NVPC’s Flexi Volunteering Programme makes giving back more accessible for companies
Around 60 companies will work with 10 community partners in the newly launched initiative to establish more sustainable volunteering efforts
[SINGAPORE] The National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC) on Thursday (Jun 19) launched the Flexi Volunteering Programme (FVP) to help companies start volunteering regularly through bite-sized commitments, providing a more flexible and accessible option.
In its inaugural run, NVPC aims to onboard about 60 companies, which will be paired with 10 community partners. Each company will complete at least two volunteering sessions and contribute 60 hours, collectively targeting 3,600 volunteer hours.
Lin Sufei, director of corporate and industry partnerships at NVPC, said: “Companies can activate their employees to commit to just doing maybe two sessions within six months. This is more doable for companies, as they feel they can contribute to an area of need while maintaining their day-to-day operations.”
FVP serves as an entry-level volunteering programme. It builds on Project V, a pilot initiative by NVPC and the National Council of Social Service started in 2023 that matches companies with social service agencies for sustained volunteering programmes. However, Project V requires a higher level of commitment than FVP.
One company hoping to participate in FVP is Wee Guan Construction, which organises events such as home refreshes for low-income families and carnival events for special needs schools.
Jessie Ng, senior human resources (HR) manager at Wee Guan, said: “The flexibility (FVP) offers is what makes it especially workable for us. It provides the same strong platform for connecting with meaningful causes, but with the added advantage of flexibility – allowing us to plan volunteering activities around our work schedules.”
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While Wee Guan’s volunteering efforts have traditionally been on an annual basis, she said that FVP provides the company an opportunity to “integrate volunteering more consistently and sustainably into our workplace culture”. Additionally, the flexibility also encourages higher participation, she added.
NVPC’s Lin said the 10 community partners that have been selected support causes that are often underrepresented, such as mental health.
One community partner is the Caregiving Welfare Association (CWA), which serves seniors through social and educational activities, as well as caregivers via a support group.
Sharlene Ferry, marketing and donor management executive at CWA, said: “We feel that this flexible model opens new doors for collaboration and allows us to engage a wider pool of passionate individuals, who sometimes may be constrained by work (or personal) commitments.”
She added that CWA hopes to cultivate more long-term and sustained partnerships to bring more “active participants” to the caregiving ecosystem – which is becoming increasingly important amid Singapore’s ageing population.
Sustained volunteering efforts
Both Project V and FVP promote sustained volunteering efforts, which have greater impact on the community.
“When companies do one-off, ad-hoc activities, it’s hard to see the impact to both the company availing time and effort, as well as the community partner and its beneficiaries receiving the support… With a regular, sustained approach, you’re able to build rapport with the community groups and better assess the impact,” NVPC’s Lin said.
Agri-commodity company Agrocorp International participated in Project V, organising various activities for seniors such as exercise and digital literacy workshops.
Ramta Mishra, global HR head at Agrocorp, said the company had been volunteering in “bits and pieces” over the years, but Project V helped to provide a regular structure to its programme.
“The structured volunteering helped us create an impact summary – how many hours of volunteering we did, what kind of impact it had on the community. I think when you measure anything, it becomes more valuable,” she said, adding that being unable to measure impact was Agrocorp’s biggest challenge when it came to volunteering.
Agrocorp aims to continue participating in Project V, and is looking to engage more beneficiaries.
Separately, on Wednesday, NVPC signed a memorandum of understanding with United Nations Global Compact Network Singapore to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) build their sustainability capacity.
Selected SMEs will have access to capacity-building programmes, workshops and networking opportunities.
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