More than 80 professionals, volunteers and students from the non-profit and social impact space joined us at Food for Thought at The National Museum for this month’s Fuze Night, an event co-hosted by Be An Idea & The Social Co. This month, we’ve collaborated with the Institute of Societal Leadership, SMU (ISL) to curate our knowledge speaker for the night. It was also the week when “Giving Week” was happening, a national campaign in Singapore led by the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC), to encourage giving and facilitate donations through the giving.sg online platform. As part of Giving Week, The Social Co held a special live fundraising segment during Fuze Night.
“Collaborate with third-party platforms and create sustainable tools.”
Our first inspiration speaker, Belinda Ang from Think Big Communications, talked about creating social impact on social media. She shared about the 3 stages of social outreach - information (content marketing, sharing news, updates, events), engagement (community feedback, encourage sharing, brand initiatives) and collaboration (resource and tool support, empowerment) - to achieve outreach or social impact objectives. She also shared that the ways to start collaborating are identifying third-party platforms, creating sustainable tools and crowdfunding for events.
“I had a keen interest on understanding the roles which foundations and NGOs play in helping our society, and how they differ from social entrepreneurship.”
“I wanted an internship where I can make an impact in people’s life.”
Our second group of inspiration speakers were Nureen Tan and Malcolm Han of Jia Foundation, who shared about a water sanitation project they were working on in bringing clean water to the less-privileged in Siem Reap. What started out as an unconventional internship turned out to be a journey of a lifetime for Nureen and Malcolm. They talked about their 4 main takeaways from the experience:
- What it means to give? - Ensuring donations fit the beneficiaries’ needs
- Vision and flexibility - The more you know, the complexity increases.
- We each have something to give - From business students to local tuk-tuk drivers
- Tell the world about it! - Share your cause and get people on board! They, too, can become the support you didn’t know you needed.
Before the next 2 speakers were up, The Social Co conducted a live fundraising activity, in conjunction with Giving Week. 50 members of the audience each picked a random number from 1 to 50, and the number which each of them picked, represented the amount they would be donating. That amounted to a sum of $1,275. In addition, we managed to rally 2 anonymous match-funders to match dollar-for-dollar the amounts raised from the audience. Hence, every dollar donated was multiplied by 3. The total amount, with match-funding, raised was about $3,825 and proceeds were donated to Pangdemonium.
“Given the right support, they can thrive.”
The next inspiration speaker was Soon Sing Suen from the UN Women Singapore Committee. She shared about UN Women Singapore's annual Project Inspire, which was launched in 2011 and has had 6 successful runs so far. At Project Inspire, the team accepts ideas from across the globe and participants pitch their ideas to win grants and up to 1 year of support to implement their projects. Sing Suen talked about past Project Inspire winners like Hapinoy, that connected 10 communities and increased financial growth for mothers and families, as well as Protsahan that trains girls from at-risk conditions in skills like creative expression and micro entrepreneurship.
“We are a proudly Singaporean theatre company with a mission to tell stories on topics that may be challenging yet relevant.”
Our final inspiration speaker for the night was Tracy Pang from Pangdemonium, a proudly Singaporean theatre company with a mission to tell stories on the stage which are challenging, inspiring, relevant, accessible, and above all, of the highest artistic, entertainment and productions values. She shared that the objectives of Pangdemonium were to tell stories, producing work the affects social, cultural, community and environmental changes, as well as making a difference in people's lives. She talked about some of Pangdemonium's productions such as Tribes that helped audiences see things from a deaf person's perspectives, Falling which had it's story centred around a family with an autistic kid, as well as Rent, which showed diverse communities coming together in love through adversity. Last but not least, Tracy shared about Pangdemonium's next generation initiatives in uncovering new talents and giving opportunities to aspiring artists and technical practitioners.
Our talks ended with an extremely engaging Q&A session where audience members asked questions ranging from “what were you motivations in carrying on” to “how do you find collaboration opportunities”.
Our event ended with an open networking session where guests were invited to mingle and get to know each other better.
Fuze Nights typically take place on the last Wednesday of each month.