How Philanthropy Can Respond to the Covid Crisis

Our past half year, as you can imagine, has been dominated by covid. Beyond the short-term emergency response, we have to brace ourselves for the longer-term impact.  It could be an opportunity for philanthropists to demonstrate the important role they can play in society, particularly in a crisis. Or it could be a slide towards irrelevance, as big government takes over. Nobody can be sure what how the covid situation will evolve and end. But we can still work from a reasonable base case. Here is mine. We can be sure that we are in it for quite some time more. I…

Preparing APC for the ‘New Normal’ post-Covid

by Jiaxin Xu and Valentina Ko 2020 has been challenging to everyone, to say the least. The global pandemic that is COVID-19 has disrupted our lives in more ways than one. International travel was brought to a stop, and for a few months, the world went into a lockdown, causing distress in our communities as many amongst us tried to carry on with work, while at the same time, adjusting to the needs or our society. On that end, how did APC re-calibrate ourselves? APC Events The core of our work is to remain engaged with our members and the…

APC Projects at the AVPN Constellations Award

In June 2020, Asia Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN) held their inaugural conference online. The annual conference is the largest convening in Asia that gathers funders and resource providers from across the world to share knowledge, build strategic partnerships, and address socio-economic challenges at scale. The AVPN Constellations Award highlights the ways in which AVPN members are ‘addressing the complex problems of our times with stellar interconnected solutions, leveraging the power of networks for greater impact’.  For this year, APC is happy to announce that two APC projects, INSPIRASI and the Thousand Days Fund were selected as winners. Do check out each project’s…

Climate Philanthropy: Opportunities in the Wake of the Pandemic

by Naomi Wang Whilst life as we knew it came to a halt in the wake of a global pandemic, our planet, on the other hand, gained some respite. Muddy, grey fog unveiled clear, blue skies; the noise of engines and traffic paused for the sound of peace; wildlife emerged from their places of hiding. As philanthropists, these signs give us a glimpse into what we should aspire to be and as we think about how to build back our societies post-pandemic, it is important not to lose sight of this. Motivated by this, APC hosted its sixth online dialogue…

APC and Tanoto Foundation team up to Safeguard the Health of Singapore’s Migrant Workers

by Jiaxin Xu In early May, APC members made a combined contribution totalling over $600,000 to three NGOs serving Singapore’s migrant worker community. Here, we spotlight Tanoto Foundation’s donation of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to the medical charity Healthserve, marked by a virtual handover event held on 20 May 2020. On Wednesday evening, representatives from Healthserve, Tanoto Foundation, and APC gathered in a Zoom meeting room to virtually witness the handover of the donated supplies. Michael Cheah, Executive Director of Healthserve, took us on a tour of their Geylang clinic and walked us through their operations as well as the…

INSPIRASI and PEMIMPIN GSL: Ensuring Education Equity during COVID-19

by Valentina Ko and Johnny Tan As the COVID-19 pandemic spread throughout the globe over the first half of the year, many industries had their operations come to a standstill as social distancing was the recommended short-term solution to slow down the spread of the disease. One of the first sector to experience this disruption was education. Two of APC’s projects, INSPIRASI in Indonesia, and Pemimpin GSL in Malaysia, focus on improving student outcomes through training school leaders. Both projects had to undergo drastic changes within a matter of months to ensure that their strategic objectives of helping school leaders…

Indonesia Responds to the COVID-19 Pandemic

by David Chew APC is embarking on a series of COVID-19 online dialogues for individual countries. Kicking off this series on 14 May 2020 was an online dialogue for Indonesia on ‘COVID-19 – Responding to the Needs on the Ground’. The session welcomed the Indonesian Minister for Education and Culture, Minister Nadiem Makarim. Minister Nadiem began by acknowledging that learning during this crisis is sub-optimal. However, he noted that the crisis did offer some takeaways, such as speeding up the pace of technological adoption and surfacing the teachers with a growth mindset. It had also created empathy between parents and…

Leaving Law to explore the Social Sector- Reflections from APC’s ‘mintern’

by David Chew In recent years, there has been a rising trend of ‘minterns’, or mid-career interns that take a pause from their established careers and switch sectors in order to find new direction and purpose. APC’s recent ‘mintern’- David Chew tells us why he made the decision to leave his legal career to explore the social sector. After 4 years of being a lawyer in the UK, I decided it was time to head home on a career sabbatical. I’d fallen into private practice law right after university, and while that was seen by many as a ‘good’ job, I…

Malaysia Responds to the COVID-19 Pandemic

by Joy Poon Philanthropists are key actors in helping vulnerable groups who fall through the gaps in Malaysia’s COVID-19 relief initiatives. At APC’s online dialogue focusing on COVID-19 responses in Malaysia, a big takeaway was that though the pandemic exposed gaps in the welfare of vulnerable groups in Malaysia, it accelerated opportunities to address these gaps. Now more than ever, philanthropy has potential for significant collective impact. This perspective was reflected by speaker Tan Sri Dr Jemilah, “one should never waste a good pandemic”. It is during this period that collaborative philanthropy can bring about bigger impact to the communities….

Dreams University: Empowering the Future of Myanmar’s Rakhine State

by Genevieve Ding Myanmar is a country well positioned for rapid growth and development given its abundant natural resources, young labour force, and strategic position as the nexus of China, India, and South East Asia, in the world’s fastest growing region. By investing in human capital and knowledge infrastructure networks, it has high potential to leverage its rich endowments for growth that is socially inclusive, economically resilient, and environmentally sustainable. According to the Asian Development Bank, human capital development is fundamental to Myanmar’s transition towards a knowledge-based economy, and tertiary and vocational education will play a key role in accelerating…