Disruptive ideas can benefit social service sector, says NCSS president
Minister for Social and Family Development Tan Chuan-Jin speaking at the NCSS Members Conference and Annual General Meeting, on Aug 6, 2015. Photo: Siau Ming En
SINGAPORE — The social service sector can look to other fields for fresh ideas, such as transport matching services like Uber, as well as crowdfunding, that can help meet social needs, said National Council of Social Service (NCSS) president Hsieh Fu Hua today (Aug 6).
For example, just as taxi-booking apps Uber and GrabCar “match” cars to passengers, there could be “an Uber of social service, matching services and volunteers to people who need help”, suggested Mr Hsieh, who was speaking at the annual NCSS Members Conference.
This “free-form structure” may be useful, given how people have different needs at different times and can thus be served by agencies and volunteers with different strengths, he said.
Addressing an audience of about 600 sector leaders, voluntary welfare organisation (VWO) representatives and partners, Mr Hsieh said new ideas lead to innovation, which can produce a disruptive effect or a force that will change the entire industry.
Crowdfunding, for example, is disrupting the way funds are raised, he said. With the increasing options of funding sources, more windows of opportunities to advance social causes have also opened up, said Mr Hsieh.
He also wondered if the concept of volunteer-time banking could flourish in Singapore. In Japan, volunteers can “bank in” the hours spent on volunteer work and draw these hours later in life when they are less mobile and need help.
Apart from new ideas, Singapore also needs a customised model to meet its social needs, he said. He cited the example of its public housing scheme, which infused social policies with urban planning and architecture to create a policy unique to the country. Likewise, Singapore should not “copy wholesale” other systems.
Also present today was Social and Family Development Minister Tan Chuan-Jin, who stressed the importance of partnership to achieve better organisational outcomes, strengthen relationships and galvanise the community.
Resources can be pooled, he noted. For example, instead of organisations hiring and grooming their own psychologists, it may be more sustainable for organisations such as SGEnable to grow an area of specialisation for psychologists and organisations to tap on.
Today, the NCSS also launched a toolkit to help VWOs manage volunteers. Developed in partnership with the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre, the toolkit helps VWOs attract, manage and develop volunteers.
On the issue of Singapore’s social safety net, Mr Tan said that however large the net is, it will invariably have gaps. Instead, the sector needs to create a “series of social nets” to cater to different needs, and everyone should work together to ensure the nets overlap, he added.
