Donations to Community Chest up, but more donors still needed

SINGAPORE — The number of donors to the Community Chest has plateaued over the last three years, and the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) is now trying to facilitate more volunteering opportunities with beneficiaries to allow donors to see the impact of their donations in a more tangible manner.

NCSS figures showed that the total amount of donations to the Community Chest — which is the NCSS’ fund-raising and engagement arm — has risen over the last three years from S$14.5 million in FY13, S$15.4 million in FY14 to S$16.3 million in FY15.

However, when it comes to the number of donors who give a part of their salaries to the Community Chest, the figure has stayed constant at over 220,000 over the last three years.

This means that each individual donor is giving more, Community Chest managing director Ng Ling Ling told reporters on the sidelines of the launch of the SHARE as One event to encourage corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts on Wednesday (May 18).

For instance, in FY13, each donor contributed an average of S$4.82 every month, with the figure rising to S$5.19 in FY14 and S$5.60 in FY15.

But Ms Ng said: “Given the whole workforce, we think there is so much potential if companies believe in it and move their people (to donate)”.

She noted that one reason why new donors are not coming onboard — which could mean opting out of their company’s scheme to donate part of their salaries to the Community Chest — is due to not being able to see where their money is going to.

While details of Community Chest’s monies and the beneficiaries are public information, Ms Ng added: “We want to connect them to the people they are helping...we want them to get involved so that they can see that (their donations make an impact)”.

Moving forward, NCSS will be looking at volunteering opportunities for donors, such as through ad-hoc events like a walkathon or wrapping and distributing of gifts to beneficiaries.

Longer-term volunteering opportunities are also in the works, such as lending a skill like marketing expertise to the charity organisation over a period of time.

Minister for Social and Family Development Tan Chuan-Jin, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, said: “The support for Community Chest has been encouraging, (but) some may wonder, fairly so, where will the money go to”.

He, however, assured that every single cent donated by individuals and corporates will go towards the voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) and urged more companies to come onboard.

Mr Tan also launched the SHARE as One initiative, which was first announced at this year’s Budget.

With this scheme, the Government will provide dollar-for-dollar matching for any additional donations above the amount donated in FY15 to SHARE, Community Chest’s monthly giving programme, over three years.

Businesses can use half of the government matching grant to build on CSR capabilities or organise volunteering initiatives such as sharing of expertise.

Mr Tan called on companies to go beyond monetary donations to provide skills and services, and suggested the need for corporates to plan longer- term volunteering partnerships to allow VWOs to plan their operations more effectively.

At the same time, Mr Tan also urged VWOs to relook at their work processes and manpower to identify how volunteers can play a part, allowing them to free up their trained resources to deal with more complex issues.