Author: SG Volunteer Team

“Within these two years, we have seen a 150% increase in submission of business plans among the young,” Dolly Goh, chief executive officer of the Singapore National Co-operative Federation (SNCF) told Channel News Asia.“The trends of cooperatives formation follow the social needs of Singapore – the ageing population, the low income, the senior citizens and people with special needs.”

Currently, there are 85 cooperatives in the country, which helped around 1.7 million people. For those who intend to start an enterprise with a difference, a cooperative could be a model worth pursuing, said Goh.

It is not difficult to start a cooperative in Singapore, she said. At least 10 members are needed along with drafting a five-year business plan and by-laws.

She said SNCF seeks to assist individuals with such plans. “We teach you how to do your cash flow, your P&L and also help to walk you through what it takes to start up a business.”

This article was first published in HumanResourcesOnline

Name: Sparked

Big Idea: Sparked is an online-only volunteer hub for people to donate their talents to non-profits, as well as an engagement tool for businesses to engage and incentivize employees to contribute to volunteer causes.

Why It’s Working: Users can donate expertise and skills instead of money, and make time commitments according to availability and interest level.

In late 2010, Ben Rigby and Jacob Colker co-founded Sparked, a mobile app with the noble purpose of empowering non-profits. “We wanted to make volunteering fun and social,” Rigby says. But they noticed an interesting thing — nearly all the usage of their new app was happening between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. — during work hours.

So they pivoted, and recast Sparked.com as an online volunteer portal designed primarily to help companies mobilize their workforces for volunteer efforts. The site still connects non-profits with potential volunteers but makes money by letting companies such as Kraft Foods, LinkedIn and the U.S. State Department use its platform to help organize employees.

Here’s how Sparked works: Instead of pledging time, corporate volunteers donate time and skills to selected non-profits or other bodies in need of help. An editor can do some pro bono copywriting, for example, or a social media coordinator can donate Twitter expertise. Volunteers are matched to and able to find tasks by indicating areas of benevolent interest, such as at-risk youth, public health or animals. Tasks can be simple — for example, a graphic designer will be asked to suggest five website improvements for a struggling non-profit.

Intra-company standings and gamification rewards make volunteering into a competition and accelerate engagement. Skeptical that it can work? According to Rigby, companies that have signed on have experienced astronomical engagement boosts.

“Typical volunteering engagement for a corporation is around 8%,” he says. “We’re seeing participation rates up in the 50-80% range, just because it’s so simple. You can take 15 minutes or two hours and do it when it’s convenient to you.”

Sparked is supported by a combination of venture and angel funding, with investors including True Ventures andKapor Capital. Rigby declined to provide revenue numbers, but says the company’s success so far indicates that business and charity aren’t mutually exclusive.

“We’re not Pinterest by any means,” he says. “But it’s going well.”

Would you volunteer more if your company made it easy?

This article was first published in Mashable

The public is unaware of what social enterprises are, according to survey findings. This signals that more needs to be done.

By ELEANOR YAP

The public is unaware of what a social enterprise is, according to a public perception survey commissioned by the Social Enterprise (SE) Associationand announced yesterday. Only 13 percent of the 2,000 respondents surveyed knew what social enterprises are. Of those who knew confused social enterprises with non-profits and voluntary welfare organisations, and even statutory boards like SPRING Singapore.

Of those who bought products and services from social enterprises, the survey found that many bought greeting cards, and painting and handicraft items, and 91 percent were satisfied with their purchases. The reason given on why they bought from the social enterprises was because of the social cause that the social enterprise stands for, as well as the quality, price and need for the product or service, which are reasons why the public would buy from a regular business.

Shared Teo Mee Hong, executive director of SE Association: “It is a business decision for social entrepreneurs on whether or not. Those who highlight the social cause include businesses like Eighteen Chefs (who employs ex-convicts), Professor Brawn Cafe (who employs people of different abilities, ages and socio-economic backgrounds) and Joan Bowen Café (who employs young adults with special needs).” On the flip side, there is also Laksania, explained Teo, who employs marginalised groups in its central kitchen but “does not want sympathy votes”.

Potential market to tap on

The survey also found that even though there is a potential market for social enterprises, of which some 55 percent have yet to be engaged, social enterprises have to be aware of some stumbling blocks. For one, businessmen are considered to be “non-buyers”. Explained Teo, “We can only guess that maybe businessmen believe that the social cause element in a social enterprise is being used as a marketing gimmick.”

On where the public would like to see social enterprises market their products, the buyers as well as the non-buyers recommend that the products be sold at retail outlets such as Robinsons and Tangs. In terms of the communication channels that social enterprises should market on to spread their efforts, the survey found the preferred avenues are broadcast media, followed by print media, the Internet and word-of-mouth.

No surprise 

These findings was no surprise for the social enterprises. Said Isaiah Chng, director of ProAge, a social enterprise that focuses on creating avenues and opportunities for people to age well, said: “I am not surprised by the survey’s results as everywhere I go, no one seems to know what a social enterprise is. Even in the social enterprise arena, we are not sure what constitutes a social enterprise until recently [when clear definitions came out earlier this year], so we shouldn’t expect the public to know.

“I do tell people I am a social enterprise but it is not in their face. We need to get our social initiatives to gain traction first and then use that as our advantage. Right now, we want to latch on to the business advantages and the value that our services provide. That is really what a social enterprise is about – it is business first or else you won’t be able to push the cause.”

Tommy Tng, general manager, sales and operations for Ability Enterprise, shared he too was not surprised by the findings. He represents a social enterprise, which runs an employment programme (see right) under the charity, Society for the Physically Disabled (SPD) that offers services including designing and making greeting cards, bookbinding and making corporate gifts. “There is still a lot of room for improvement on publicity particularly on social enterprises. There is a lot more effort on our part to create this awareness of our products and services.”

Currently, the SPD Ability Enterprise uses social media like Facebook, SPD’s quarterly newsletter, direct mailers and Web advertisements to publicise its efforts. “However, we are only doing a fraction of what we can achieve and we will be ramping up our marketing efforts. Instead of people coming to us, we need to reach out to them. We also rely on networking at events and participating at trade fairs.”

Moving forward, SE Association’s Teo shared: “With the findings, we wanted to clarify the objectives of social enterprises and that they should champion a social mission and support the employment of the marginalised people. But, they should be a profit-making business. In terms of publicity, we will be working with the Ministry to create greater awareness for social enterprises. We want to highlight the outstanding features of social enterprises.”

She advised social enterprises to behave like a regular business and decide whether they want to use their social cause as a differentiation from a regular business. “[As seen in the findings], they need to know the public is open to supporting their social cause.”

This article was first published in SALT