salt_2007_03_04

No. 20 Mar-Apr 2007

For Volunteers, Donors and Nonprofits

Gold Rush

Low Teo Ping, President of Singapore Sailing, Takes a Leap of Faith

Doing It Better

Call Connection

StarHub’s New Employee Volunteer Programme

Willie Cheng on Outmoded Practices in the Charity Sector

Jack Sim’s Results of the Plan for Your Prime Time News First NVPC Study Own Obsolescence Singapore’s Senior Citizens Step Up on IPCs Revealed

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SALT No. 20 Mar-Apr 2007

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Singapore’s pool of senior volunteers proves that active ageing is possible. Michelle Bong finds out how they’re doing it and how they’re sharing the experiences of this new journey.

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LETTER FROM SALT & SALT TIPS

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NEWS BRIEFS A wrap-up of events, programmes and activities in the People Sector.

PEOPLE MOVEMENTS Appointments and new postings in the People Sector.

10 VOLUNTEER PROFILE Volunteer and grandmother of three, Jayamany Overithi, shows June Lee why there’s more to life than just staying at home.

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Tan Hwee Hwee learns that life is full of drama: The good kind taught by The Practice Performing Arts School.

19 WALK THE TALK StarHub’s new employee volunteer programme connects more than just underprivileged beneficiaries.

Where To Now? 16

21 NEW SALT Dignity Links helps former patients with mental illness serve up a mean cup of coffee (and hope).

Kevin Lee highlights the results of NVPC’s first study on IPCs and

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draws some conclusions.

Young Jeremy Lim marvels at how the spirit of volunteerism and philanthropy has grown in his lifetime.

NONPROFIT QWERTIES It’s important to recognise outmoded work practices and make the appropriate changes. Willie Cheng shines a light on some aspects of the charity scene that could do with a make-over.

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28 SALT KIT Sometimes, it’s important to know when to let go of a company’s reins. Jack Sim’s been there and done that.

29 CALENDAR 30 SCENE AND SEEN

32 A DASH OF SALT

Mar-Apr 2007 S A LT •

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SALT is a nonprofit magazine with a managed circulation for members of nonprofit organisations, grantmakers and companies in Singapore.

Those interested in receiving a copy, please email salt@nvpc.org.sg.

We regret that the print run prevents fulfilling all requests.

International readers please email subscriber requests and mailing details.

There will be an annual postage and handling charge for all international subscribers.

MANAGING EDITOR DEPUTY EDITOR Daven Wu

CONTRIBUTORS Michelle Bong Mervyn Chua Andrew Duffy June Lee Kevin Lee Sakinah Manaff Tan Hwee Hwee

PUBLISHING CONSULTANT AND MEDIA REPRESENTATIVE Epigram SALT is published bi-monthly by the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre 7 Maxwell Road #05-01 Annex B, MND Complex Singapore 069111 Tel: 6550 9595 Fax: 6221 0625 Website: www.nvpc.org.sg Email: salt@nvpc.org.sg Copyright is held by the publisher.

All rights reserved.

Production in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

The views and opinions expressed or implied in SALT are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher.

Printed by Fabulous Printers MICA (P) 003/11/2006 ISSN No. 17933-4478 To advertise, please call Cynthia Tay at tel: 6292 4456 Email: cynthia@epigram.com.sg

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keynote speaker at a charity governance workshop last year described the charity scene in 2006 in the words of Charles Dickens’ opening lines in a Tale of Two Cities: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

My sentiments exactly.

Now, a few months into 2007, the situation has improved. True, there was the recent brouhaha over the Youth Challenge salary matter, and we cannot discount further skeletons coming out of the closet as the Charities Unit goes about doing its work. On the flip side, however, there is a stirring in the air, as companies, schools and individuals still seek to do their part for the community, undeterred. Just the other day, I was thrilled to discover that a niece of mine from Malaysia who had just completed her A-levels here, and was staying with us for a couple of days to settle on her university choice, spent a precious many hours to plan a fund-raising campaign with her small group of friends under the Citibank-Youth for a Cause programme.

I believe there is an awakening of consciousness of the need to do good, and it is a consciousness that needs to be fanned.

What propels the likes of Kala Karkal and Christopher Lim to start a café that engages recovering mental illness clients as employees? What prompts a retiree like Rajendra Gour to jealously preserve our local film industry archives? What causes StarHub to go beyond donating through their Sparks Fund to mobilise their employees as volunteers? What causes individuals like Sim Wong Hoo to donate to a performing arts cause?

For whatever motivations people have for volunteering or donating, the important thing is to keep that fire burning. NVPC’s recent survey of IPCs reveals that for the majority of them, the top issues include donor fatigue and lack of volunteer commitment (pg 16). How do we manage our volunteers well, so that they will return and bring other volunteers and donors to the fold? How do we account to our donors what we do with their money so that they will want to continue donating, and donate more?

This is the next challenge for the close to 2000 charities that we have in Singapore to help sustain their operations.

The environment is going to be more competitive. With the recent change in charity tax rules to attract more international nonprofit organisations and grantmakers into Singapore to grow Singapore as a philanthropy hub, local charities can take a leaf from their books. They have gotten onto the world stage by doing a good job of cultivating their funders, donors and volunteers. If we do it well ourselves, in time we will see our own share of local charities going regional too.

Tan Chee Koon Chief Executive Officer National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre

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Photo courtesy of The Peak, Copyright 2007 SPH Magazines Pte Ltd

Tan Chee Koon

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New Accounting Standards: Help or Hindrance?

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nlike some specialised industries such as the insurance and banking sector, having a new set of accounting standards for charities may not be helpful and beneficial.

To make matters worse, it will pose a tough challenge for charities to recruit accounting personnel. In our present materialistic world, how many accounting-trained people will be keen to carve a career in the charities world when they can make better money in the commercial world?

Most importantly, one must be discerning to know that the present charities scandals is tied to the integrity of key personnel. For individuals who are prepared to serve, they should be prepared to do exemplary work for low remuneration.

It is tough for external auditors to do a balancing act between risks and rewards in the audit of charities. Some external audit firms are wary of the risks involved in the audit of charities and stay away from them.

One solution is for the relevant charities watchdog to set up a specialised unit to take over the role of external auditors and conduct audits of charities.

In this way, the audit personnel will be more familiar with charities governance and adept at discovering fraudulent practices. They will also be in a better position to share the good practices and internal controls with voluntary organisations.

Therefore, I believe the change of statutory requirements on the audit of charities is more cost-effective than a change of accounting standards for charities. Accounting professional bodies in Singapore should also supply a pool of accountants who are keen to give back to society by taking on the role of treasurers in charities.

In the long term, the next challenge will be for our educationists to instil the right values in our young and nurture the next generation to work for charity.

Lee Soh Hong, FCCA Founder, CancerStory.com

This letter was originally published on ST Forum Online (26 January 2007).

Breaking Even with Direct Mail

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ongratulations on the newly-released NVPC survey on IPCs.* Upon reading the survey result summary on your website, one point I do want to highlight is that in the question on fund-raising methods, the results indicate that Direct Mail (DM) is the most cost-efficient form of fundraising. Although there is some truth in it for the donor retention stage (ie in the long term), DM is known the world over as the ‘most costly’ form of fund-raising to set up in the ‘donor acquisition’ stage. On an average, it takes $1.50 to raise $1.00 (that means it costs more than is raised). Hence it is important to differentiate the efficiency at the various stages of the DM cycle.

What I have seen as a problem with charities that embark on this form of fundraising is that they do not persevere long enough for the methodology to ‘break-even’.

Usually the Board of Directors pulls the plug on the efforts saying it is too expensive, and hence the method ends up being a major drain on the charity’s resources than the effective fund-raising tool it can be. It is only those who stick to the knitting that go on to make it a good source of undesignated income for the charity.

Usha Menon, Director of Resource Development & Donor Country Program, Asia Pacific, Habitat for Humanity International

*The newly released NVPC survey on IPCs is reported on page 16.

DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE? We welcome your letters, news of upcoming events and pictures. Please send them to SALT, 7 Maxwell Road, #05-01 Annex B, MND Complex, Singapore 069111; or email salt@nvpc.org.sg.

Please include your name, address and daytime phone number. Letters and articles may be edited for space and clarity.

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T I P S James Lim Soon Leong, Volunteer Coordinator, Territorial Headquarters of The Salvation Army knows how to find the right volunteer.

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tarting right means placing the right volunteers with the right skills and experience, in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.

That’s my modus operandi and it is something that I strive to achieve in my work with volunteers. To me, I strongly believe that volunteer placement is an important determinant of how well volunteers enjoy their volunteer experience and contribute to the programme in which they are rendering their services.

How do I ensure that volunteers are properly placed to ensure a good and meaningful partnership with them?

When I began as a volunteer programme manager, I remember struggling with this issue and wondering about the factors that would help to start the partnership on the right footing. I found myself using a simple acronym to help me focus my interviews with volunteers: SPICE-EM! Skills – Skills, talents, knowledge that a volunteer brings to the task.

Preferences – Preferences with regards to, for instance, when and where a volunteer would like to render his/her services.

Interests – Target group of beneficiary or kind of services / programme a volunteer is keen to participate in.

Commitment – The volunteer’s level of commitment: once-off, ad-hoc or regular long-term commitment. This would have implications on the type of programme the volunteer can participate in.

Experience – What prior volunteering experience does the volunteer have?

Expectation – What expectations does the volunteer have of the organisation or programme? Does the volunteer, for example, expect reimbursement of transport, meal allowances, certification of their involvement, training etc?

Motivations – Why does the volunteer want to volunteer? It is important to understand the motivation so we can gauge whether participation in a particular programme will yield a meaningful partnership and good results.” ✩

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McHAPPY TIMES

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n advanced Chinese New Year party treat for beneficiaries of the Ang Mo Kio Family Service Centre was held at Bishan Park on 12 February.

The event, jointly hosted by McDonald’s, was another community outreach initiative that saw some 60 adults and 40 children enjoying McDonald’s Prosperity Meals and Happy Meals.

A WRAP-UP OF HAPPENINGS AROUND SINGAPORE

Ronald McDonald, McDonald’s Chief Happiness Officer, entertaining the children with special magic up his sleeve and doing what he does best: Bringing smiles to kids.

TAX CHANGES BOOST SINGAPORE’S PHILANTHROPIC DRIVE

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Shop and Save

Little League: TNT volunteers with their wards at John Little.

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t was the season to be jolly even for children from low-income families. Last Christmas, thanks to the support and generosity of global express carrier TNT and Lion’s Club of Singapore Sentosa, 60 children aged between six and twelve years from Ponggol and Hong Kah Primary Schools (two beneficiaries of the Lion’s Club of Singapore Nassim) were treated to a free shopping spree for new clothes at John Little department store. The group of children, which included orphans and children from single-parent families and broken homes, teamed up with more than 60 TNT volunteers, over 30 Lion’s Club Members and teachers from their respective schools, on the one-hour retail expedition.

The children received S$5,000 to spend while some TNT staff and Lion’s Club members also contributed from their own pockets to purchase gifts for the children.

After the shopping trip, the children were treated to lunch at Burger King.

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n 8 February, NVPC partnered with the Industrial & Services Co-operative Society Ltd to present another session in its VConnect series. The session “Ex-Offenders Giving Back” was designed as a platform to enable volunteer managers and coordinators to share experiences, exchange ideas and alternative solutions on volunteer management related issues; be informed of good volunteer management practices; and to explore partnership opportunities. Participants asked how ex-offenders could best contribute to the community through volunteering. They examined issues such as where ex-offenders have been actively contributing; the strengths and weaknesses of such volunteers, the risks involved and how companies could best engage their services. The testimony of an ex-offender volunteer in ISCOS Youth Wing was also heard.

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he development of Singapore as a philanthropy hub was one of the many initiatives, announced at this year’s Budget speech by Second Minister for Finance, Tharman Shanmugaratnam in Parliament on 15 February. SALT brings you a snapshot on what these changes mean for the sector.

1) Removal of the 80:20 spending rule The removal will enable charities to optimise their activities in Singapore and the region, and the use of their funds over time to sustain their programmes.

2) Relaxing of the 80:20 fundraising rule This relaxation will help the efforts of reputable charities and grantmakers with an international or regional orientation, provided that the funds are raised from private donors rather than from the general public.

3) Double tax deductions for certain donations to grantmakers Double tax deductions, previously provided to individuals and companies donating to IPCs, will also be extended to all philanthropic grantmaking organisations, as long as these donations are subsequently channeled to an IPC in Singapore.

4) Introduction of tax incentive scheme An EDB-administered tax incentive scheme will be introduced to provide tax exemption to targeted NPOs that can bring economic value to Singapore.

BROTHERLY LOVE

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he elderly needy were given a boost in December last year when the Hong Leong Foundation gave away $401,540 to a number of organisations including $100,000 to PAP Community Foundation, $100,000 to Nanyang Technological University’s Wee Kim Wee Endowment Fund and $50,000 to the Singapore Zoological Gardens for its Wildlife Conservation Singapore Fund.

The foundation also threw a 6-course Chinese lunch celebration for Tai Pei Old People’s Home residents at the Orchard Hotel’s Hua Ting restaurant.

There were performances by NTU Cultural Activities Club Choir, as well as a jianggu storytelling session by The Theatre Practice who performed the The NTU Cultural Activities Choir serenades residents of folktale “10 Brothers”.

Tai Pei Old People’s Home with Christmas tunes.

Making Business Sense F

or the second time, Youth Employment (Singapore) (YES) partnered with Salesforce Foundation to organise a hands-on entrepreneur workshop for youth from low-income families. The hands-on project based workshop took place on 18–22 December, during which ten students learnt about business planning, finance, marketing, manufacturing, selling and technology.

In particular, they developed business plans, pitched to venture capitalists and investors to raise seed investment capital for their product ideas, learnt and practised networking techniques, manufacture, and marketing of their original products.

On 22 December, a “Market Day” was held at which the students offered their products for sale.

PEOPLE MOVEMENTS Tan Soo Nan took over as the Singapore Totalisator Board’s Chief Executive with effect from 1 January.

He remains Chief Executive Officer of Singapore Pools.

He was formerly the CEO of Temasek Capital (Private) Ltd where he oversaw direct investments, both locally and overseas for Temasek Holdings.

Before Temasek, Mr Tan spent 29 years in DBS Bank where his last held position was as Senior Managing Director.

Joanna Koh-Hoe took over as President of Focus on the Family from Tan Thuan Seng with effect from 1 March. With a background in psychology and diverse work experience that includes youth, special needs children, family crisis and psychiatric rehabilitation, her passion for family has led her to serve with Focus Singapore since its launch in 2002. Mr Tan, a full-time volunteer who was integral to the setup of the organisation, will stay on as a board director to assist Ms Koh-Hoe in Donor Ministry and Social Enterprise.

With effect 1 January, Zuraidah Abdullah was seconded from the Singapore Police Force (SPF), for two years, to be the new CEO of Yayasan MENDAKI. She joined the SPF after graduating with a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil Engineering) from NUS. In her 20 years with SPF, she has held several key appointments including Deputy Commander of Training Command and Deputy Director of Planning and Organisation Department. Ranked Deputy Assistant Commissioner, she has been the Commander of Jurong Police Division since August 2004.

James Wong Kok Fatt became executive director at Spastic Children’s Association of Singapore on 1 February. Prior to his appointment, he spent five years in the social service sector as Executive Director of Family Life Society and has accumulated 36 years’ worth of senior management experience in the private sector. He has also worked for the financial sector and recently completed his Master of Social Sciences.

Force-field: The young team members from Salesforce and Youth Employment.

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PEOPLE MOVEMENTS Leslie Teo joined Handicaps Welfare Association (HWA) as its Executive Director on 1 November 2006. Before joining HWA, Leslie spent 8 months as the Executive Director of I Love Children (ILC) and prior to that, he was, for 16 years, the Executive Director of Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association. HWA’s mission is to enhance the quality of life of people with physical disabilities and integrate them into mainstream society.

Dom LaVigne has more than 14 years of international management and government experience, primarily focused on Asia Pacific affairs. He comes to AmCham Singapore as Executive Director in January after having served in recent positions as Regional Director for the US-ASEAN Business Council, and as Executive Director at AMCHAM Malaysia. He had previously worked for AmCham Singapore as its Government Affairs Manager in 2003-2004.

Lionel Lee was appointed Executive Director of Action for AIDS (AfA) in 2006 October. Before this, he was a volunteer with AfA in 2004; an active member of the Candlelight Memorial Organising Committee and the Anonymous HIV Testing and Counselling Site. Collaborating with Indonesian based non-government organisations, he has helped spearhead outreach programmes to male travellers to the Riau-islands and also patrons of local karaoke bars and pubs.

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SURGICAL STRIKE

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MAKING CENTS Foo Pek Hong joined Kidney Dialysis Foundation (KDF) as its CEO in January.

She has nearly 21/2 years of experience as the Fund Raising Director of a large VWO and has 30 years of management and business development experience in the financial sector, of which her last 25 years were with HSBC Asset Management. Together with the KDF Board and their staff, Mrs Foo hopes to be able to help KDF develop and fulfill the next lap of its mission as well as to continue looking after the well being of needy people stricken with end-stage kidney disease.

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TEAM.ONE came up with the

he theme for this year’s M1 Singapore Fringe Festival winning idea for the 48-Hour Design Challenge was Art And Disability. Not surprisingly, the heartfelt Inclusive – Wunder, a panty with detachperformances tackled both physical and non-physical able sides (which does not require the user to bend over afflictions. Thirteen countries, including Belgium, Britain to put it on or remove it) that “easy to put on, flirty and and Portugal, participated in the event (now in its third year) is always feminine”. which ran from 30 January to 11 February.

A highlight of the festival was the Symposium on Inclusive Design. Over two days, designers, architects, students and public members huddled together in an attempt to explore how environments can be adapted to make the lives and activities of the physically disabled easier.

Alvin Tan, co-artistic director of the festival, noted, “Most of us forget that there are social, economic and psychological disabilities that surround and afflict us. We need to realise that all of us face incapacitation of some kind, and that we can overcome these disabilities in ourselves and the world.”

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Boxing Day: Cents make dollars.

o commemorate Radio 100.3’s fifth anniversary last December, the station gamely raised funds for a community project by local contemporary Mandarin theatre company Drama Box. Named “more than just five cents”, the charity project encouraged the public, between 1 and 25 December last year, to drop five-cent coins into the donation boxes placed at twenty designated Besta Customer/Sales Counter in Popular Bookstores across the island.

Once again proving the adage that cents make dollars, 73,000 5 cent coins was collected (totaling $3,650) to help fund Drama Box’s upcoming community projects in places such as old folks homes and children shelters.

ver the next two years, a multidisciplinary team of 20-30 Singapore medical specialists will travel to Surabaya, Indonesia to train over 100 health care professionals. The SVO Specialist Team (Reconstructive Surgery) Project is organised by the Singapore International Foundation (SIF) as part of its Singapore Volunteers Overseas programme.

The goal is to improve medical care in three critical areas of reconstructive surgery: craniofacial surgery, burns and wounds, and microsurgery.

The Project is the sixth to be carried out under the Memorandum of Understanding signed between SIF and the East Java Provincial Government in June 2005.

The SVO team will conduct training every three to four months at Surabaya’s Dr Soetomo General Hospital, a leading national referral hospital for East Java, and the Faculty of Medicine, Airlangga University. The Project will also support the reciprocal attachment of a team of six Indonesian doctors, therapists and nurses from Dr Soetomo General Hospital to Singapore, for a period of four weeks in March 2007.

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The Golden Years

There’s not enough time in the day to do everything that volunteer Jayamany Overithi wants to do. For this perennially young grandmother of three, there’s more to life than just staying at home. JUNE LEE tags along for the ride.

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espite spraining her foot at a temple event the week before, Mrs Jayamany Overithi – or just Jaya to friends and grateful recipients of her voluntary activities – is back on her rounds. Sprightly and youthful at 59, she easily looks 10 years younger, and gives no indication of her own discomfort as she brings cheer to the elderly on her volunteering rounds.

Having coped with her own bedridden mother, Jaya has had ample experience with elder care that she now puts to good use. “Old people are gold to us,” she says, simply. “Some people think why they should bother when ‘these people are not my relatives’, but when you see these old people completely alone, even the most hardened will have tears. They don’t need money, they would just like you to talk to them.”

Chatty and confident, Jaya is a firm believer that volunteering creates its own share of peace of mind for the volunteer.

Being involved in activities that help others has not only helped her to overcome a horrific accident, but also reconciled her to bitter life experiences that she would rather not divulge. “I was the oldest of two brothers and a sister,” is all she will say, noting that she was married early at 16, and has two grown children.

“ I would be wasting my life if I were not doing any good.”

Jaya worked as a cleaning supervisor at Changi Airport for 15 years, a career she loved and enjoyed until a road accident caused spinal and head injuries that left her bedridden for four months. “I couldn’t

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visiting homes with residents, counseling families with financial and personal problems, and organising outings and trips. Once one factors in the administrative work and project planning that she clocks in at SINDA headquarters, it’s clear that she spends a good deal more than the four to eight hours a week that she modestly claims. In addition, she spends time at Murugan Thirukunram Temple cooking, cleaning, serving and assorted other duties.

One of Jaya’s lasting contributions is the example she sets to others. Full-time homemaker Mrs Suba, who met Jaya while volunteering at the temple, is one of the Taking charge: Jaya sit and didn’t think I could (right) with some friends inspired friends who has started from her volunteer work. joining Jaya in her different acts walk again,” she says softly, of charity. “This is better than staying at but quickly regains her sparkle. “Do you home watching TV, and I can see that know, I was very well taken care of by when you do good things to people, the nurses?” she exclaims. “I thought, good things will come to you,” notes the today the nurses are helping me, so I can enthusiastic Mrs. Suba. Jaya is pleased be like them – tomorrow, I will do somethat first time volunteers often feel good thing for others.” after their selfless acts. “After their first Braving the world again, Jaya joined visit, they want to come back because self-help group Singapore Indian Develthey enjoy it,” she says. “They start opment Association (SINDA) in 2000 as asking me when they can go visit again!” a volunteer, and quickly branched out with Even when Jaya’s friends are unable various other organisations such as the to join her, they will often chip in with a LIONS Befrienders and Salvation Army. small donation, with sums up to $50 which Volunteering wasn’t new territory to her can be used to buy toys, food and books.

– she had been involved in the St. John’s “Sometimes we just get together and do a Brigade since her days as a student in potluck – if there are five of us, we’ll have St. Theresa’s Convent in the mid-1960s.

“Some people have time, but no heart,” five dishes to bring to the home!” smiles Jaya. “I would be wasting my life if I were muses Jaya, who utilises time and heart not doing any good,” concludes this humble to great effect. Most mornings, till about senior citizen, whose spirit and charm, 3pm, she’s moving around town, dividing like her, remain young and evergreen. ✩ her time between reading to children,

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School of Life

The Practice Performing Arts School believes that drama isn’t just about teaching the young about the arts, but that it can also bequeath them with useful life skills. TAN HWEE HWEE takes a lesson.

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he Practice Performing Arts School (PPAS) was founded in 1965 by choreographer and dancer Goh Lay Kuan, and her husband the late dramatist Kuo Pao Kun. Both were Cultural Medallion recipients and they were careful to pass on the passion for their craft to their students. So much so that PPAS alumni include such power hitters as Goh Boon Teck, Chief Artistic Director of the Toy Factory; Theatreworks’ Artistic Director Ong Ken Sen; Alvin Tan of the Necessary Stage; and Yang Choong Lian of Dance Ensemble of Singapore.

Perhaps the most widely recognised alumni is Creative Technology founder Sim Wong Hoo himself, though his time with PPAS is not that widely known.

Sim has been quoted as crediting his creative bent that led to the creation of his money-making Soundblaster product to the musical training he received as a teenager learning the harmonica with PPAS in its early days. Perhaps in appreciation of the significant impact that this avant garde school had on his development, in 2000 he provided seed money and space in his Creative Technology premises in Jurong East for PPAS’ Theatre Training and Research Programme (TTRP). It now has new premises at Emily Hill.

“ Our students are taught to take on life and not just examinations.”

This significant equipping and empowering of the work of PPAS would not have come about if not for the driving vision and operating philosophy of Kuo Pao Kun and Goh Lay Kuan, in

time in the school is the starter-kit for life-long learning. Says Kuo, “The courses are created for the long term development of our students. We believe in growing with our students as they gain in knowledge and self-confidence.

PPAS believes that arts education can be used to not only impart sound practical knowledge in the performing arts, but And scene! PPAS students go developing a performing arts through their paces in a drama also to nurture students dance performance of “2105” of integrity that are indeschool of excellence. pendent, compassionate, imaginative, Originally called the Practice Arts confident and, most importantly, aware School, PPAS began as a small haven of of the world around them.” learning on the seventh floor of an apartThe PPAS offers courses for children ment building in Clemenceau Avenue with engaging titles like Story Bang and before it moved, in 1966, to 12 Somerville Talking Art. And for the adults (because Walk. In 1984, it changed its name to learning is a life-long process), there are Practice Performing Arts School and in classes in Chinese aerobics, salsa, sword 1989, under the National Arts Council’s Arts Housing Scheme, PPAS moved to its dance and adult ballet.

Story Bang, in particular, illustrates current home at Waterloo Street. the school’s approach to fostering an From the beginning, the school enduring passion that extends beyond had a clear-eyed philosophy that arts the merely academic. Assistant Artistic education would play an integral part in Director Wong May Lan says that the the total development of an individual. course, established in 1986, is engaging “Our students are taught to take on life and interactive. “The teacher tells the and not just examinations,” says Kuo story, the students listen to the story Jing Hong, vice principal of PPAS, who and then we encourage them to repeat carries on her father’s legacy. “To achieve the story back to us and to their friends. these goals, we always strive to adapt We get them to change the story a bit, and develop sound curricula to suit the change the ending or add one character needs of people who live, work and play to the story. That’s how we teach them in Singapore.” communication, encouraging them to For this reason, the school’s courses talk and create.” are predicated on the assumption that classes are not just about the acquisition From the looks of things, this is one of academic skills. Rather, a student’s act that’s well worth following. ✩

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Life begins at 55 for Singapore’s pool of senior volunteers, proving that there is no limit to giving back to society regardless of your age. By MICHELLE BONG.

nne Bong is a secretary-turnedhomemaker who traded her shorthand notepad for the spatula years ago. Her four daughters are now grown up, and her retired husband keeps busy working as an administrator for a car exporter. At 59, Anne’s responsibilities to her family are greatly reduced, but life is by no means less satisfying. She channels her energies towards pursuing personal interests such as travelling the region with her friends and playing tennis to keep active. In addition, she also dedicates her time to the Kandang Kerbau Women and Children’s Hospital’s Play Therapy programme, supervising weekly two-hour playtime sessions for the hospital’s young patients, some of whom are terminally-ill.

“We are there to help the children forget about their pain, for a short time, as they read storybooks, bang on toy xylophones, or play on the Xbox. The smiles on their faces really light up the room,” says Anne, who has been volunteering for over three years now as an extension of her inherent mothering instinct. She adds, “Unlike me, today’s younger adults don’t have the time to do this, nor the experience when it comes to handling children. As a mother who’s brought up four brats, I am in the best position to make such a contribution to society.”

Anne is not alone in wanting to pay it forward. Across the island, members of Singapore’s silver generation of adults aged 55 years and up are making their

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presence felt in schools, parks, hospitals, retirement homes, churches, temples and the like. Armed with vim, vigour and considerable amounts of enthusiasm, they assume roles such as mentors, fund-raisers, activity coordinators, board members, teachers, caregivers and even telephone hotline operators who lend a listening ear to those who need help.

Shining Example More than just inspirational stories to their peers, the roll-call of senior volunteers who are making an impact in their communities seems endless.

Buoyed by the firm belief that “patients, regardless of their condition, need care and communication”, Mdm Lee Ah Hong plies the paediatric ward of the National University Hospital every Friday morning. She is accompanied by her cart of crayons, colour pencils, stencils and craft papers, ever-ready to greet expectant faces for an art and craft session. She also spends the afternoon trimming patients’ hair and creating new hairstyles to the delight of her ‘clients’.

Mdm Theresa Yip, an energetic grande dame at 77, travels to almost all four corners of the country to teach the art of making handicraft ranging from soft toys to Japanese washi dolls. Her students include Down’s Syndrome children, elderly residents and nurses at homes for the aged who, in turn, pass on their acquired skills.

The former midwife and Active Senior Citizen of the Year 2005 merit award winner, who has been a volunteer for 23

such as singing, gardening or preparing years and still counting, is also a Lions What’s Your Preference? a simple meal. RSVP mentor team Befriender coordinator and a board member Indeed, the plethora of volunteering leaders Tan Peng Yam and Leong Sue of the Lions Befriender (Bendemeer) avenues available guarantees volunteers Yin, who have a banking and family Neighbourhood Link. the chance to share their experiences business background respectively, both Over at Singapore Action Group with the community, as well as indulge in profess a love for children and say they of Elders (SAGE), 43 senior volunteers their specific passions at the same time. enjoy much satisfaction in imparting life between the ages of 50 and 79 man the For instance, Sidek bin Kiah is able to skills to their young charges.

Seniors Helpline (1800-555-5555) to give draw on his years as a plant collector at information and advice on services the Botanic Gardens in his role for seniors as well as provide a as a volunteer with Mendaki. listening ear to peers who, facing He organises activities for Floral stress, anxiety or loneliness, need to and Fauna Fantasy (an outdoor talk about their personal issues while experiential learning programme) at maintaining identity confidentiality. the Botanic Gardens to reach out Then there’s Rajendra Gour, who to “at-risk” youths under Mendaki’s was recently featured in a Channel Youth-In-Action programme. The News Asia article as Singapore’s 75-year old grandfather says he earliest known award-winning filmvolunteers to “socialise, and spend maker. Rajendra is a volunteer at quality time for a good cause”. not just one but two organisations.

Meanwhile, Mdm Mazenah bte He can be found at the Asian CiviAhmad indulges the humanitarian in lisations Museum – where he does her by collecting donations to build reception duty and organises the an orphanage in Batam, counselling refreshments table when talks are ex-addicts at Taman Bacaan Female held – and at various secondary Halfway House and coordinating schools, where he screens his films volunteer resources for the Moral and conducts talks on the art of filmThye Hua Kwan Society’s Inter-Racial making and preservation as part of Inter-Religious Harmony Nite event. efforts by the Asian Film Archive According to her, those who can help, (AFA) to educate the young. volunteer. Those who can’t, donate.

“I come away with a good feeling But she “enjoys the best of both worlds – I volunteer and donate!” that someone has benefited from the Seniors who have in mind a skill skills I impart – skills that have taken “We are not the frail old they want to nurture can approach years of experience to hone,” says men and women wobbling Rajendra. “At the end of the day, volunaround on walking sticks, organisations to indicate their areas of interest. Alternatively, those who teering in this manner is my way of as generally portrayed. doing something for myself and to We are healthy, active and are open to options can be suitably matched up based on preference satisfy my conscience. The older knowledgeable, with much or life experience at a society like generation has a lot to contribute. It — NGIAM TONG YUEN to share!”

RSVP, which has an impressive is important that we are self-reliant, “It is gratifying to help mould these range of placement possibilities such independent and visible in our efforts to children, to bring them out of their shells, as mentoring children, hosting internagroom the next generation.” see them stand up and be confident. It’s tional exchange students, and educating Ngiam Tong Yuen, a board member a good way to get to know the younger fellow seniors on staying relevant in the and chairperson of the mentoring generation,” says Leong who has been a information technology age. Most activities programme at Retired & Senior Volunteer mentor for the past nine years and devotes are based on flexible schedules, so that Programme Singapore (RSVP), a society her time to RSVP five days a week, helping seniors can choose what they would of seniors who volunteer for community with human resource and administrative like to volunteer for and when, without projects, agrees. RSVP mentors in 11 matters as well. Adds Tan who also compromising the pursuit of their primary schools to some 200 students’ contributes the bulk of his week to RSVP personal, social or recreational activities. two or three afternoons a week. The activities, “My friends have noticed a Senior volunteers aren’t the only mentors are both a guiding hand and change in me, and commend me for my ones happy with such an arrangement. a friend to latchkey children from lowwork as a mentor. In response, I tell them Says Tan Bee Thiam of AFA, “Our senior income families, and facilitate crossto join me! Volunteer programmes are flexvolunteers are such a valuable resource generational interaction as they help ible, and there is something for everyone.” to us – they come with a lifetime of with homework and conduct activities Mar-Apr 2007 S A LT •

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to seniors in the form of transport learning and experience to share. They Volunteers: Frequency/ reimbursements and the like, more have fewer distractions and genuinely Intensity of Volunteering Frequency Average hours* will be attracted to join the senior want to help. At a heritage organisation Current Current Current volunteers volunteers volunteers volunteer pool and do their bit.” like AFA, we are especially concerned aged aged aged All 55 years 55 years less than current CFS, he says, intends to provide an about films that continue to influence and over and over 55 years volunteers allowance to its volunteers. people over time. Our four senior Weekly (per week) 38% 7.19 4.22 5.06 volunteers are great keepers of memo- Monthly (per month) 18% 13.92 13.21 13.27 ries and it’s wonderful to have their Occasionally (per year) Going the Distance 45% 18.08 15.87 16.15 personal perspectives while we unlock * Volunteer hours exclude traveling time No doubt, many will agree with Dr Source: Survey on Individual Giving in Singapore, 2006, National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre. our history,” he says.

Chiang that more can be done to senior volunteers who are making a “The satisfaction these volunteers offer the proverbial carrot to give senior difference in the community. “I have come volunteerism a boost. RSVP’s Ngiam says receive is spiritual,” adds Margaret Seow, across many seniors who devote their time his society is working towards creating counsellor and officer in charge of the at churches and other places of worship, awareness among the public as well as its Senior Helpline, “and they are a great supplying fresh flowers or maintaining members. Communication tools include source of passion and a willingness to the cleanliness of the area. Others visit newsletters sent to homes, talks given at serve their peers.” their neighbours to help with marketing the National Library and events such as Volunteer Appreciation night to give volunStand Up and Be Counted for groceries, or running their errands.

To me, these people are volunteers teers and would be-volunteers a chance But just how many Sue Yins, Theresas, contributing to society,” says Dr Chiang. to mingle and share their experiences.

Annes and Rajendras are out there?

This view is shared by newly-appointed “The climate in Singapore is getting According to the National Volunteer and Nominated Member of Parliament and better when it comes to volunteerism Philanthropy Centre’s (NVPC) 2006 says Ngiam, who adds survey figures on individual giving, the “Every one needs a purpose awareness,” that he is appreciative that the local volunteer participation rate for those in life. Active ageing is media is always happy to publish aged 65 and above is only 11%, while living out that purpose articles about their activities. He the rate for those between 55-64 is – having a reason to wake hopes that this, in turn, will alter slightly better at 13%. In contrast, the volunteer participation rate for up in the morning, gaining the image of seniors in Singapore.

“We are not the frail old men and those aged between 15 and 24 is a a feeling of self-worth.” whopping 28%, whilst the national — GERARD EE women wobbling around on walking Associate Professor at the National sticks, as generally portrayed. We are average for all age groups is 15.5%.

University of Singapore’s Department healthy, active and knowledgeable, with Why aren’t more seniors, who have of Social Work, Dr Kalyani Mehta, and much to share!” he says firmly. “That proportionately more time on their hands Gerard Ee, one of Singapore’s most wellprevious image needs to be changed!” as opposed to the younger generation who known community activists. Says Dr Mehta, Indeed, Singapore’s seniors have attend school or hold down jobs, giving “Seniors are already contributing widely embraced active ageing well – evident their time to the community? After all, in many spheres. However, their contrifrom how they are keeping active. Ask they certainly don’t have the proverbial butions are not visible. In many ethnic anyone and he or she will tell you of a “I have no time!” argument to fall back on. and religious organisations, seniors are retired family member or acquaintance Ngiam suggests that unwillingness offering a great deal of community service.” who still indulges in a second career, on the part of most seniors to adhere Adds Ee, “Some are in it for personal social activities or exercise sessions. to volunteer schedules is one possible gains and others are there to “pass-it-on” Meanwhile, the Government’s efforts in reason. “Out of our 850 members, there in appreciation of the blessings they have creating a conducive environment for is a large dominant group that needs been filled with thus far in their lives. It is seniors to grow old continue. The success persuasion; they cite reasons such as the for this reason that many would prefer to of initiatives such as Senior Citizen’s need to help take care of their grandjust help people without being part of a Week and Senior Citizen’s Awards children as grounds for their inability to structured organisation. Such volunteers – which turns seven this year – will commit. RSVP’s challenge is to make a are seldom captured by the statistics.” be built on, to further drive home the connection with these members to make Dr Chiang also says financial reasons importance of recognising Singapore’s that first step,” he explains. may be preventing more senior volunteers “national treasures” in the home, the However, some believe that the level from stepping forward. “Overseas, retirees workplace and within the community. of volunteerism out there is healthier than get pensions from the government, but This is vital in a country where the perceived. Dr Chiang Hai Ding, executive first batch of post-war baby boomers will director of the eight-month old Centre for here in Singapore, retirees depend mainly on their CPF to get by,” he says. “Perhaps reach 65 years of age in 2012. Today, one Seniors (CFS), believes that the statistics if the relevant authority can give provisions out of every 12 Singaporeans is aged 65 do not fully reflect the actual number of

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or above. By 2030, this ratio will become one out of five. Says Dr Mehta, “We need to prepare now for that time. A lot of policies and services programmes have to be designed so that we are ready for a greying society. I think it’s important, as a lot of attention is given to youth issues, but not enough to ageing issues.

“In anticipation of the baby-boomer generation, we can expect the senior volunteerism rate to increase. However, a well-managed volunteer recruitment and guidance program has to be in place.”* And indeed it makes sense for nonprofit organisations to put together a well-structured volunteer management programme to engage all types of volunteers, particularly senior volunteers. NVPC’s Individual Giving Survey 2006 shows that respondents aged 55 years and over (a) give more hours, (b) have longer commitment periods, than other volunteers (see table). Interestingly, too, the most common kind of activities undertaken by senior volunteers are pretty much similar to those below 55, namely fundraising, general services and administration as well as volunteer coordination.

Busy Bodies Till then, Singapore’s good track record for active ageing can be a catalyst to promote senior volunteerism. As more and more seniors are encouraged to get out of their homes and into the community, they enlarge their social networks and are better exposed to the range of activities they can participate in. And if currently active senior volunteers continue to extol the significance of what they do, who is to say many more won’t be inspired to come forward?

Says Ee, “Every one needs a purpose in life. Active ageing is living out that purpose – having a reason to wake up in the morning, gaining a feeling of selfworth. That being said, being active and being a volunteer are two different things, because volunteering has to do with one’s personal values.

“But it is fine to start with just being involved. The best way is to share your passion with others – organise groups to go bird watching and teach the participants about the subject, teach others to dance, or start an interest group in stamp collecting.

Sooner or later, others will be touched

and the purpose of volunteering will change into wanting to touch more lives”.

According to Ee, volunteerism should not be restricted to retired PMEBs. Similarly, to be an effective volunteer, one does not have to be well-educated since “a retired fishmonger can teach others all about fish – how to tell if it is fresh, or even what fish to use to make fish balls. Likewise, the pork seller, chicken seller, durian vendor, gardener, carpenter all have a story and certainly skills to share. Anyone and every-one can be a volunteer.” ✩ * To help NPOs to recruit senior volunteers, NVPC has released an online guide “Doing Good Well – Engaging Senior Volunteers: A Guide for Non-profit Organisations” at its website, www.nvpc.org.sg.

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Volunteers and Donors: In Perpetual Churn?

n Singapore, there are charities and there are institutions of a public character (IPCs). Not every charity has IPC status. There are about 900 IPCs in Singapore, compared to about double that number of charities. The objects of IPCs must be charitable in nature and their activities must be carried out on a nonprofit-making basis. The charitable activities must be beneficial to the community as a whole and not confined to sectional interests, i.e. they must satisfy the public benefit test, unless otherwise approved.

NVPC’s previous research had focused on the givers of time and money (volunteers and donors) of the nonprofit landscape. Late in 2005, NVPC initiated a study on the “receiving” side of these gifts of time and money to understand what challenges IPCs face in volunteerism and philanthropy.

The IPC survey was carried out through computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) with 287 IPCs from all sectors, an overall response rate of 33% from the almost 900 IPCs in Singapore1, and through desk research of financial

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As part of its study of Singapore’s volunteerism and philanthropy landscape, NVPC commissioned its first ever survey of IPCs. KEVIN LEE highlights the study and draws some conclusions.

information2 made available by IPCs. CATI interviews were conducted from 16 Nov to 27 Dec 05. Financial information collection and data cleaning ended on 20 Jul 06. The research was carried out by Taylor Nelson Sofres Singapore Pte Ltd. The IPCs surveyed were as varied as the needs they serve in the community, covering sectors such as arts, community, education, health, social service and sports. They come, too, in various sizes in terms of total financial receipts and years of operation. The number of years respondents had been in operation in the survey varied from as short as a year to a century: The average age was 18 years.

Notwithstanding the variety, NVPC found discernible patterns in volunteerism and philanthropy among the 287 IPCs surveyed.

Volunteerism

86% of respondents engaged volunteers in 2004. Among the pool of volunteers available in the sample, only 53% were active, i.e. participated on a regular or ad-hoc basis during the year.

65% of respondents that engaged volunteers had designated volunteer coordinators, or volunteer programme managers, who coordinated volunteers.

When asked what the most critical problem area faced in managing volunteers was, few respondents considered gaining new volunteers as a problem area.

Instead, they cited a lack of commitment from volunteers, the difficulty in sustaining the interest of volunteers, as well as limited resources for a designated volunteer coordinator.

Of these figures, Mrs Tan Chee Koon, NVPC’s CEO was glad that “the issue

now is not so much one of ‘Where are the volunteers?’ as that of sustaining volunteer interest. This finding reinforces what NVPC has been advocating all this time – the pivotal role of volunteer coordinators in managing volunteers.” (see side story) Philanthropy

Compared to the 86% of respondents which engaged volunteers, fewer respondents (69%) engaged in fundraising activities in 2004. While 50% of respondents that raised funds had designated fundraisers (by comparison, 65% of respondents that engaged volunteers had designated volunteer coordinators), on average, fewer staff were involved in volunteer management (1.7 effective fulltime staff) compared to fundraising (12).

Among respondents that used more than one fundraising method, organising special events for specific audiences (eg gala dinners, as opposed to mass events like fun fairs which are aimed at the general public) was rated as the most effective method in terms of the absolute dollars raised. Direct mailers were considered most efficient, in terms of costs incurred per dollar raised.

“Imagine the value of volunteers and donors who don’t just give once-off, but who are so encouraged by their initial experience that they continue to give over the years.”

—Mrs Tan Chee Koon

The main fundraising issues which respondents faced were donor fatigue and limited resources for designated fundraising staff.

Commenting on the tendency of some IPCs to allocate more staff resources to fundraising than volunteer manage-

ment, Mrs Tan suggested that IPCs would do well to steer more resources towards volunteer management. This is because NVPC had found, in its Individual Giving Surveys, a link between volunteerism and philanthropy. The surveys found that current volunteers donated more (in terms of average amount donated) than former and non-volunteers. “Volunteers give their time,” said Mrs Tan. “And time, certainly, is money, not just because volunteers work without salary, but also because volunteers may be donors.

And they may, as a result of a positive volunteering experience, encourage others to donate and give more themselves over time.”

Indeed, examples abound of volunteers doing their bit to raise funds. For example, the award-winning Hair for Hope campaign run by the Children’s Cancer Foundation involved volunteers who had their heads shaved to spread the message of childhood cancer and raise funds. The campaign had started small in 2003, when nine volunteers had their heads shaved and helped raise $2,000. By 2006, the number had risen to nearly 900 shorn heads and raising over $776,000.

“Where IPCs have designated staff to carry out donor and volunteer

Keeping Volunteers Volunteering

“ A designated volunteer

A volunteer program manager is crucial to keep an organisation’s volunteerism flame flickering. By MERVIN CHUA.

manager is in a position

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the volunteers face to the

Vivakanandan, the former CEO of SINDA who now heads up the Ang Mo Kio Community Hospital once likened the spirit of volunteerism to a lighted candle, as it was every volunteer organisation’s job to keep the flame burning to help sustain the growth of the organisation.

For a long time now, the idea of sustainability has been a key concern in the nonprofit sector. NVPC’s recent Institutions of a Public Character (IPC) survey threw light on this issue.

86% of respondents engaged volunteers. Top volunteer management concerns included sustaining volunteers’ interests and limited resources for designated persons (known as volunteer coordinators, volunteer

managers or volunteer programme managers) to manage volunteers.

The role of a volunteer manager is often a difficult one that involves delicately balancing the strengths of the volunteers with functions an organisation needs fulfilling.

“After volunteers have begun on the assignment, a volunteer manager evaluates their performance to ensure the right job match,” says Ms Loi Boon Lee, Director, Community Partnerships of the Society for the Physically Disabled. “Motivation and retention of volunteers is also important, for which the volunteer manager organises regular volunteers’ network sessions and looks out for suitable training

courses for the volunteers.”

Interestingly, NVPC’s study shows that on average, fewer staff were involved in volunteer management (average 1.7 effective fulltime staff) compared to fundraising (average 12 effective full-time staff ). So could more volunteer managers fan the flame of volunteerism?

Specifically, would raising the ratio of volunteer managers to fundraising staff result in better volunteer retention?

Alfred Tan, executive director of the Singapore Children’s Society feels that the volunteer manager’s role is definitely strategic to an organisation,

to feed back the problems management, which is a valuable resource on how things can be improved within the organisation.”

—Loi Boon Lee

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management work, such work may be in addition to other work, because of resource constraints,” said Maretta Emery, the treasurer for the Association for Fundraising Professionals International Board. “Donor fatigue is sometimes due to staff fatigue.” When people wear multiple hats, it sometimes happens that some work (eg service to beneficiaries)

and their ‘life-time value’, are lost.

Conversely, if volunteers and donors are retained, the cost spent on recruiting volunteers and donors would pay dividends.

“Imagine the value of volunteers and donors who don’t just give once-off, but who are so encouraged by their initial experience that they continue to give over the years”, says Mrs Tan.

b)

Recommendations

“Donor fatigue is sometimes due to staff fatigue.”

—Maretta Emery

gets higher priority than others (eg donor and volunteer management).

Anecdotal evidence suggests that even when staff spare some time on donor and volunteer management, they may, because of time constraints, find it easier to focus more on recruitment rather than retention. This may lead to an undesirable “churn”, or turnover, of donors and volunteers. The situation is obviously unsatisfactory since the valuable resources spent on recruiting volunteers and donors,

but cautions that having more managers must depend on productivity levels of the organisation itself.

Loi speaks of two immediate benefits of having a designated volunteer manager. First, the position humanises the organisation. “The familiarity of that one face is many times the only link to the management. If the volunteers have problems carrying out the assignment, it helps if they have someone they can trust to turn to. Without this, they could end up quitting volunteering prematurely,” says Loi. “A designated volunteer manager is also in the position to feedback the problems the volunteers face to the management, which is a valuable resource on how things can be improved within the organisation.”

Alfred Tan agrees that volunteer feedback is crucial to the organisation’s improvement but notes so is the exit interview process.“It’s a sensitive topic,”

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To help IPCs direct more resources towards the area of volunteer and donor management, the study made the following recommendations: a) IPCs could go on to a “recruit, review and renew” mode to reduce churn which is perpetuated when volunteer and donor management remains in a “recruit them, release them, replace them” mode. This way, feedback is sought from volunteers and donors, and organisational practices reviewed in the light of such feedback.

If appropriate review action is taken, volunteers and donors would be more inclined to renew their commitment to give their time and money, thus helping to close the door to volunteer and donor attrition.

says Tan, that is best approached with a “less negative” approach like half-yearly reviews for volunteers to better dovetail both organisation and volunteer needs.

At the Singapore Children’s Society, a full-time volunteer manager at the headquarters “strings a lot of things together”. And because the Society operates 10 centres, the manager coordinates all the centres’ volunteer needs and liaises with each centre’s social worker. The efficiency gained from the manager’s aerial perspective means that volunteers don’t hop from centre to centre.

This system is further enhanced by posting all volunteer activities on their website that has an online application. In addition, the Society’s manager also liaises with the Social Service Training Institute to keep their volunteers apprised of enrichment courses that can open

c)

IPCs could take on an investment perspective and consider channeling a portion of their surplus funds into donor and volunteer management (where currently such surpluses tend to go straight back into the programmes and services they provide, or to build reserves, with manpower expenses and other overheads a lower priority.)

For example, if a $30,000-a-year executive helped to raise $300,000 in funds, the investment would have paid for itself with $270,000 available for programmes and other expenses.

Donors and grantmakers could be more open to funding donor and volunteer management positions.

Such staff, like social workers, also deal with people – donors and volunteers. Donor and volunteer management requires specific skills. If funders are more prepared to underwrite part or even all the costs of donor and volunteer management, such strategic capacity building funding would help yield more resources for IPCs to carry out programmes. ✩

1 Results may not entirely represent the overall IPC landscape.

2 Financial information was for the year 2004.

a volunteer to more areas of service.

For Loi, the bottom line is that “more volunteer managers would mean greater attention given to the individual volunteers. The greater buyin to the organisation may also translate to some giving more than just their time”. This is something supported in NVPC’s 2006 research on Individual Giving in Singapore which showed active volunteers donated more in terms of average amount compared to former and non-volunteers. Also, these volunteers are good spokespersons to encourage others to donate.

For an organisation, to have or not to have a volunteer manager is therefore more than an academic question. Good managers may not just help retain good volunteers, but if the existing data is anything to go by, they could well multiply time and money available to help ensure that organisation’s long-term viability.

MOVE Forward Spurred by the desire to professionalise the role of volunteer managers, MOVE (Managing & Organising Volunteer Efforts) was set up last year by a cadre of young volunteer managers. MOVE has specific goals. First off, it intends to establish geographical cell groups of volunteer managers to establish peer support.

It also conducts orientation programmes and a mentoring scheme in an effort to further define the roles and responsibilities of volunteer managers.

But beyond formalising job scope, MOVE also conducts focus group surveys and publishes articles on volunteer management to its members. www.move.org.sg

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Direct Dial

StarHub’s new employee volunteer programme connects with more than just its underprivileged beneficiaries. SAKINAH MANAFF eavesdrops.

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ast December, Peter Chua skived from work to play games. And his employer StarHub knew all about it. In fact, it encouraged the sales manager to take time off from work to visit and play with the underprivileged children of Club Rainbow.

It’s a new outlook for the telecom giant as it strives to make another connection with the community. Since last December, when StarHub launched its Corporate Volunteerism Programme, employees have been able to take two days of paid leave annually to do voluntary work with events and charities sponsored by the company.

“Volunteering is not just one-way,” says Tan Guong Ching, chairman of StarHub. “People who volunteer have a lot to gain from their valuable experience. It might be learning new skills, getting to know new friends or just feeling good about doing something for someone else. That’s the volunteerism spirit that StarHub aims to promote and we are pleased to support our colleagues through this programme.”

“ I will definitely continue to do volunteer work in my own time. My perspective in life has been enriched.

I ended up receiving more than I gave.”

Peter Chua could not agree more. His experience last December volunteering with Club Rainbow, StarHub’s chosen charity, has been more than rewarding. “It made me realise how fortunate we are,” he says.

The trend of local companies demonstrating corporate social responsibility in recent years has been encouraging. In this respect, StarHub leads the way as it had already been involved in community out-

as a whole,” adds Tham.

To celebrate the launch of the programme, StarHub also donated $200,000 to Club Rainbow from its StarHub Sparks Fund to set up the Rainbow Family Care Centre, which will offer sustained support services to 420 chronically ill Collect call: Peter Chua (top) reach programmes since it raises spirits and smiles with the Rainbow children and their families.

“StarHub is one such organistarted operations in April children from Club Rainbow. sation that walks the talk,” says Gregory 2000. In July that same year, it launched Vijayendran, president of Club Rainbow. the StarHub Sparks Fund, in which one “The StarHub and Club Rainbow partnerpercent of revenue earned from all IDD ship is a superb example of developing a 008 and IDD 018 calls was dedicated to long-term partnership between organisathe less fortunate through education/skill tions and voluntary welfare organisations enhancement and provision of basic needs.

– not just in terms of cash donations, According to StarHub’s spokesperson, but also contributions by way of in-kind Iris Tham, the company has donated more than $3m from the StarHub Sparks Fund donations and volunteers.”

Determined to drive home the message for the purchase of necessities such as of volunteerism, StarHub has also sponwheelchairs, food supplies, electrical sored a $50,000 ad campaign featuring appliances, assistive technology equipment a series of print advertisements for the and educational tools for over 50 charities.

National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre As corporate social responsibility (NVPC) in the local newspapers. With initiatives go, StarHub’s new programme attention-grabbing headlines like “Missing”, is a bold and exciting move, for it not the objective is to raise awareness and only puts in place a structure for charity encourage members of the public to come and employee volunteering, it also forward to volunteer their time and services, encourages employees to get involved to make a difference in changing lives. with the community.

It looks like StarHub may not only Tham says, “The objective is to instill be making a difference in the lives of the a sense of social responsibility by encourunderprivileged. Its Corporate Volunteer aging active participation in StarHub’s Programme looks set to impact the lives community service projects aimed at of their employee-volunteers as well. helping the underprivileged.”

Says Chua, “After volunteering at Club The response has been overwhelming.

Rainbow, I will definitely continue to The 30 vacancies available for the inaudo volunteer work in my own time. My gural volunteer event with Club Rainbow perspective in life has been enriched. were filled within the day, and many I ended up receiving more than I gave.” would-be volunteers were turned away.

Now that’s something an employee “We certainly hope that employees will doesn’t quite expect when they show up feel a stronger sense of belonging to the for work. ✩ company when contributing to society

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Cup of Good Hope With former patients with mental illness manning the counters at Barista Express, Dignity Links provides more than just a good cup of coffee. TAN HWEE HWEE takes a sip.

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eople with mental illness often have trouble finding jobs because of the stigma involved with their condition. With this in mind, last May, social enterprise company, Dignity Links – a company set up by Kala Karkal and Christopher Lim to help patients recovering from mental illness find work – collaborated with the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) to open Barista Express at Clifford Centre with an aid grant from MCYS. The only thing differentiating this café from others in the area is that it is staffed largely by clients recovering from mental illness (in general, these range from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to depression). These clients work in Barista Express for a period of three to six months, after which occupational therapists try to help them find employment in the open market.

“ We’re not hiding the fact that the people working here do have psychiatric illness but this creates more acceptance and awareness as most of our regular customers know about the clients employed here.”

Dignity Links decided to set up Barista Express even though IMH already had a juice bar in the IMH complex that was being run by former patients. IMH found that the bar could not provide their clients with the training they needed to adequately cope with the outside world.

ground to teach the café staff how to deal with stress. “Most organisations have their social enterprises within their premises where the general public is not aware of it at all,” says Karkal, “so having it in a public place where we’re not hiding the fact that the people Coffee mix: Barista Express working here do have psychiatric Says Karkal, Dignity Links’ staff serve up a blend of goodwill and hope. illness creates more acceptance and operations director, “The awareness as most of our regular customers juice bar is in a protected environment know about the clients employed here.” within the IMH complex, so the difference Dignity Links also provides a between the outside world and what they comprehensive support programme for do there is very wide. We needed to do the clients working at Barista Express. something that would replicate conditions It runs a one year wellness programme that that would give these former patients teaches clients how to cope with mental training in real life situations such as illness, and once a month, a group comes serving and interacting with customers.” together for an informal sharing of One option that the company experiences to help support one another. examined early on was to look for jobs for There have been many notable success patients individually, for example, at a stories. In addition to helping clients gain courier company, but that didn’t work out. much needed confidence, to date, two “The clients can initially only work 2-3 former employees of Barista Express have hours, so we had to build up their resilience managed to find gainful work, one in an to be able to work long hours,” Karkal says. administrative position and the other in “They needed a support system to help a food and beverage outlet. them phase in the work slowly.”

These may still be early days, but it’s The solution was Barista Express; but already very clear that Barista Express why a café and not some other business? is serving up more than just coffee. It is “When you work in a café, you have to providing hope in a situation that can learn how to multi-task,” says Karkal.

“Also it gives our clients an opportunity to often be hopeless, offering a chance for social rehabilitation and reintegration interact with more different types of people for a community that has laboured long rather than just those they might meet in under the stigma of mental illness. an office. We want to train them in stress For the company’s grateful clients, management, customer service, interaction this chance is, very likely, exactly what with colleagues – these are the aspects the doctor ordered. ✩ of training which are more important.”

Café Barista operates at #01-K2 Dignity Links deliberately located the of Clifford Centre, 24 Raffles Place. café right in the heart of the CBD because Its opening hours are 7am to 5pm, that is a stressful area to work in and Mondays to Fridays. which would help provide a good training

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Plain Sailing

It sounds simple enough: Adopt sound business principles and practices to turn a sport into a national commitment. And win lots of medals in the process. ANDREW DUFFY steps onto the deck with Low Teo Ping, the president of Singapore Sailing Federation.

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ow Teo Ping smiles when he says he should have been six foot two.

But he was hit a few times on the head while working the foredeck in various offshore races. He jokes that the accidents robbed him of those vital inches.

Although the president of Singapore Sailing Federation (SingaporeSailing) never broke the six-foot barrier, he still easily fills a room with his outsized personality and, especially, sound business practices for the sport.

Whether or not his early seafaring mishaps actually altered his height, they certainly never dampened his sailing spirit.

Now 61, he has presided over SingaporeSailing, a National Sports Association, since 1998. In the last 18 months alone, Singapore has won six world titles. The crowning glory was the five gold medals the team brought home from the Asian Games in Doha last December.

Singapore was surprised. One man wasn’t.

In the world according to Low Teo Ping, the fair winds of good business principles and self belief helped Singapore’s sailors to victory.

“We believe in the Singaporeans who are involved in it. The sailors believed in what they were doing and in the organisation which was helping them.”

Of course, belief will only get an athlete so far, or else the Singaporean sailors would all have come home with gold medals. Mr Low has brought something more to SingaporeSailing. When he retired from UBS five years ago and turned his attention to sports, he carried

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over “the best practices, good corporate governance, interpersonal skills, all the good things of the corporate world.”

One of the first things he did was to establish a mission statement. It is very specific in terms of leadership in sailing in Asia, and focuses on Singaporeans taking to sailing as a national sport and doing it for fun as well as for medals. Very importantly, it gives a clear direction.

“But is that rocket science?” he asks.

“Every good organisation would have it, because that is your compass pointing towards how you are going to work.”

In particular, he highlights teamwork as crucial.

“If you succeed, it isn’t about you or your coach. It’s also about many others like your parents, your school principal, your teachers, the people you have been sparring with have all brought you to your level.”

Mr Low certainly walks the talk, and the SingaporeSailing website even has a section called The Engine Room that is devoted to interviews with the coaches, the

administration staff and the supervisors.

“You must be aware of the people around you who have helped you,” Mr Low adds.

Like tennis or swimming, sailing is an individual sport; but a sense of teamwork permeates all levels of the sport.

“We have inculcated such strong team spirit in sailing that everybody helps each other,” he says.

Mr Low’s transplanted business attitudes go even deeper. Sailors who want to represent Singapore at a major sporting event must submit a letter of intent to indicate their interest. SingaporeSailing will then involve sailors in intensive training sessions to bring them up to a level at which, later on in the selection process, they are all race-ready.

That means there’s a bigger talent pool to choose from, and it also changes the psyche from one of just wanting to sail to one of wanting to perform and do much better.

“And when you get selected, you sign an athlete agreement to say ‘I abide by the following...’ It becomes very prescriptive,” says Mr Low. “We are the only ones who do that. But it’s no different from the business world where you’re given a manual of responsibilities for your job.” Now SingaporeSailing is condensing its standard practices into a booklet called Sailor First.

It all sounds time-consuming and expensive, but with the $3 million-plus funding from the Sports Council as well as income from sponsors and concessions at its centres, SingaporeSailing is prepared to pay up.

R S & M O V E R S “We are one of the most highly funded sports in Singapore,” agrees Mr Low. “But then, we sent 20 sailors to the Asian Games, and all but one came back with a medal. And there were five golds – so what’s the return on investment there?”

This business language runs through his conversation, and it may be no surprise that the volunteers who give so much support are equally at home in the business community.

“Most of them are parents, all professionals, and come from the business world,” says Mr Low. “So there is a common language. That helps a lot because you become convergent in your tasks, your goals and that counts for a lot.”

Sailing attracts parent volunteers from the professional world partly because the clubs are off the beaten track and need a car to get to. That alone suggests volunteers need a certain income level, a certain professional status.

And since it is not a spectator sport, with the action taking place out at sea, parent volunteers have to do more than shout encouragement from the touchline. They help transport the boats and the equipment, and get involved with the maintenance and the fundraising.

As Mr Low puts it, sailing requires “good home support”.

On top of that, sailing is expensive, with membership of a club costing far more than a soccer ball. It all adds up to the sailing world being peopled by committed, professional types.

It also helps explain why, when some are calling for professional managers to run sports NPOs, Mr Low simply wants them to be run professionally.

“There have been a lot of cries saying sports associations must have [paid] professional management. I totally disagree.

“You’ve got to be managed professionally first, and that may sometimes include professional managers. And it may not.”

So, commitment is fundamental.

Mr Low’s own commitment to sport began

some volunteers off, “because in many people’s minds, volunteerism is about benefiting the less fortunate.

So, in tune with this spirit of volunteerism, SingaporeSailing has started working with the less fortunate, too. Among other things, they have “adopted” the Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association.

Kids at risk who leave school early can fall prey to all kinds of influences that are not good, so SingaporeSailing adopts 15 to 20 of them and teaches them windsurfing. Why not sailing?

“Because windsurfing is a lot more attractive. You get to wear cool shorts and sunglasses,” says Mr Low. The Singapore Sea Scouts also have a facility at the National Sailing Centre. “We felt they were getting The sailors celebrating their achievement of 5 Golds, 3 Silvers and 2 Bronzes at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. Singaporedisjointed in Singapore because they Sailing President Low Teo Ping leaps into the sea to celebrate. don’t have a sailing facility. So we have adopted them,” says Mr Low. “These are the add-ons we’ve done, so we’re not just a sports association catering for the fortunate and steering a path of just sailing excellence,” says Mr Low. “But we’d like to do a lot more.”

That may ultimately involve every schoolchild in Singapore, and make sailing a life skill to be learned. Like riding a bike.

“We want to embark on a programme where all kids in the first six years of their Then, 30 years ago, Mr Low went primary education do four days’ sailing, out on a friend’s Hobie Cat, a lightweight plus learning oceanography, weather, twin-hulled racing boat. He progressed to tide, wind, currents and everything else.” racing yachts, competing in the Hong KongThis last part is a sweetener to parents Manila and other offshore races, taking who he knows are more likely to support the demanding job of working the foredeck, putting up and taking down the sails. (and contribute to) the four-day sailing experience if it has an educational side.

He still sails, but now more of his It’s self-interest at some level: to time is spent volunteering for sport than “populate the sport” and have all future playing it: he is also the vice-president of the Singaporeans understanding sailing and Singapore National Olympic Committee; supporting it. And it hints at the bigger president of the Singapore Rugby Union; picture Mr Low sees. council member of the Singapore Sports “I see myself as being involved with Council; and vice-president of the Intera mission, using sports so that the people national Sailing Federation. who go through it come out being better One unusual facet of NSAs – unlike people and better citizens. That’s all.

VWOs – is that they work with those It’s not about winning medals.” ✩ who are already fortunate. That can put early. He grew up near the Singapore General Hospital, and sport was what the neighbourhood did, be it soccer, badminton, cricket or cycling, as well as rugby – he played scrum half for the country.

But the sea has always called to him.

“I used to water-ski, so it was quite natural in that sense. The wind on your face, the taste of salt water – I think it’s therapeutic.”

“ I see myself as being involved with a mission, using sports so that the people who go through it come out being better people and better citizens.

That’s all. It’s not about winning medals.”

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Nonprofit Qwerties WILLIE CHENG questions some long standing rules, practices and trends affecting charity in Singapore.

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any of us take for granted the modern flush toilet and sewerage system as a boon of modern civilisation. Well, while helping to build rural toilets in Sri Lanka, I was surprised to learn from the sanitation experts that the design of our modern toilet may be flawed.

As Jack Sim, founder of World Toilet Organisation puts it, “God went through the trouble of designing our bodies so that the liquids and solids are separated into two different channels. And what do we do? As soon as they leave our body, we put them back together into one single receptacle! To make it worse, we combine them with kitchen and bath water. We then create an expensive sewerage system to transport the mix over vast distances. And finally, at the end of the line, we expend a lot of energy and resources to – lo and behold – re-separate the liquids and the solids.”

In dealing with the pressures of costs, space, health and water availability issues, alternative toilet solutions have emerged across the world. They range from dry toilets (where the liquids and solids are collected separately as they are discharged from the body) to various other eco-san rural toilets. Most of these toilet solutions seek to cost-effectively recover the waste as source energy and yet not contaminate the surrounding environments. But none of these solutions looks likely yet to displace the mainstream solution of the modern toilet bowl and urban sewerage system that we are all comfortable with.

You could say that the modern flush toilet is a Qwerty – it served its purpose when it was first conceived and imple-

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mented, but through widespread adoption, it continues to be in use even when changes to the original solution could improve it. The reasons often offered for sticking with the original solution are inertia and/or the cost of re-implementing a different solution.

The Qwerty Effect “Qwerty” refers to the layout of the modern-day keyboard and takes its name from the first six letters of the keyboard’s top row of letters. The layout of the keyboard was originally meant to prevent jamming by separating pairs of the most commonly used keys. Of course, modern

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keyboards do not suffer from the problems of older mechanical keyboards and the Qwerty keyboard’s separation of frequently used letter pairs is no longer necessary.

In fact, several other keyboard layouts have been proposed since the advent of

“ The Qwerty effect has therefore come to be used in the business world to describe outdated and sub-optimal but perhaps “good enough” approaches.”

the typewriter in 1873. Notable among these is the Dvorak layout which enjoyed some degree of widespread support and which several studies have shown to be more efficient and more comfortable than the Qwerty layout.

However, at the end of the day, the ubiquity of the Qwerty keyboard won out.

The cost of the inefficient layout is much less than that of retraining typists, and now, every executive who touch-types.

“ One unintended consequence of the 30% Rule is that commercial third party fundraisers tend to use 30% as the guideline to set the success fees for their services.”

The Qwerty effect has therefore come to be used in the business world to describe outdated and sub-optimal but perhaps “good enough” approaches.

Well, we have our fair share of qwerties in the nonprofit sector. Given our penchant in Singapore for numbers, let’s look at three numbered qwerties: the 30% Fundraising Rule, the 80/20 Charity Expenditure Rule and the 5/10 Estate Duty.

The 30% Fundraising Rule Fundraisers in Singapore are familiar with the 30% Rule: the cost of fundraising should not exceed 30% of the funds raised.

Measuring the fundraising efficiency ratio makes sense. But why 30%?

I am told that it’s a carry over from as far back as the 1970s when Customs and Excise would waive entertainment duty for charity shows, on condition that expenditure on the show did not exceed 30% of the revenue raised.

The practice in other countries is mixed. Most jurisdictions around the world emphasise the importance of efficient fundraising. However, some impose a limit and others do not. About a third of the American states impose limits ranging from 15% to 25%. The Better Business

Bureau Wise Giving Alliance in the U.S. suggests a limit of 35%. South Korea has a limit of 15%.

In my view, a blanket 30% is not a meaningful limit for fundraising.

That’s because a whole host of factors affects fundraising costs: the method used, the popularity of the cause, the profile of the constituency, the age of the organisation, and so on. Among these, the method of fundraising probably has the greatest impact on the relative cost of fundraising.

Take a golf charity. A typical charity tournament would ask each golfer to pay, say $500, for a game when the cost of the game and prize giving dinner could come to $250. That’s a cost efficiency ratio of 50%. Is that bad? Well, if there was no golf tournament, the charity would not have received the net donation of $250.

A charity golf tournament would typically raise about $30,000 to $50,000 without any heavy sponsorship. Contrast this with a fundraising campaign like that for the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy that raised $67 million (including grants). The cost of the phone calls, meetings and so on is a fraction of one percent of the sum raised for the institution.

Using a single ratio does not appropriately factor in economies of scale. Donors would flip if they were told that it cost $8 million or 30% (which of course it did not) to raise the $27 million (including matching grants) for the Wee Kim Wee Legacy Fund.

What makes the fund raising ratio even less meaningful is that charities can, and do, stretch accounting conventions to meet the rule. KPMG’s recent report on NKF states that “there were repeated instances of fund raising accounts being manipulated by irregular accounting treatments to comply with the 30/70 Rule.”

The fact that several IPCs show no fundraising costs in their reports suggests a lack of industry-wide accounting discipline in reporting fundraising costs One unintended consequence of the 30% Rule is that commercial third party fundraisers tend to use 30% as the guideline to set the success fees for their services. An investment banker remarked

as “unconscionable” the 30% proposal by one such professional fundraiser as the latter’s cut for corporate funds raised for a charity. She remarked that her own experience for similar fundraising in the commercial world was to charge 5-15% of funds raised.

So what makes sense if 30% is not a good blanket figure? My answer is not to have a limit. Under a disclosure-based regime, we should simply have clear accounting conventions on how the components of the fundraising efficiency ratio are computed and require disclosure of fund raising efficiency for each fundraising project. And then we let the donating public judge how efficient a charity has been in its approach to fundraising.

And like the stock market where investors understand that margins and returns vary by industries and a range of other business factors, donors will learn that they should expect different ratios for different kinds of fundraising exercises from different charities. And like the stock market, independent analysts such as Charity Watch will emerge to help them better understand these differences.

The 80/20 Charity Expenditure Rule The 80/20 Rule requires that a charity, in order to be exempt from income tax, spends 80% or more of its income and donations on charitable purposes in Singapore by the following financial year.

“ In the U.S., foundations pay out 5% of their assets each year. This approach allows for measured giving over multiple years.”

This is not an unreasonable rule to apply to charities doing work for endbeneficiaries – it ensures that money asked for is spent and not accumulated towards unduly large reserves.

Unfortunately, grant-makers such as family foundations, who can also be charities, are caught in the net. A foundation exists to give out money, and preferably

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from a large pool of funds. A good foundation should accumulate large endowments and engage in multi-year programme funding for its areas of focus. This is difficult to do with the 12-24 month time window on spending. By pushing a foundation to give away its income especially unanticipated income, in a short period of time, the nearest cause available could receive a windfall donation.

Some foundations get around this rule by simply not injecting in the funds until they are needed. Keeping family assets outside the foundation carries the risk that a donor may change his mind or when other family members ascend in influence, they change what might have been the original intent of the founder.

In the U.S., foundations follow a 5% Rule – they have to pay out 5% of their assets each year. This allows for measured giving over multiple years and, if the investments are properly managed, an indefinite life for the foundation.

In the recent 2007 Singapore Budget, the government stated that it will remove the 80/20 spending rule for all charities. Details of the measures to encourage philanthropic giving are to be announced. Hopefully, this will be part of a long term move towards a different set of regulations for grant-making bodies as opposed to end-beneficiary charities.

The 5/10 Estate Duty Estate duty in Singapore works as follows: after an exemption threshold of S$9m on residential property, plus $600,000 for all other assets including CPF balance, estate duty starts at 5% for the first S$12m of assets, and then 10% thereafter.

This is very generous when you compare it to the US’s 45% and UK’s 40% maximum rate for estate duty. Our current estate duty rates have declined over the years. There have also been calls to scrap estate duty in Singapore and the government is currently reviewing this. This is consistent with the experience of many other tax jurisdictions that have sought to lower and eliminate estate duty.

The rationale for reduction or abolition is simple: rich people are very

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“ Cancelling or reducing estate duty also deprives the charity sector of a good source of donations.” mobile. If estate duty is high or existent, they will simply move their tax domicile to a more attractive tax location, and the country loses out on that individual and all his related taxes and spending. For Singapore, competitive but low rates of estate duty may make it difficult to justify the administrative cost of collection and the angst created on bereaved families.

But if you think about it – from a tax equity standpoint, inheritance is one of the few income sources that is not “earned”.

Windfalls are received by virtue of a blood or other relationship. Estate duty makes for the equitable albeit partial redistribution of wealth back to society.

In addition, cancelling or reducing estate duty deprives the charity sector of a good source of donations. Since donations in wills are not dutiable, this encourages testators to donate part of their assets to charity. It is estimated that 12% of all charitable giving in the US is influenced by the estate tax.

So how should we stop this trend of declining and disappearing estate duty?

I would make two suggestions.

First, the major tax jurisdictions of the world could agree on the beneficial impact of estate duty and agree to some consistent moderate rate, thus making the moving of tax domicile, for this purpose, moot.

Secondly, it would be more attractive and palatable if estate duty was directly

channeled to charity, say to a national community foundation that gives out the money to the poor and needy. That way, the rich person dies knowing that any amount sliced off does not go to government coffers but goes directly to close the income gap.

Other Nonprofit Qwerties When I asked some of my nonprofit colleagues for what they might consider to be other qwerties in this sector, here are some of their examples: • Even though charity executive staff are not volunteers, we persist in paying them hugely discounted wages that values part of their time as free labour.

• The basis of giving by donors often bears little relation to the actual work done for beneficiaries. People give because of who asks, how it is being asked, etc, versus what and how the money is really used for.

• Endowments and reserves for endbeneficiary charities are considered good because they provide a sustained source of income for the charity’s work. But these require large donations that could have gone to other deserving charities and more importantly, take away the need for the benefiting charity to continue to be relevant.

• The more beneficiaries that a charity has, the more successful it is. Yet it could also mean that the charity is dealing with the symptoms and not the root cause. The true measure of a charity should be its extinction, not its growth.

• Charities have typically been too conservative with the way they invest their assets, putting them in fixed deposits, instead of seeking a better return within managed risk parameters.

Some of these may come across more as paradoxes or ironies of the nonprofit sector. But it is when we think in terms of “why” and “what else can we do?” in regards to what we are doing that we will collectively improve the sector. ✩

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One Good Turn

Young JEREMY LIM remembers a less enlightened time – and not so long ago – for the handicapped. This memory has spurred him, through his writings, to laud and nurture the spirit of volunteerism and philanthropy.

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welve years have passed since my parents went school hunting for me. Anxiety was written all over their faces as one kindergarten after another rejected their application, followed by appeal and, eventually, pleas.

To me, it was a flat rejection of a little boy with brittle bone disease seeking an opportunity to develop himself intellectually, socially and emotionally. I can still remember being placed on the reception counter at one school while my parents entreated the staff to give me a chance. When she shook her head, my heart sank. It was a double whammy for me. Besides the pain of rejection, I was hurt by my parents’ disappointment. I felt that I was the cause of their failure to get me admitted to the school.

As a desperate measure, my parents approached the Children’s Place, a private kindergarten, knowing that it would burn a huge hole in their pockets. I was offered a place...in the nursery class! Under the circumstances, it was Hobson’s choice – either that or no school.

It was my good fortune that the school had a flexible programme. Two days later, I was allowed to join the K1 class. By the time I ‘graduated’, I was more than ready to take on the challenge of Primary One. However, except for one, all the principals my parents approached did not think so.

One principal even suggested sending me to a special school in Margaret Drive.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr Chen Keng Juan, the former Principal of Pei Chun Public School, for believing in me.

Most importantly, I thank him for looking at my potential and not my disability and bringing great relief to my parents and me.

It is now easier for the handicapped to join the mainstream schools, although there is still at least one school which

The writer with his former principal, Mr Chen Keng Juan.

“ There is this special feeling that, I believe, you can get only from helping and serving others.” does not accept students with disabilities.

My mother was informed by a social worker that the principal of this elite school with facilities for the handicapped had said that he did not want any student with disability in his school.

When I was accepted by Temasek Junior College in July 2006 for admission in 2007, the College was not handicapfriendly. Six months later, there were ramps constructed at key points around the campus. To top it off, the College will be installing a lift. By the time you read this article, getting around the school will be a cinch for me.

I understand that there were no funds

for the installation of the lift. But the school still went ahead with it. What can I say to the principal and staff who have shown so much concern, compassion and empathy for a kid with brittle bone disease? A zillion thanks! I will try to emulate your generosity to the best of my ability when the opportunity arises.

I have often been asked: “Do you think the Government can do more for the handicapped?” My answer: Yes, it can look into the feasibility of making education compulsory for them. It can also consider putting special schools under the wing of the Ministry of Education. It can also increase the number of special schools and decrease the special need school fees. The list goes on. However, let me say that nothing worthwhile happens in a hurry – so be patient.

The situation today is so much better than it was a decade or so ago, thanks to the efforts of the Government, the voluntary welfare organisations and other volunteer groups.

As my desire to contribute to society started when I was in Primary Two, I am sure that Mr Chen had some influence in my having the spirit of charity in the first place. I was a recipient of his kindness and I knew how it felt. And I want to share what I have so that others can enjoy the same indescribable feeling.

I also feel good doing voluntary service. There is this special feeling that, I believe, you can get only from helping and serving others. I also realise that, to enjoy the feeling, you must not burden the beneficiaries with your pity. You must see them as important people deserving of your assistance and service. After all, the measure of a man is not the number of servants he has, but the number of people he helps or serves honestly and from the bottom of his heart. ✩

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Knowing When to Let Go Running a company, it is important to know when to initiate something, when to hold on and when to let go. Jack Sim says this means that you may actually need to plan for your own obsolescence.

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t the infancy stage of an organisation, you, the founder, will find yourself doing everything that is required simply because there is no one else to do it. In the process, you become multi-talented by necessity. During this phase, the satisfaction is very high because you see your baby grow from an idea into a shape and have an impact. You control and make all decisions. There is little consultation and you find this style of working very efficient.

At the growth stage, the founder eventually becomes over-stretched.

You cannot do everything anymore.

Funds get tight as programmes become larger. Many other new talents and resources are needed and each will come with their own style of working. If you hold onto a centralised control, you might now become a limitation instead of an asset. You must now learn to let go.

But letting go is not always easy.

First, it is difficult to build a talent pool if you do not have much funds.

It also takes time for the learning curve of your new staff to mature and you need also to ensure they do not quit because of stiff human resource competition.

What’s more, developing a harmonious culture in a group is not an easy process.

Of course, the largest hurdle to overcome may yet be an emotional one: Your Ego. But ultimately, we must put our Mission before ourselves. Our job as founders is to find and motivate talents who can fulfill the mission of the organisation, and let it grow beyond our personal level of excellence. The transformation is from an individual style of management to a consensus mode. The founder has to accept that while decisions may move

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“ Of course, the largest hurdle to overcome may yet be an emotional one: Your Ego.” slower than before, the organisation will achieve more stability in due course.

This is the time to reflect and ask yourself what your strongest areas are and to focus on them, leaving the rest of the work to your colleagues. As you unload, you free yourself for new opportunities that bring both you and the organisation onto the next higher level.

When I started the Restroom Association (Singapore) in 1998, I did everything simply because there was no one else. Despite several staff changes, the association continued to grow because it was essentially a one-man-show. At this infancy stage, creating legitimacy, a roadmap and a belief system are the basic foundations. It is almost like starting a religion. The advantage of running a

one-man-show is that it gives you great freedom and speed.

Eventually with funding from the NEA, the association became a stable organisation with its own executive director, staff and direction. At this growth phase, I discovered that there were many things I had no skill for. I reflected on my strengths and weaknesses. While I am a good entrepreneur, I am not a very good manager because I do not spend time on details. In order to further the mission without hindrance, I had to find the right person for the right job.

I found a successor in Miss Tan Puay Hoon, a person as passionate about the association’s goals as I was. She fit exactly into the role as the new president of RAS Version 2.0!

It gave me great relief that I could deliver my ‘baby’ into safe hands. I could still retain a role as a mentor but not on a daily basis. This freed me to pursue wider dreams at the World Toilet Organisation in building a global network of toilet NGOs which now numbers 55 organisations and spans 41 countries.

In short, a passionate founder or leader needs to often remind himself that while his intentions for the cause are good, the mission is the holy cow and he is just a servant. For, in a funny way, a company that you founded is often a “Trap” you set for yourself. Owning and growing it is the fun part. Maintaining it is a very demanding process. If it grows beyond your ability to manage it, you need professional help. Your joy is in seeing the social dividend and the impact of your idea benefiting your clients.

The thing to remember is: It need not always be done by you. ✩

CALENDAR T O

N O T E

Pictures courtesy of the SPCA

D A T E S

DO YOU HAVE AN EVENT YOU WOULD LIKE TO PUBLICISE? We welcome your news of upcoming events and pictures. Please send them to SALT, 7 Maxwell Road, #05-01 Annex B MND Complex, Singapore 069111; or email salt@nvpc.org.sg.

Please include your name, the name of your organisation, address and telephone number. SALT reserves the right to edit submissions for space and clarity.

It teaches people with disabilities to increase muscle tone, improve circulation, respiration, mobility and attain a better quality of life.

Come join the fun at its annual charity dinner and dance. Charity tables are also available for an evening where the dress code is Swinging 60s and Austin Powers.

For more information, contact Rosemary Ratcliffe on 62500176 or visit www.rdasingapore.org

14 April SPCA Flag Day 2007 Calling all animal lovers for SPCA’s Flag Day. Supporters and friends (15 years and above) are needed to rattle a tin for the biggest fundraiser of the year around the island. If you can spare Saturday, please call the SPCA at 62875355 or email educationpr@spca.org.sg

18 May Ticket-4-Youth

7 April Muhammadiyah Welfare Home Flag Day The Muhammadiyah Welfare Home – an organisation that aims to provide shelter to, and rehabilitate and educate, abandoned children – is looking for schools to help manage and organise their Flag Day. Students will take charge of planning the entire event, roping in the volunteers needed and coordinating logistics and collection with the Home.

The goal is to raise $150,000 and to achieve that, an estimated 3000 volunteers are required.

Schools that are interested in the event should contact Mr Rosli at 94563494 or email: rosli@muhammadiyah.org.sg

9 April (and 2 November) Strategic Fundraising Training at the NVPC Time: 9 am to 5 pm Venue: National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre, 7 Maxwell Road, #05-01 Annexe B, MND Complex Charities that take time to plan and strategise their fundraising are often the ones that will best weather the storms and droughts in the charity sector. This invaluable training course aims to provide a local perspective and insights into embarking on a successful and sustainable fundraising campaign.

The course covers such topics as learning how to plan strategic fundraising programmes, solving problems and protecting your organisation from unscrupulous opportunists or bad decisions. Gain practical insights and study anecdotes of real life successful and failed fundraising campaigns, as well as pick up tips on how to survive as a small charity fighting for space crowded with more established players.

The course trainer will be Rosemary Chng, a well respected figure in the fundraising sector as well as founder of Rosemary Chng and Associates, an organisation that helps charities to brand and fundraise.

Fee is $190 per pax (5% GST inclusive), before grant subsidy.

For more information, call 65509595.

21 April Pink Charity Bazaar Venue: Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza Time: 10am to 5pm The Breast Cancer Foundation’s Pink Charity Bazaar will be hosted by veteran radio personality, Brian Richmond. There will be plenty of food, fun and entertainment with over 40 stalls of food, handicraft, accessories and games at the bazaar.

Stand a chance to win a pair of return tickets to Hong Kong with the purchase

of coupons ($50 per booklet on sale from BCF). All proceeds go to BCF. Volunteers keen to help man booths should call Carol Kuek at 63526560 or email carol@bcf.org.sg Admission is free.

2 May SMRT Charity Movie Screening Venue: Cathay Cineleisure, Orchard Swing and fight crime with your favourite web-crawler at a premiere screening of Spider-Man 3. The SMRT Charity Gala Premiere aims to raise funds for needy elderly and their caregivers as part of the SMRT Silver Tribute Fund. Proceeds from the sale of movie tickets will go to eight beneficiaries and their programmes to help abandoned, lonely or needy elderly lead more meaningful and dignified lives, as well as to strengthen the families and communities that care for them.

For more information, please contact Karen Chow at 63311140 or email karenchow@smrt.com.sg.

5 May Riding for the Disabled Association Annual Charity Dinner and Dance Venue: RDA Centre, 5 Jalan Mashhor Time: 7.30pm to 1am The RDA is a nonprofit charity that provides free, therapeutic horse riding to adults and children with disabilities.

Venue: Drama Centre Theatre Time: 9 am Hundreds of underprivileged youth are just waiting for an opportunity to watch a theatre performance. Drama Box seeks corporate and individual donations to help the youth realise this dream.

Funds donated to its Ticket-4-Youth project will be used to purchase tickets for “MOMO” – the first full-length Mandarin theatre production that’s been specially created for the youth! Pre- and post-show activities will give the beneficiaries a total theatre experience that is both entertaining and educating.

Each ticket is $25 and for every 20 tickets purchased, the accompanying adult is entitled to one complimentary ticket.

Contact Josephine at 63245434 or email: josephine@dramabox.org for more information.

30 May Singapore Children’s Society Flag Day 2007 Volunteers are required to help out as street collectors for an island-wide Flag Day. Help is needed for two shifts.

Shift 1 is between 7am and noon, the second is between 12.15pm and 5.15pm. The collection point is in Tiong Bahru.

Briefing session will be arranged.

For more information, please contact Lynn Yeo at 62732010 or email lyeo@childrensociety.org.sg

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SCENE&SEEN

High Society China Night 2007, 2 February, Regent Hotel

Following a lively cocktail gathering, guests at the China Society’s China Night were treated to a delicious dinner (graced by His Excellency Zhang Yun, Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China), performances by the Echoes of the Valley orchestra, an operatic melody and an auction of paintings by Henri Chen Kezhan and Chua Ek Kay. Surplus funds from the evening were ear-marked for the Society’s expanded programme of public lectures by experts on Chinese history, art and culture, outreach and support activities as well as to upgrade its library collection.

Life Line

Guest-of-Honour Mr Heng Chee How, Minister of State for Health, interacting with staff from Yah! Community College.

Seniors’ Fair 2007, 25-27 January, HDB Hub Toa Payoh

This year’s Seniors’ Fair jointly organised by Central Singapore CDC and NVPC, was a resounding success. The theme, Active for Life!, was embraced by the 6,000 plus participants. Over three days, the fair promoted active ageing through life-long learning, volunteerism and a healthy mind and body. Over 20 booths were set up by nonprofit organisations. Activities included dance, drama, aerobics performances and talks on a variety of topics such as volunteerism, fall prevention for the elderly, managing finances after retirement and traditional Chinese medicine.

Guest-of-Honour Mr Heng Chee How, Minister of State for Health presented Life Inspiration Awards to five seniors in recognition of their selfless contributions to the community.

Fun Managers Lee Wee Kheng Fund for Needy School Children – Cheque Presentation Ceremony, 10 January, Ministry of Education (MOE) Auditorium

In January 2007 came news that the late Lee Hiok Kwee had left a bequest to set up the “Lee Wee Kheng Fund for Needy School Children”, Principals of the recipient schools receiving in memory of his late father, Lee Wee Kheng. cheques from Mrs Lee Hiok Kwee.

A trust fund has been set up by the Estate and the annual income generated from the investment of the trust fund will be used for needy pupils in primary and secondary schools to provide food, transport, clothing and book allowances.

The Committee of Trustees – chaired by Prof Tommy Koh, and includes Mrs Lee Hiok Kwee, Mr Chelva Rajah and Mr Koh Choon Hui – has decided the annual investment returns of approximately $1 million will benefit schools which have the most number of needy students under the MOE’s Financial Assistance Scheme. MOE will administer the trust fund.

In all, a hundred schools will receive $10,000 each from the trust fund annually.

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Mr Zhang Yun, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China being led on arrival by Mrs Agnes Ma, Chairman, Organising Committee, “China Night” 2007 (right) and Ms Aileen T. Lau, President, The China Society, Behind: Mr Liew Chin Choy and Mr Chua Aik Hong, both Committee Members.

Vietnam Ease

SembCorp donates $50,000 to support Vietnamese children and education, 14 December 2006, Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park

Teach a child and create the future. SembCorp Industries took this axiom to heart with a $50,000 donation to commemorate the tenth anniversary of its Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park. The donation was made to the Trailblazer-Wong Kok Siew Fund, SembCorp’s charitable fund.

Part of the donation will go to the Ho Chi Minh City Main Public Library to set up the city’s first ever children’s library. The balance goes to scholarships for 250 high school students from various schools in the Binh Duong Province, where VSIP is located.

Dignitaries led by SembCorp Park Holdings’ Executive Chairman, Ms Low Sin Leng mark the occasion of the donation to Vietnam’s children.

Hi Ho, Silver!

Silver Ribbon (Singapore) Charity Concert, 13 February, HDB Auditorium

No Kidding

Cheque presentation by Xilinx at APSN Katong School. From left: Mr. Wim Roelandts (President, Chairman & CEO, Xilinx Inc.), Mr. Lee Keng Min (Principal, Katong School) and Mr. Hwang Peng Yuan (Vice-Chairman, Community Chest Committee)

APSN Katong Special School receives US$30,000 donation, 12 January

Xilinx Asia Pacific, the world’s leading supplier of programmable logic solutions, donated US$30,000 to APSN Katong Special School – a special school that provides education for children with mild intellectual disabilities.

The donation reflects the company’s commitment to support education and give back to the community in which it operates its Asia Pacific headquarters.

APSN has an enrolment of 245 children aged between 6 and 17 with an IQ range of 50-70. The donation will help fund the school’s Special Education Programme which aims to empower its students with the necessary skills, attitude and personality to lead normal independent lives in adulthood. The comprehensive curriculum includes areas of independent living skills training, prevocational training, numeracy and literacy skills, and caregiver support services.

Xilinx also announced that it would make additional donations to support APSN’s healthy lifestyle and creative dance programmes.

Making a Connection Launch of The Comcare Connection, 10 February, Gracehaven, The Salvation Army

The Comcare Connection, the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre’s latest community-giving initiative kicked off with a launch ceremony attended by guest-of-honour Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports.

The ComCare Connection is a service that matches corporate organisations interested in volunteering their time and resources on a term basis with suitable voluntary welfare organisations and social enterprises.

The launch coincided with the commencement of training for Avanade Asia’s Charity Bike ‘n’ Blade 2007, a showcase event between Avanade Asia Pte Ltd and its three recently-adopted beneficiaries, the Salvation Army, Ling Kwang Youth Centre and Pertapis Centre for Women and Girls.

Guest of Honour Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports shares a moment with a participant of the Avanade Asia Charity Bike ‘n’ Blade 2007. To her right are MPs Zaqy Mohamad, Denise Phua and Zainudin Nordin, Mayor of Central Singapore District.

Error: on page 34 of our Jan-Feb 2007 issue (‘The National Volunteerism and Philanthropy Awards 2006 Gala Dinner’), the picture caption incorrectly identifies Mr Edmund Wan as Mr Edward Wan. We apologise for the error.

Dr Lim Cheng Hwa, President of Silver Ribbon Singapore, presenting a token of appreciation (a batik painting done by a consumer) to Mdm Halimah Yacob for gracing the event.

Practitioners and supporters of mental health gathered with cheer and songs to raise funds for more complimentary mental health talks and events. Leading the evening’s entertainment were Dream Academy’s ever enjoyable Selena Tan, perennial songbird Mavis Hee (in her first public performance since her retirement), the Zingo Drum Troupe, the Finger Players and Trio. Clearly enjoying herself was guest of honour, Mdm Halimah Yacob; Chairman, GPC (Health); NTUC Asst Sec-General and MP for Jurong GRC. The evening was organised by Silver Ribbon (Singapore), a nonprofit organisation that fights against the stigma of mental health stigma and encourages early treatment.

Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Mayor Dr Amy Khor (centre) at play with 1,000 screaming youths at Youths Rock! @ South West Concert – the finale to Youth Youths ROCK! @ South West Hands-On! Day @ South West.

Rock On

Concert, 20 January, VivoCity

Striving to bust the perception that youths lack the public service spirit, 3000 young ‘uns took part in 16 community and environmental activities. These included teaching residents at the SUN-DAC Centre for the Disabled II to play boccia, coastal clean-ups at Kallang, East Coast and Pasir Ris Park, spring cleaning at Lion Befrienders Service Association to help the elderly prepare for the Chinese New Year festivities, and giving Jamiyah Home a fresh coat of paint.

Following the activities, a high energy Youths ROCK! @ South West concert was held at VivoCity. Guest-ofHonour Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Education and Second Minister of Finance brought the house down with his virtuosity on the electronic guitar when he teamed up with Garden of Eve, the band from Jurong Junior College for a jam session on stage.

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“In the last few years we’ve started to see a real crossover.

We’re seeing year-end giving in other people’s names instead of just personal donations.”

Photograph by courtesy of SPH – The Straits Times

George C. Ruotolo Jr., chairman and CEO of the Giving Institute – an organisation that assists nonprofit groups with fundraising – on the trend of people donating money as a gift to charity in another person’s name.

“We all know how the size of sums of money appears to vary in a remarkable way according as they are being paid in or paid out.”

Julian Sorell Huxley, English biologist, Essays of a Biologist

“The problem is that a certain level of snobbery has pervaded our society...

We feel that our hard-earned success gives us the right to sneer at people who will probably never reach our station in life.”

Benjamin James Saram in a letter to TODAY, responding to columnist Tabitha Wong’s column on foreign workers and how they are treated by Singaporeans.

“The key thing in promoting public transport is accessibility.

But it can’t be just accessible to the able-bodied commuters, but also to others who find it difficult without barrier-free access.”

Transport Minister Raymond Lim on the new barrier-free route to Changi General Hospital

“Age and disease should not be a hindrance to leading a full, active lifestyle.”

Mrs Teo Jiok Lin, the centre manager for Concern and Care Society.

“So I think the general public has had enough of the rah-rah thing. We’re toning things down.

There’s no need to be so loud anymore.”

Aware’s current president, Ms Tan Joo Hymn, 38, on Aware’s early fundraising approach in its early days.

“Those of us in the rich world have the chance to improve the lives of billions of people around the world. I can’t think of anything that’s worth more of our time and effort.”

Bill Gates on The Way We Give, Fortune Magazine, Volume 155, Issue 1

“A little over two years ago, I just would not have thought I would ever finish one marathon in a lifetime. It gives you a different perspective on what is achievable in other spheres of your life.”

Tan Yien Hsien, group head, legal and compliance at Standard Chartered Bank, on running 6 marathons in 6 months to raise US$150,000 for Race4Innocence which is dedicated to shutting down child pornography websites.

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The Society for the Physically Disabled offers a holistic programme to encourage people with physical disabilities to reach their highest potential and live an independent life.

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