Balancing books pro bono, as accountants give back to charities
Chairman of the Shared Services for Charities's Volunteers' Committee Adrian Chan with Mr Tay Zi Yuan, an accountant from Ernst & Young who volunteered his hours to conduct pro bono audit work for a charity. Photo: Shared Services for Charities
SINGAPORE — Six years ago, the board of the Shared Services for Charities (SSC) hatched an idea to connect interested accounting firms with charities that would benefit from their pro-bono audit work. That way, the charities could allocate more resources to their beneficiaries.
The initiative from the board, which includes two members who work in accounting, proved to be a hit.
Close to 280 accountants from eight accounting firms came on board between 2012 and 2015, with the bulk coming from KPMG, and Ernst & Young (EY). Each accountant clocked in one to three weeks of their professional work to help the charities.
A year later, their scheme received a boost as the Government announced in Budget 2016 that businesses that support their staff to volunteer and provide services to Institutes of Public Character (IPCs) would receive a 250 per cent tax deduction on the associated costs under the Business and IPC partnership scheme.
SSC has signed up 94 accountant volunteers since, with about 50 more expected to come on board this year.
“They get the tax deduction, we get the manpower,” said SSC chief executive officer Chris Ong Kok Chiong, 61. The firm conducts governance reviews, internal control reviews, policies and procedure documentations, and risk assessments for charities.
He added: “SSC is a charitable organisation so it cannot be employing an army of professionals. Costs will be high. There is a full time team, but this team can benefit from corporate volunteers — accounting firms, in particular.”
Sharing figures from last year, Mr Ong said the SSC, which has serviced more than 100 clients over 700 projects since its inception in 2008, recruited 46 volunteers from five accounting firms: EY, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, RSM Chio Lim and Helmi Talib & Co. They assisted 25 of SSC’s charity clients across multiple projects.
The volunteers worked on projects such as internal control reviews, policy and procedure documentation across sectors such as social and welfare organisations, health and religious organisations.
Mr Ong had more to cheer about on Monday (Feb 19) when Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat announced in his Budget speech that the scheme will be extended for three years until December 2021. He told TODAY: “It is the Government giving recognition (to IPC's ideas). Perhaps, it can motivate more corporate volunteers to come onboard.”
The Ministry of Finance said that it will work with the Inland Revenue Authority Of Singapore to review the administrative processes for the scheme based on the feedback and suggestions received, with details of any changes to be announced in the second half of this year.
A three-year extension was also given to the ‘Share as One’ scheme, which was also announced in Budget 2016 to provide dollar-for-dollar matching for new and incremental donations to Share, a Community Chest platform for regular donations. “We will encourage corporates to support their staff to volunteer or donate,” said Mr Heng.
Looking ahead, Mr Ong said the SSC could expand the initiative to include lawyer volunteers who could help charities on their constitutional reviews, and even tech professionals to help their charity clients deal with cyber-security concerns.
