Ground-up initiative ImpactSG launched to help individuals give back to society

CHILDHOOD cancer is the second leading cause of death among children in Singapore, according to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital. 

A major concern of treating childhood cancers with radiotherapy is the late side effects it may cause, months or even years after treatment. However, proton beam therapy is an advanced form of radiotherapy that can mitigate these risks.

“(The therapy) precisely targets tumours with high doses of radiation, with less radiation exposure to surrounding normal tissues,” said Professor Michael Wang, chairman and senior consultant at the division of radiation oncology at the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS).

However, proton beam therapy is pricier, with costs ranging from S$20,000 to S$90,000. In comparison, radiation treatments cost S$10,000 to S$30,000. 

The launch of ImpactSG, a non-profit ground-up initiative, could make proton beam therapy more accessible to children with cancer not only in Singapore, but also in the South-east Asia region.

Edmund Twohill, co-founder and executive director of ImpactSG, said that regional partnerships are being explored to make this therapy available to more beneficiaries.

He noted that Singapore has a “unique value proposition”, as it is one of only two countries – the other being Thailand, where the therapy is privately owned – to offer proton beam therapy. Nevertheless, according to SingHealth, one proton beam machine can cost between S$80 million and S$100 million. 

“What we’re doing, in our own limited way, is trying to see how we can maximise the impact of such a machine – not just for the kid that uses it, but their future livelihood and also for Singapore,” Twohill added.

Funding proton beam therapy treatment for children with cancer in the region is one of the programmes that ImpactSG is looking to run in 2025, with the help of partners such as NCCS, as well as the public and private sectors.

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Helping pledgers give back

ImpactSG was launched on Thursday (Nov 21). It aims to build a community of individuals from family offices, corporations and foundations who want to give back to society. The organisation plans to do this via partnerships with charities and corporates. 

ImpactSG has so far engaged with about 100 people – of whom nearly half are foreigners – and onboarded 75 who have pledged to contribute, Twohill noted. About 55 per cent of the 75 pledgers come from family offices and/or foundations, while the remaining 45 per cent are from corporates.

The majority of pledgers are new to giving, and/or new to Singapore. ImpactSG aims to be the “first point of contact” for those that want to start giving.

Twohill said: “(The pledgers) aspire to do social good, agree to be part of a community, and work towards tangible action via the four Ts – time, ties, talent, treasure.”

The idea for ImpactSG came about in June 2022, when he – along with his fellow co-founders Dr Daniel Lim and Kwee Ker Fong – noticed an influx of family offices and wealth coming into Singapore.

“The fundamental question we asked ourselves was, how can this group do better for the average Singaporean? Can we get more people to give back?” Twohill said.

He noted that ImpactSG’s strengths are in directing pledgers to the most suitable partners to achieve their giving goals, and facilitating connections. ImpactSG will leverage its partners to curate programmes and organise dialogue sessions and learning journeys. These are to help the pledgers gain knowledge about the causes they are supporting. 

ImpactSG’s programmes

When deciding which programmes to enact, the privately funded organisation looked at those that would give the “best return on impact”. It tested these programmes with partners over the past year and received positive feedback from beneficiaries.

ImpactSG has so far planned programmes for two other groups of beneficiaries, besides children with cancer.

The first is to broaden the exposure of students in neighbourhood schools, by making resources available to them and bringing in speakers to discuss topics such as mental health.

The second is to uplift rental households that have children. ImpactSG will connect pledgers to other ground-up initiatives already running programmes for such communities and scale them up.

At the launch, Ravi Menon ,the board chairman of ImpactSG, said it will continuously update its pledgers and partners about the “tangible impact” of their contributions and “be transparent” about what it has done and what it can improve in.