Harvard Singapore Foundation - Tote Board Lecture Series

"Building Better Partnerships between the Non-Profit and the For-Profit Sectors"

Mr. Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director of McKinsey & Company, presented a talk on forging stronger ties between the private sector and non-profit organisations, as part of the Harvard Singapore Foundation –Tote Board Social Capital Lecture Series.

The lecture, held on 17th August 2012 at NTUC Auditorium, was delivered to an audience comprising representatives from both private sector companies and non-profit as well as voluntary welfare organisations in Singapore.

Mr. Barton’s lecture focused on three key areas; exploring the question of why the private sector and social sector should collaborate more, examining ways to build and manage better partnerships between the two sectors and putting forward a ‘call to action’ to both sectors in terms of what can be done to shape further collaboration.

He provided a global insight on the persistent challenges that the world must address, including that of water shortage, deficiencies in sanitation and hygiene, climate change, technology changes, youth unemployment and the continued proliferation of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries.

A key message within his lecture was that in the current economic and political landscape, resources from the government and the social sector are not enough to address these issues. It is therefore imperative that a new paradigm takes shape, one that is collectively also driven by private corporations to realise the scale, reach and capabilities that the social and public sectors alone cannot deliver.

Mr. Barton also provided numerous examples of existing successful private-social sector collaborations from around the world in his segment examining the best practices both sectors should adopt when forging a partnership.

Following Mr Barton’s lecture were two presentations by Ms Karen Ngui, Managing Director & Head of Group Strategic Marketing & Communications, DBS; and Ms Chin Soo Fang, Head of Corporate Communications, SPH. Both speakers shared with the audience their respective experiences in developing and implementing successful corporate social responsibility programmes and collaboration with various local non-profit organisations, for mutual benefit.

The audience was also given the opportunity to pose questions to a panel comprising the three speakers and Mr. Anthony Teo, Director, Harvard Singapore Foundation, following the conclusion of the presentations segment.

The Social Capital Lecture Series, a collaboration between Tote Board and the Harvard Singapore Foundation, brings inspirational thought leaders and practitioners to Singapore to share their experiences and knowledge, in order to stimulate discussion on emerging social trends and help enhance capacity building for the non-profit/ social service sectors.