Developing a Singapore Roadmap for Corporate Giving

Mrs Mildred Tan, Chairman, National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre, 

Ms Ng Ling Ling, Managing Director, Community Chest, 

Corporate leaders and Distinguished guests, 

1. I am very happy to join you this morning. Thank you for making the time today to attend this roundtable to discuss how we can make Giving a pervasive culture in Corporate Singapore.

The importance of Corporate Giving

2. Corporate Giving is a deeply important endeavour. When corporate organisations embark on volunteering or philanthropic efforts, it sends a strong message to all both inside and outside the company, that they are more than just about bottom lines.

3. All of you are in the Corporate Sector and you would have realised yourselves how the thinking on Corporate Giving has evolved over the years. In the 1970s, the Nobel-laureate economist Milton Friedman mulled over the question: “what are a corporation's social responsibilities?” His reply was the famous dictum: “The social responsibility of businesses is to increase profits”. It sounds like a cold-hearted capitalist's reply but there was a logic behind it. The logic was that companies should maximise profits, and those profits could be taxed by governments to do social and public good. It is not completely illogical, there is some sense to it: that companies focus on what they are good at, make money and let the government do the social good, the government can tax corporations to do that. This belief was widely held in the 70s and the 80s. Even when the CSR agenda started, this belief was still quite prevalent and many companies treated CSR as something of a side show. Frankly it was just secondary, it was put on the agenda but it was not given a lot of priority. Fortunately, I think this belief is fading.

4. This was partly due to experiences in recent years. In 2008 when we had the financial crisis, it highlighted the excesses of capitalism, and the ugly consequences of how an unbridled short-term pursuit of profit, especially at the expense of longer-term goals could have very ugly consequences. Many companies now realise that they are part of a larger inter-connected and inter-dependent community. Sustainable business practices help the community, and in turn, the company, to flourish.

5. There are many examples of companies that have embraced Corporate Giving in a much more coherent and integral manner to their companies' core functions. The company we are here at is one very good example. Standard Chartered Bank – our sponsor for today – has a very good tagline: “Here for Good”. This signifies both their commitment to customers and their pledge to do good for the community. And they walk the talk as well. Last year, across the world, Standard Chartered employees contributed nearly 90,000 volunteering days.

6. In Singapore, Corporate Giving is not yet widespread, but it's on the rise. Over the past decade, donations by companies to charities (IPCs) have doubled from $325 million in 2004 to $644 million in 2013. So the trend is on the uptake and it's on the right direction.

7. With this growing interest in Giving, what we need now is a guide for Giving practices. When we give our time and money to charitable causes, we need to ensure that our efforts are sustainable and impactful. Giving should effectively address the needs of a charity and help to grow their capacity. We certainly do not want to create even more problems for a charity as a result of Corporate CSR. And this can happen if the efforts by the company are ad hoc or they create difficulties for the charity, for example, to accommodate the volunteers who come in on a very ad hoc or short-term basis.

Charting the Singapore Roadmap for Corporate Giving: Partnership between NVPC and Points of Light

8. This is why I am happy to announce that the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre will be developing a Singapore Roadmap for Corporate Giving. Various organisations in the past have previously identified some 'best practices' for CSR programmes, but we do not currently have a formal, national framework to guide our Corporate Giving efforts. We hope that by having a roadmap, it will help to establish indicators that allow Corporates to better shape and measure the impact of their Corporate Social Responsibility programmes. The roadmap will also highlight and celebrate exemplary Corporate Givers in Singapore.

9. I am very pleased to note that Points of Light, a US-based international NPO, has agreed to be part of this journey, and will be sharing its expertise with NVPC as it develops this roadmap. Points of Light is very active in America and it has mobilised millions of people across the United States to engage in voluntary service. It also started The Civic 50, an initiative that recognises the 50 most civic-minded corporates in the US.

10. We hope to adopt the best practices from the Civic 50 model for our Singapore Roadmap for Corporate Giving. Over the next few months, NVPC will lead intensive sessions to co-develop the road map, consulting businesses and stakeholders about what and how the Singapore Roadmap should look like. These consultations will involve the National Council of Social Services and Community Chest, who co-organised today's event as partners of The Corporate Giving Practitioners Network. My Ministry MCCY and NVPC cannot do this alone, and I am very glad that all of you have also decided to come aboard this journey with us together.

11. When the roadmap is developed, we will be a step closer to our vision of a Corporate Singapore where goodness is the business of every organisation.

Employee volunteerism: the role of employers

12. As I mentioned earlier, Giving is not yet a widely-held belief even among many in management in Singapore today. Employers need to show that Giving is part of their business. NVPC conducts something called the Employee Giving Survey and the latest survey shows that 1 in 2 employees are interested to participate in employer-organised volunteering activities.

13. However, employees also indicate that they are afraid that their bosses will not supportive. According to the survey, the top factors which encourage employees to volunteer are having supportive colleagues and bosses, and being given paid time off to volunteer. In other words, all of you as employers are key to encouraging your staff to volunteer. For a culture of giving to take root and flourish in Singapore, we need the support of employers.

14. Today, only 1 in 5 employers in Singapore currently organise volunteering activities for their staff. So you see a distinct gap: 1 in 2 employees are interested to participate in employer-based volunteering activities but only 1 in 5 employers organise volunteering activities. So there is clearly a mismatch, we need to work harder at this and I am confident that we can improve on this. All of you are in a position to make that change happen. As leaders of companies you are in, as CSR Practitioners – all of you are ambassadors for Giving. I am glad to stand with you as we strive to make Giving part of the DNA of corporate Singapore. Corporate Giving creates stronger community investment, and this builds a more caring and resilient society.

Skills-based volunteerism: making talent count beyond work

15. One practical step we can take to do so is to move forward is to help grow this concept of skills-based volunteerism. This simply means, contributing in areas that we are already good at professionally. Today, we will find out how we can tap on our professional expertise, in areas like accounting, legal and even communications, to help charity organisations. Experts from Points of Light will facilitate this event's dialogue session, and will guide us on the best ways to use our skills to provide services that Non-Profit Organisations and charities in Singapore need.

16. Some companies in Singapore have already engaged in meaningful skills-based volunteerism projects. The staff of Procter & Gamble, for example, worked on a joint programme with social enterprise Empact to help Non-Profit Organisations sharpen their marketing practices.

17. Another good example is Deloitte Singapore. They have been big supporters of sport in Singapore. All of you would know we are hosting the SEA Games soon, they are supporting the SEA Games and they are also big supporters of disability sports. For example, in the Asian Para Games last year when we sent a delegation, Deloitte provided media relations support for the Singapore Disability Sports Council, to help them in crafting their press releases and market what their para athletes are doing. One of Deloitte's managers in the Clients & Markets department is Micky Lin, she is also the captain of Singapore's national netball team. Deloitte have allowed her to be seconded to the ASEAN Para Games organising committee, which Singapore will be hosting for the first time at the end of this year, so that she can contribute her marketing skills to the team.

18. So these are just some examples of how some companies have done such skills-based volunteering projects. I'm sure there are many other examples out there, some of you may well be initiating such projects within your companies as well and we hope to catalyse even more of them. So in the coming year, NVPC will be exploring ways to help facilitate the matching of a volunteer's skills with meaningful opportunities to use them. We hope that this will further promote skills-based volunteering in Singapore.

Conclusion

19. All these initiatives, and many other organisations that are already engaged in corporate giving today, show what can be done. Ultimately, we are shaping the legacy that we, and the organisations we work for, will leave behind. I don't think that anyone here wants to be remembered as the corporate leader who cared only about the bottom line. All of us surely want to build a legacy that's not only financially sustainable but also upholds service and empathy at its core. Today, we take concrete steps toward constructing that legacy. We take steps toward a flourishing, giving, Corporate Singapore. On that note, I wish you all a very fruitful discussion and roundtable ahead. Thank you very much.