Tote Board commits $625 million in funding

(From Left to Right) : Rear-Admiral (Ret) Kwek Siew Jin, President, National Council of Social Service, Ms Jennie Chua, Chairman, Community Chest, Mr Bobby Chin, Chairman, Tote Board, Ms Tan Hwee Bin, Board Member, Agency for Integrated Care and Mr Tan Soo Nan, Chief Executive, Tote Board.

On 10 Feb 2011, Tote Board presented two cheques totalling $150 million to two major beneficiaries. The Tote Board Community Healthcare Fund (TBCHF) received an increased funding of $100 million to be used over the next three years to support new and existing preventive health programmes such as Breast & Cervical Cancer Screening and pre-diabetes education, and to give impetus to community efforts to provide better integrated care in emerging areas of need such as home care and mental health. The fund injection will help some 140 community healthcare providers develop new and improved programmes to benefit patients under their care.

Community Chest, the fund-raising division of the National Council of Social Service, received an additional $50 million, which will be used over the next five years to support critical social service programmes. The increased contribution will help meet the greater demand for social services arising from Singapore’s ageing population, more complicated family issues and people with disabilities. It will also support an additional 32 programmes and services for 50,000 beneficiaries each year and is expected to be able to reach out to 250,000 beneficiaries over the five-year funding period.

With the increased funding to TBCHF and the Community Chest, among others, Tote Board’s expected new commitments for this FY10 will be about $625 million, an increase of about $325 million over the previous FY09 commitments. Among the new commitments are the following:

• Singapore Programme for Integrated Care for the Elderly (SPICE), a centre-based facility for the elderly during the day, to help avoid or reduce the institutionalisation of the elderly into nursing homes and allow them to remain in the communities they are familiar with.

• Tote Board Social Innovation Research (SIR) Fund, which provides seed funding for the polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education to carry out projects benefiting the social service sector and/or improving the social environment.

• Esplanade's Community Programmes, which reach out to a broader audience and which comprise ethnic and cultural festivals, visual arts events and other performances for the whole community.

• Arts Grant for Schools and Institute of Technical Education, which encourages students to be more interested in the arts as well as helps local performing groups and young, up-and-coming local artists.

• Installation of synthetic turf in school fields for physical education lessons and field sports as well as for community sharing after school hours.

As at 31 Jan 2011, Tote Board has outstanding commitments of about $1.65 billion and will continue to fund projects based on their merits and benefits to the community as a whole. The projects should preferably benefit a large number of people in the community. Additional considerations include whether the programmes are meeting the unmet needs of the community and whether they yield measurable returns or outcomes against project costs.

“In line with Tote Board’s mission to donate funds for activities that will make for a stronger nation and a better people, Tote Board will continue to add resources and strengthen its capabilities to give hope to, and improve lives, in our community,” said Mr Bobby Chin, Chairman, Tote Board.