Measuring social impact with a philanthropy framework
- Champa Ha
A sustainable philanthropy framework, launching in the first quarter of next year in Singapore, will serve as a measuring and monitoring guide to the effectiveness of corporate giving, volunteering, and inclusive hiring for organisations, giving them a better sense on the impact of their philanthropic efforts.
This philanthropy network, created by the National Council of Social Service (NCSS), looks to create a tangible set of metrics so that organisations can measure their social impact and inspire continued giving. Organisations will get a playbook that will suggest steps and practices for them to achieve their social goals.
“With this framework, we hope for corporates to deepen and broaden their giving, incorporate doing good and doing well as part of (their corporate) strategies, and eventually address social issues and turn giving into a competitive advantage for the corporates themselves,” Masagos Zulkifli, Singapore’s Minister for Social and Family Development, said. “As the framework guides corporates to do philanthropy more meaningfully, it will also take into account that corporates are at different stages of their philanthropic journey.”
While Masagos acknowledged that there were organisations who did charitable work, there are others with more experience that could do more with their philanthropic efforts, such as investing in research and innovation.
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Start-up firm RoboSolutions, for instance, has collaborated with social service agency Asian Women’s Welfare Association’s (AWWA) Day Activity Centre to use a robot named Temi, which can show visitors around, entertain clients with disabilities using videos and music, and alleviate some of the workload at AWWA. Temi’s software was modified to suit AWWA’s needs, but staff at the activity centre can also re-programme the robot themselves after attending training sessions of around three to four hours and playing around with its applications and functions, reported CNA.
