aggressively, foundations that ramp up are undergoing a shift in scale that often requires major changes in infrastructure, staffing, governance, grantmaking and the use of expert resources.

The Groundwork for an Effective Plan Even if the timing is uncertain, many foundation boards know whether or not there’s likely to be a growth in corpus at some point, and generally how big that growth will be. Foundations that take the time to plan ahead of a ramp up can clarify vision, explore donor intent, develop a team of advisors and board members, experiment with new approaches and more.

Start with strategy.

It’s important to begin at the strategic level with a thoughtful look at the foundation’s vision for change—its mission, goals, donor legacy and broad strategies. Experienced foundation professionals advise foundations to focus first on the more important strategic issues. Once those are clarified, tactical decisions like staffing, grant cycles and office space can flow from them.

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www.asianngo.org/magazine

2nd International Conference on Education 2016

Understanding and documenting donor legacy can dramatically reduce confusion and guide many key decisions. New times often call for new strategies, and you’ll need to choose how to honor the donor’s legacy appropriately and, if necessary, develop a strategy to alter or phase out some of the prior grantmaking relationships responsibly.

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Understand donor legacy goals.

“ Transforming today’s Educational Landscape ”

21 - 22 April 2016 Bangkok, Thailand Keynote Speakers

Talk to peers.

Prof. Eugene P. Sheehan Dean, Professor of Psychological

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Talk to staff and board members of other foundations who have been through a ramp up, and learn from their experience.

Sciences College of Education and Behavioral Sciences University of Northern Colorado Greeley, CO USA.

Engage stakeholders.

Test, learn & evolve.

Be inclusive during the planning process. Stakeholders can include not only founders, board and staff, but also grantees, other funders and community leaders. Especially if the ramp up is high profile, anticipation will be high as well. It will be important to communicate openly and transparently.

Even with careful planning, events associated with a ramp up can be uncertain and you may find that you must act without complete understanding or before you’ve even been able to adjust your systems.

Carefully monitor how such actions go, and then modify the systems and processes based on what you learn.

This may be an opportunity to go on a listening tour to better understand community or issue area needs.

Some foundations establish stakeholder advisory groups to help them listen, learn and engage.

Document your plan.

Dr. Tamara Yakaboski Associate Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs Leadership

Build a team.

You’re likely to need a team that includes those who can advise on philanthropic strategy, as well as governance, organizational or family systems, tax and legal matters, financial planning, investments, and operations. Find out about your current advisors’ experience in navigating transitions like these and working with foundations on a larger scale.

/AsianNGO

Document the various components of a plan as it unfolds. An ever-evolving plan provides an opportunity for feedback and improvement as well as documentation of institutional knowledge.

Source

PhilanthroFiles

AUTHOR Hanh Le is the chief program officer at Exponent Philanthropy, the largest association of funders in the U.S. @HanhLeDC www.exponentphilanthropy.org

College of Education and Behavioral Sciences University of Northern Colorado Greeley, CO USA.

Prof. David Kember Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania, Australia.

Abstract Submission Deadline Extended to 29 February 2016 Registration Deadline 10 March 2016

Main Conference Tracks * General Education in a Multicultural Society * Curriculum Design, Innovation, and Enhanced Learning * The New Role in Higher Education: Constructing and Circulating Knowledge * Technological Issues in Education: Digital Inclusion and Exclusion

Hotline: +94 773 027 621 TP : +94 113 098 521/2 Email: arun@tiikm.com info@educationconference.co

www.educationconference.co AsianNGO | APR-JUN 2016 83

8 Philanthropy Trends to Watch in 2016

by Angela White

1. Effective Altruism A researched-based approach to charitable giving is growing among donors—both small and large. These donors are evaluating a nonprofit’s performance before they give, much like how they evaluate financial investment opportunities. Donors are using evaluation methods of deeper volunteer engagement, site visits and are even participating in collaborative efforts to effectively evaluate nonprofit impact.

2. Attention Economy The attention economy treats our attention as a scarce commodity and characterizes attention transactions in the same realm as financial transactions. The principle of the attention economy is “Where the attention goes, the money goes.”

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In the midst of the growing attention economy, capturing a person’s attention is the first stage in acquiring new donors, members, sponsors, clients and volunteers. Thus, capturing a greater share of the attention economy is key in positioning organizations towards growing their share of the philanthropic marketplace.

3. Mega Gifts In 2014 and 2015, we saw several ultra high-net-worth donors give transformational gifts to charities. The rise of these “mega gifts” is countered by slower growth in giving at the middle and lower gift levels. This dichotomy in giving is partially indicative of economic recovery in Western countries hit by recession, which hasn’t been consistent across all levels of household income, with upper income households recovering from the recession more quickly than middle and lower level households. www.asianngo.org/magazine

8. Generational Differences

The growth of giving through donor advised funds (DAFs) has certainly been a growing trend in philanthropy. DAFs are not as impacted by economic environment and remained steady during recessions.

While it’s necessary to understand the variety of giving vehicles available to donors, like planned gifts or DAFs, in the end it still boils down to personal relationships between donors and nonprofits, and having a program that supports long-term donor relationships.

For the first time in history, there are four generations in the workplace and in the philanthropic market place— Silent/Great, Baby Boomer, Gen X and Millennials.

5. Online Giving

These four generational views and societal influences create very different approaches to philanthropy. The opportunity, and the challenge, is to create meaningful ways to engage with the Gen X and Millennial Generations to build major donor and volunteer leadership for the future while continuing to nurture and grow investment from the Baby Boomers and Silent/Great generations.

Online giving currently comprises approximately 10 percent of all charitable giving. However, it’s outpacing the growth of charitable giving overall at a percent. A spike in online giving comes at the end of the calendar year and is made via nonprofit websites. These are all indicators of the continued impact online giving can make in supporting nonprofit organizations, especially at the annual giving and donor acquisition levels.

6. Corporate Partnerships Along the lines of impact investing, corporations are more and more focused on creating corporate partnerships with nonprofits that reinforce the corporate mission and strengthen employee satisfaction and goodwill.

A corporate sponsorship offers nonprofits the opportunity to create a mutually beneficial relationship with its corporate donors yet goes beyond corporate giving to require additional time and stewardship on the part of the nonprofit.

7. More Campaigns In the first half of 2015, approximately 46 percent of nonprofits in a recent report were in a campaign, up from 12 percent in the first half of 2011.

The increase in fundraising campaigns is tied to the economic and charitable giving post-recession recovery in some Western countries. This increase means that more donors are being asked to make transformational gifts to nonprofits, which gives nonprofits the opportunity to tell their story and create an environment for increased major and planned gift investments.

/AsianNGO

AUTHOR Angela White, CFRE, is senior consultant and the CEO of Johnson, Grossnickle and Associates, Inc., a company offering an authentic, strategic approach to philanthropic consulting. @angelajga www.jgacounsel.com

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Percentage of Family Offices/Foundations Active in Philanthropy & Impact Investing

27%

Philantrophy Only

23%

Impact Investing Only

28%

Both Philantrophy & Impact Investing

22%

Neither Philantrophy & Impact Investing

Source: Investing for Global Impact, Financial Times

73%

20K 16%

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IN NUMBERS

The top 100 Chinese philanthropists gave

US$ 3.8 Billion in 2015

Average donation

US$ 8.2 million per philanthropist

Source: Harvard Kennedy School

community foundations were founded in the last 25 years.

US$ 5 billion combined grantmaking in one fiscal year

Average population served

7.8 Average paid staff size

Source: Community Foundation Atlas *An analysis of community foundations in 70 countries.

Contingency Funding is defined as “requests for additional funding during the lifetime of the grant related to unforeseen disruptive events.�

1 in 5 projects

require contingency funding to bring projects in on time and with full impact.

63% 16%

of Funders said they have the financial capacity to make grants outside of their grant cycles. of Grantees reported that at least one of their projects required contingency funds in the past 12 months.

Source: Contingency Funding in Philanthropy: Open Road Alliance Survey 2016, Open Road *Based on a 400-respondent survey designed to look at the frequency of need for contingency funding as reported by Funders and Grantees.

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Donors 40-59 years old are now the most likely to give online

47%

In 2010, only of donors aged 40-59 said they made an online donation.

67%

of donors In 2015, aged 40-59 said they did.

Source: Dunham+Company

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Reviews BOOK

How to Be Alive: A Guide to the Kind of Happiness that Helps the World A Book by Colin Beavan Hear the answers to some of life’s most sought-after questions in this new book by writer and social change activist Colin Beavan, where he reveals insights on how to live a happy life that also impacts positively onto the world.

This powerful book defies the norm of having a college degree, a career, a house, marriage, children and a secure retirement. Since the standard approach in life these days doesn’t supply the end result we’re looking for, says the author, we’re now free to choose our own path to find opportunities that excite us.

But you should know upfront that this isn’t a job or career book. It doesn’t limit itself to teaching readers how to achieve a high-paying job. Yes, career matters, but so do your family, friends, children and community.

This book discusses the choices that will aid us in building great lives. Beavan will nudge you towards the path of your own version of the Good Life. He draws on classic literature and philosophy, current scientific findings, and the inspiring stories of the people he has met on his journey.

What differentiates this book from other self-help books you may ask? The author actually thinks of it less as a self-help book. This book is about fixing lives in ways that will fix the world, and fixing the world in ways that will fix our own lives.

BOOK

Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works A Book by Roger Martin & Sally Osberg Prepare to embrace disruptive innovation as a tool for social change in this new book by Roger L. Martin, Institute Director at Rotman School of Management in Canada, and Sally R. Osberg, CEO of Skoll Foundation.

The book calls for a new model of social entrepreneurship that resets “the status quo for the disadvantaged” and enables sustainable “equilibrium change” in society. The authors put forward a revolutionary model made up of four stages.

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The first stage is for the entrepreneur to understand the status quo. Second is to envision a future where there is radical, but stable change. The third stage is to innovate and to build an actual model that will bring this vision into reality. And, lastly, to take this solution to scale, which means expanding and replicating its impact in the long-term.

This thought-provoking book harnesses experience and guidance from some of the world’s most influential social entrepreneurs to propose a new framework for social enterprise that is valuable to both social entrepreneurs, their funders and supporters.

www.asianngo.org/magazine

Reviews Lean Data for More Social Impact Collecting data to measure the social performance of an organization’s program is nothing new, but innovation pioneer Acumen has revolutionized the way data are collected and analyzed in a new method it calls Lean Data.

With Acumen’s Lean Data, social enterprises will be able to focus on collecting performance data without shelling out too much money and time—reducing the process to only three to six weeks.

This is possible through its three building blocks: Lean Design, Lean Surveys and Lean Tools. Lean Design refers to tailoring the measurement and collection approach to each organization’s unique situation. Lean Survey keeps

the organization’s surveys focused, only collecting information that is relevant and useful, while consuming only a meager amount of the customer’s time. Lean Tools, meanwhile, take advantage of the accessibility of mobile technology to allow for real-time communication with customers.

So, how does the process start? Acumen’s Impact team will collaborate with the interested organization to formulate a unique data collection plan that suits their needs and wants. Lean Data puts the customer first, instead of the usual investors-first approach.

Acumen’s Lean Data uses new technologies to gather details on customers effectively and swiftly, producing fundamental business insights on how to make services and products more meaningful for the customers and society.

www.acumen.org/ideas/lean-data/

App Merges Fitness with Corporate Philanthropy Can philanthropy pave way to a more robust lifestyle among a company’s employees and vice versa?

Apparently so, through a mobile application that connects a company’s charitable donations to the healthy activities of its employees and their family members. This is Plus3, an app available for download on the Apple App Store and on Google Play.

Plus3 features a program that rewards any healthy activity by a company’s employee—whether related to fitness, nutrition, biometric or lifestyle—with points that are converted into donations made by the sponsoring company to a select list of charities.

The app offers an array of challenges, incentives and educational tips that encourage participants to stay in tip-top shape. Each activity has different reward points and the more active one gets, the more donations can be moved to a cause.

If you’re searching for an innovative way of integrating your corporate wellness program into your CSR strategy, look no further than Plus3. www.plus3network.com

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Classifieds

NetSuite.org believes in the power of nonprofits and social enterprises to change the world.

We’re here to help. Our free, cloud-based technology and pro bono services enable nonprofits and social enterprises to redirect their organization’s resources towards accomplishing its mission, rather than managing IT and accounting complexity.

InsideNGO envisions a global NGO community where operational excellence and professional expertise come together to change the world.

InsideNGO achieves global impact by strengthening the operational and management capacity of international relief and development NGOs across the world through effective collaboration, practical solutions, professional development and advocacy services.

Teryll Hopper | donations@netsuite.com | +63 2 729 1229 | www.netsuite.org

Caitlin Holland | cholland@insidengo.org | +1 202 559 6163 | www.insidengo.org

From Harm to Home

The Concord Leadership Group

Established in 1976 to assist refugees from Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam. Thailand hosts one of the International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) longest-running country programs. Today, the IRC serves displaced Myanmar populations from various ethnic groups through operations from Bangkok and three field offices, and offices across the border in South East Myanmar.

We coach NGO leaders and boards in research-based strategies to create lasting change, improve staff performance, navigate strained relations even with hostile labor unions, and help CEOs and boards avoid self-sabotaging systems and achieve sustainable success. CLG utilizes a proven approach based on ongoing proprietary research, decades of industry experience, and experiential tools tailored to your specific situation.

Oranutt Narapruet | Oranutt.Narapruet@rescue.org | +66 0 2 255 7025 Ext. 105 | www.rescue.org

Marc Pitman, CFCC | marc@concordleadershipgroup.com +1 800 694 7430 | www.concordleadershipgroup.com

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www.asianngo.org/magazine

Classifieds

NGO Management School (NMS), a department within the NGO Management Association, has delivered public and in-house courses for development and humanitarian organizations in English, French and Arabic in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

CII CSR Gateway is an enabling online platform for CSR activities in India.

In 2016, together with the Arab Academy for Banking and Financial Sciences, NMS will provide public courses in six countries in Europe and the Middle East in leadership development, finance, training of trainers and coaching for the nonprofit, private and public sectors.

The objective of this gateway is to equip CII’s member organizations with appropriate social engagement capacities and opportunities. CII CSR Gateway will bring together templated and customized services to meet the requirements of each of its members. The CII CSR Gateway platform will connect industries and all relevant stakeholders of CSR to promote the social development process through CSR initiatives.

courses@ngomanager.org | +41 22 731 76 66 | www.ngomanager.org

Rammya Shivram | rammya.cii@gmail.com | +91 44 42 444 555 Ext. 653 | www.ciicsrgateway.org

Promoting research, development and documentation of programs beneficial to youth worldwide.

EverythingAboutWater is a leading monthly print & e-magazine on the global water sector.

The World Youth Foundation (WYF) has organized various seminars, meetings, conferences and dialogues for the youth in areas such as population, HIV/AIDS, human rights, health, education, environment, climate change adaptation, disaster risk management, sustainable development and many others.

It reaches 29,081 active, influential, and engaged readers worldwide. EverythingAboutWater consistently provides new ways to connect the water industry with end-user industries.

Varsha Ajmera | wyfhq@wyf.org.my | +606 232 0911 | www.wyf.org.my

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Since its inception in 2000, the publication has been committed towards raising awareness and knowledge about the water and wastewater management sector, and helping promote various water-related offerings to a focused audience base.

Kaushtubh Asthana | kaushtubh@eawater.com | +91 96500 59996 | www.eawater.com

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