For the past 13 years, Tote Board has recognised the importance of building Capability and Capacity (C&C) within the non-profit sector. Non-profits with strong organisational C&C are able to perform better, deliver more effective services and solutions to their beneficiaries, and adapt quickly to changing environments. This is why, as a strategic grantmaker, we seek to enable C&C building as a means to enhance and enrich Singapore’s non-profit landscape. To accomplish this, we continuously channel our funding to support strategic C&C initiatives through three main areas — leaders, organisations and the wider non-profit ecosystem.

One of Tote Board’s earliest forays into C&C initiatives began in 2008, when we launched the Tote Board Overseas Scholarship for Non-Profit Leaders, grooming promising individuals through comprehensive programmes at notable overseas universities such as Harvard and Stanford Universities. Many of these leaders have assumed greater leadership roles in the sector, driving transformational changes in the agencies that they lead. Recognising that more needed to be done to build a stronger pipeline of local NPO leaders to accelerate sector capabilities, we launched our local leadership programme, Non-Profit Management for 21^st Century, in partnership with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in 2012, and, subsequently, the ACE Capstone programme.

Tote Board’s efforts to build C&C have always focused on anticipating the needs of beneficiaries, proactively catalysing change to create a stronger NPO sector. In 2017, after extensive stakeholder engagement discussions, we gained a more holistic understanding of sector pain points, identifying organisational development as one of the key areas of need. These insights enabled us to anticipate the next step within our journey to make significant changes to the C&C of the sector. To that end, we designed and launched a targeted solution, the Tote Board Non-Profit Sector Transformation Initiative: Organisational Development (TBNTI-OD), the following year.

BUILDING FUTURE-READY NON-PROFIT ORGANISATIONS

As a multi-service agency, AWWA runs programmes which serve thousands of people across various life stages each year. The organisation also has a long history of helping the vulnerable.

In 1979, AWWA started a playgroup for children with multiple disabilities at a time when no other special education school shared that specialisation. This playgroup eventually became AWWA School, which has grown to serve over 300 students yearly. In 1991, to better support the integration of youth with disabilities in mainstream schools, it started TEACH ME (now known as Community Integration Service). Understanding the need for multiple models of support, AWWA extended its services to found Singapore’s first inclusive preschool, Kindle Garden, in 2015. At Kindle Garden, children of all abilities learn together in a common space and grow to be resilient and compassionate citizens.

To Mr J R Karthikeyan (Karthik), Chief Executive Officer, this continuum of services embodies the ethos of AWWA. It is an “ambidextrous” organisation: on the one hand, it can continue running existing programmes efficiently and effectively, while on the other, it is able to be forward-looking and proactive in identifying social gaps.

This, he shares, is the fundamental role of NPOs within Singapore. As a tripartite, the public, private and social service sectors should be equally enabled, and as far as NPOs are concerned, organisational development is one area that can be enhanced.

AWWA embarked on an organisational development transformation journey in late 2018 to improve its leadership and management capabilities. Being ambidextrous was an ideal, but not yet fully institutionalised, and involved additional focus areas such as strengthening knowledge management, a shared perception and even volunteer management capabilities.

Knowledge management comprises “hardware”, such as systems, and “software”, which involves people and culture. Mr Karthik explained that AWWA runs services in over 13 different locations, with more than 22 programmes that cater to various demographics. The breadth of their programmes poses logistical challenges, and it is difficult to create a shared perception among its 750-strong staff, in order to communicate a clear vision and outcome.

Tackling these issues requires funding. However, most donors tend to fund programmes that help beneficiaries, rather than support improvements in areas such as strategic planning and organisational development. As such, Mr Karthik explained that capability building initiatives have become “nice-to-haves”, when, in reality, they are “must-haves”.

‘The challenge is always mobilising funds for your nice-to-haves, which are organisational development capabilities, research, and data-driven thinking capabilities. All these are necessary, and they will help you run the organisation in a much more robust way. But they are not funded,’ Mr Karthik shared.