Volunteer partnerships: Helping to build a more caring and inclusive Singapore
The relationship between social service agencies and volunteers is being transformed to better serve the community.
Blossom Seeds volunteers helped distribute goodie bags to beneficiaries during the Ramadan Drive by Assyafaah Mosque last year. Photo: Blossom Seeds
For social service agency (SSA) Blossom Seeds, reaching out to vulnerable seniors while grappling with safe management measures due to COVID-19 was no easy task.
Thankfully, the organisation had the help of its long-term corporate volunteer partner, Micron, in navigating this unprecedented challenge. In 2021, Micron volunteers worked with Blossom Seeds to distribute 1,000 goodie bags to homebound seniors, bringing them much-needed cheer amid the dark days of the pandemic.
MOVING TOWARDS SKILLS-BASED PARTNERSHIPS
Blossom Seeds has seen its volunteer partnerships expanding beyond distributing goodie bags to include more specialised forms of giving, in which organisations and individuals from the 3P (public, private and people) sectors contribute their skills or business resources to do good.
3P volunteers not only support organisations in their goals and outreach, but also take ownership of programmes and initiatives that impact society. As volunteer partnerships deepen and encompass more areas of collaboration, they can lead to outcomes with a wider impact, such as sponsorships, donations and inclusive employment.
Mr Gary Lim, deputy director of volunteer and community engagement at Care Corner Singapore, noted that volunteers “are not just another pair of hands and legs”.
“To us, volunteers are part of the Care Corner team and our service model,” he said, citing Care Corner’s Mandarin toll-free counselling hotline that is run by 100 trained volunteers who contribute 11,000 hours each year. “They allow us to tap on expertise and resources that we may not have access to on our own. Thanks to our dedicated group of volunteers, we have been able to pick up close to 15,000 distressed calls annually over the past 40 years.”
BUILDING CAPABILITIES, FOR BETTER OUTCOMES
Ms Ong Siew Chin, CEO of Blossom Seeds, said that skills-based 3P volunteer partnerships help to better serve its clients.
“In addition to building capability for our operations and support functions, 3P volunteer partnerships help to rally support from the private sector. We tap on their skills and expertise to help us develop a governance framework as well as provide leadership guidance and opportunities to share corporate best practices,” she said.
Blossom Seeds also worked with VISA to develop programmes for its volunteer leaders under the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) Volunteer Management Capability Development consultancy project, which aims to improve the volunteer management capabilities of SSAs. VISA’s corporate volunteers helped to enhance its volunteer recruitment process and gave recommendations on social media platforms Blossom Seeds can use for volunteer outreach.
Ms Caryl Loh, senior assistant director, Volunteer Resource Optimisation, NCSS, said: “Volunteer partnerships between social service agencies and other organisations in the 3P sector allow social service agencies to do more for their service users. This could be through providing skills that the social service agency needs. These partnerships also create sustainable manpower options for the social service agency by providing a steady pipeline of volunteers.”
According to Ms Ong, long-term volunteer partnerships help the organisation to equip corporate volunteers with specific skillsets that benefit its clients. “For example, having more volunteers who are trained in wheelchair transfer, first aid, caregiving and event planning has allowed us to bring more homebound seniors out of the house,” she explained.
DEEPENING VOLUNTEER PARTNERSHIPS
Care Corner works with corporate partners to match its programmes with volunteers’ skillsets and even engages its volunteers in co-creating programmes. These measures help volunteers feel like they are part of the Care Corner community and contribute to high retention rate, said Mr Lim. More than 50 per cent of its volunteer hotline counsellors have remained with the organisation for over a decade.
Besides regular volunteer appreciation events, Care Corner maintains a dialogue with its corporate partners like Marina Bay Sands (MBS). Every three months, it gathers feedback from MBS and informs its volunteers of how their efforts are impacting the organisation’s beneficiaries.
“We considered opportunities that would be aligned to the corporate social responsibility goals of MBS, and a volunteering model that would be able to support Care Corner as well as the volunteers,” recounted Mr Lim.
MBS volunteers visit and befriend seniors who are unable to visit Care Corner’s Active Ageing Centres regularly due to mobility issues, and alert Care Corner if the seniors need assistance. They also offered their professional expertise and resources to help the organisation upgrade its stakeholder communications.
Said Mr Lim: “When Care Corner needed help to produce corporate videos, MBS’ media team volunteered its skillsets.”
DIGITAL OPPORTUNITIES FROM THE PANDEMIC
During the COVID-19 pandemic, physical fundraising events were cancelled. But through a skills-based collaboration with its corporate partner Clicktrue, Blossom Seeds managed to take its fundraising activity online.
“We were not familiar with social media platforms,” said Ms Ong. “One of Clicktrue’s partner organisations started volunteering with us and helped to set up our website. Its skills-based volunteers also offered us digital marketing support.”
When the pandemic placed further pressure on Blossom Seeds to digitalise its stakeholder communications, Clicktrue helped the organisation to onboard its communications onto a customer relationship management platform, boosting productivity.
“Our staff benefited from having a volunteer corporate partner that was able to share their expertise with us,” she said. “These volunteer partnerships are critical to our role in serving the community, especially the vulnerable.”
Added Ms Ong: “By bringing together the public, private and people sectors, every Singaporean can now share responsibility for building a caring, cohesive and inclusive environment for all – and by doing so, play their part in building a stronger nation.”
Download the NCSS Corporate Volunteerism Guide or visit the SG Cares Website for more information on SG Cares Volunteer Centres.
