​​​​​​​​​​​​The annual Charity Council’s Charity Governance Conference on 27 ^th September 2018 themed "Governance for Excellence", aspires to bring charities and corporates together to uplift their governance practices. The full day event, graced by Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, Ms Grace Fu, was held at Mandarin Orchard Singapore’s Grand Ballroom.

This is the 3^rd Charity Governance Conference that the Charity Council has partnered with Securities Investors Association (Singapore) (SIAS) as part of their Corporate Governance Week.The Conference saw the overwhelming attendance of 374 participants, of which 313 were charities representatives from 182 charity organisations and another 61 are guests and corporate organisations.

The audience were also greeted by Mr David Gerald, CEO & Founder of SIAS; Dr Gerard Ee, Chairman of Charity Council; and Dr Ang Hak Seng, Commissioner of Charities. All reiterated the importance of governance and the Conference being one of the many enabling initiatives for capability building from both the Charity Council and the Office of the Commissioner of Charities (COC). Dr Ang also urged charities to leverage on the Shared Services initiatives that have been introduced, to make good use of the services to clarify doubts and improve on the sector’s governance standards.

The first topic of the day on “Good Practices of Fund-Raising” was presented by Mr Tay Woon Teck, Head of RSM Risk Advisory. To ensure the audience were of the same understanding, Mr Tay started by sharing on the definition of the “Fund-raising appeal” - which was clarified that all charitable fundraising appeals in Singapore, whether online or offline, for local or foreign purposes, are regulated, to ensure transparency and accountability of fundraising activities.

He also emphasised on the importance of charities’ duty to donors, and being accountable given that the charity sector thrives on trust and confidence from the public. Hence, all charities were strongly encouraged to take fund-raising and the reporting of fund-raising seriously. This is also coupled with the recent COC’s Safer Giving Campaign, which urges donors to be more discerning and to ‘Ask and Check, before Giving’.

With the raised awareness on fund-raising in the charity sector, the panel deep dived into the concerns and challenges that charities may face. The first panel comprised Mr Tay, and three other panelists, Dr Ang Hak Seng, Mr Daniel Ong, Care Corner Singapore’s Head of Corporate Partnerships & Communication and Mr Andy Sim, National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) and Giving.SG’s Director of Digital Innovation Team. The session was moderated by Mr Andrew Liew, Very Special Arts Singapore’s Chairman. The panel spoke about being sustainable in their fund-raising efforts. They urged charities to be open to using online methods of fund-raising such as tapping on the four platforms that have subscribed to the COC’s Code of Practice for Online Charitable Fund-raising Appeals. The panel also noted that the relationship management aspect with donors, be it individual donors or corporate donors could be largely improved. Suggestions ranged from sending appreciation emails to thank donors for the contributions in the year to having regular updates on where the funds raised were going and the impact it has had on the community that the charity was serving. In addition, the panel reiterated the importance of accountability and transparency to all stakeholders.

The morning continued with a second presentation by Dr Fermin Diez, Deputy CEO & Group Director, Human Capital and Organisation Development, National Council for Social Service who shared on “Board and Human Resources - How to Attract, Retain and Motivate”. Dr Diez spoke about the Board’s role in talent management in the organisation, which in summary were to i) define the profiles needed, ii) manage board dynamics and numbers, iii) ensure Board training, iv) implement a succession plan and finally v) measure the results through board evaluation.

The morning Conference concluded with a robust panel discussion moderated by Mr. Ang Hao Yao, Charity Council Member & SIAS Management Committee Member, who was joined by panel members, namely Dr Fermin Diez, Dr Gerard Ee, Mrs Mildred Tan, NVPC’s Chairman, Ms Geraldine Lee ARC Children’s Centre’s Co-Founder and Centre Manager, and Ms Stefanie Yuen Thio, TSMP Law Corporation’s Joint Managing Partner and Head of Corporate. The panel shared their difficulties faced and how they managed to deal with them in areas of attracting, retaining and motivating staff. For the small charities, Ms Lee shared the common pain point of not having enough resources. That said, she shared that with perseverance, the management of the charity convinced the Board to minimally pay based on the remuneration framework that National Council of Social Service had developed. The idea of Board members and staff of charity leaving for another charity to ‘share bring joy to another charity’ was also bounced as ‘rotation of talent in the charity sector’.

During lunch, COC Dr Ang Hak Seng conducted a workshop on "Visibility Guide in Action", attended by over 150 charities participants. Dr Ang shared further on the 6 principles of the PARENT framework and the intent and importance of having these principles weaved into the charities’ Annual Reports. The PARENT framework would enable charities to have a clear thought process and thus able to articulate and frame the key points of the good work done in the year when reporting to stakeholders through the Annual Report. He emphasised that the Annual Report need not be fanciful and at a high cost, but the key is for the content as well as clear presentation of content.

The Conference continued in the afternoon with three concurrent Governance Workshops:

Governance Workshop 1: Importance of an Audit Committee, presented by Mr Sovann Giang, Senior Director, Risk Advisory, RSM

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Governance Workshop 2: Guide to Annual Reports and Stakeholder Communications, presented by Ms Joanne Lee and Mr Zu Heng Ho, Black Sun PLC

Governance Workshop 3: Charity Law 101, presented by Mr Cyril Chua and Ms Juliana Yap, Law Society of Singapore

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Please find Conference materials and presentation slides listed below:

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