14 organisations find new home with launch of social impact hub The Foundry
The initiative aims to provide its partners with resources and programmes to develop solutions and foster communities
THE launch of social impact hub The Foundry on Thursday (Nov 28) has breathed new life into Singapore’s former Elections Department building along Prinsep Link.
Established by registered charity The Majurity Trust, the space will now be home to 14 social impact organisations, and there are plans to eventually house 24 such groups. More than S$10 million has been invested into the project, with S$4.2 million committed towards capital expenditures and the rest for operational expenses over the next few years.
The once-bare premises have been transformed into a co-working space with a colour scheme of mainly yellow, black and orange. The 17,000-square-foot hub features a 100-seat event hall, counselling rooms, a podcast studio, as well as a cafe run by social enterprise Bettr Coffee.
The rejuvenation project, which took less than eight months to complete, had drawn contributions from several companies – construction firm Woh Hup led the project and undertook it at cost, while co-working brand JustCo designed the interior pro bono.
President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who was present at the launch, said that the revamp had captured “the feel of an elections department”.
Encouraging collaboration
The Majurity Trust’s chief executive officer Martin Tan noted that the social impact hub differentiates itself from others with how it wants to create change.
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“A large part of what we do involves (catering to) the needs of our partners,” he added. The Foundry, along with The Majurity Trust, will provide its partner organisations with resources and programmes to develop solutions and foster communities.
Now that the site has been launched, Tan is also looking forward to informal interactions and more collaboration among The Foundry’s new residents.
Victor Zhu, the founder and CEO of social enterprise Hatch, said he was excited about the “more spontaneous and unstructured conversations” that the proximity with other charities will facilitate.
Hatch had established a “referral pipeline” with local charity and fellow resident Impart, even before the launch of the premises. Both moved into the space only last week.
Impart’s co-founder Narasimman Tivasiha Mani noted that the charity, which works with youth facing adversities, often introduces its beneficiaries to Hatch – which runs digital skills and career programmes for young people. They aim to take advantage of the space for better coordination.
“Traditionally, a lot of charities find their own space and are on their own... But in this space, we might walk behind (people from another charity) when they’re talking, and that could spark an idea,” he added.
Tan said that he hopes The Foundry’s residents will eventually expand and outgrow the space there, and return to guide newer and younger ones.
“A foundry is where you cast iron. We wanted a place where we are casting the next generation of ‘industrialists’ in the social sector... we just want to be a factory floor for it,” he noted, adding that the orange in the building’s colour scheme represented the molten metal during iron casting.
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