BY NATALIE KENNEDY School was in session for APC members in September and October 2020! APC was delighted to work with Philanthropy Insight (Pi) founder Jo Ensor, who conducted a customised, four-part workshop series on strategic philanthropy for APC members. Jo is an advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a former trustee of the UBS Optimus Foundation, and previously ran the strategic education programme for The Philanthropy Workshop before setting up Pi in 2019. During the course, APC members learned about Pi’s 8-step framework for strategic philanthropy and were able to put this approach into practice through an…
Leveraging Evidence to Support ‘What Works’ in Philanthropy
BY BRADLEY WO The desire to have evidence of impact to guide effective giving is at the forefront of the minds of many APC members. However, this can be difficult when experimenting with untested innovations or supporting complex social change. The challenges were exacerbated when COVID-19 hit, as programmes and life itself became disrupted. APC invited Dr Robyn Mildon, Founding Executive Director of the Centre for Evidence and Implementation (CEI), and Ravi Gurumurthy, Chief Executive Officer of UK-based innovation foundation Nesta to offer their perspectives with APC members on incorporating evidence and evaluation into philanthropic practice. Both Robyn and Ravi have extensive background in…
What is the world we are re-creating post-COVID?
BY LAURENCE LIEN A year ago, it was easy to make plans, but difficult to carry them out. This year, I found it difficult to make plans, but yet a lot still seems to get done. What has replaced long term plans, are rolling short term ones, where the nimble, resilient and dynamic amongst us have thrived. In terms of general outlook, things look more optimistic than six months ago. It has been a marvel that humankind has developed so many successful vaccines in record time. Economic outlook is better today. And many governments and companies have also stepped up. …
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…