Community - Minded

On top of accepting monetary donations, the Community Chest today is about building connections for a caring and inclusive Singapore, says its MD Ng Ling Ling

- Ng Ling Ling

MENTION THE COMMUNITY CHEST (ComChest) and one of the most common misconceptions is it is government-related and therefore should not need to solicit for donations.

So shares Ng Ling Ling, ComChest’s Managing Director, who is also Assistant CEO of the National Council of Social Service (NCSS). The reality, she points out, is the converse.

“ComChest started as a community project [in 1983] by our founder Dr Ee Peng Liang, an accountant and active community leader. He thought of the idea of economies of scale to centralise fundraising for social service organisations so that they can focus on serving the disadvantaged,” says Ng. The amount of donations has grown and being part of NCSS provides ComChest a strong governance structure for public accountability.

The mission of ComChest has remained till today, with over 4,000 corporate and 200,000 individual donors supporting its efforts. Collectively, ComChest helps about 80 charities to support different disadvantaged and vulnerable groups.

What has changed though, is the way people are giving. While it used to be just about donating money, Ng observes that today, it is about adding value and impact to the lives of those being helped by enabling and engaging donors in the process of caring and sharing.

“We felt that if we facilitated the experience and understanding of the disadvantaged well, especially through giving of time, hearts would open and giving would be a natural consequence,” she explains.