Volunteers, not always a good thing.

Many people think that volunteering for NGOs and organizations is doing them a favor and having real social impact. After cleaning up at an old folks home or painting murals, many people think they have done well and deserve a pat in the back.

With many of the CSR projects of organizations, employee engagement seems to be the "in" thing now. In Singapore, there is a system called Community Involvement Programme (CIP) where student are required to clock a certain amount of CIP hours to graduate.

However, after running and working with NGOs, I could tell you that some of these free volunteers are not actually helping these organizations, but rather -- giving them more work.

This is a very fine line to thread. Some people and companies like to think that non-profits should be grateful if we have something to give them. This attitude is really wrong as non-profits will try to accommodate volunteers even if they do not need them in fear of losing donations and creating negative PR.

As you know, with social media, bad publicity is just a tweet away. Non-profits that are savvy knows this. When a corporation comes with 50 volunteers to paint an old folks home, these organizations will find them walls to paint on, even though it was painted a few months ago.

As non-profits, they do work with a lot of constrains. They do have liability if something goes wrong or people get injured, at the same time, they are probably tight on manpower, and every minute organizing activities with corporates is taking time away from doing actual work. The organizations also need to create a positive experience, and the volunteers also come unprepared to the site and need equipment to get things done.

The non-profits do not want the corporates to feel unappreciated and will find all ways to accommodate them. Even if its free labor, building the right experience matters or it may end up in a crisis. There needs to be value created for all parties for it to be a win - win situation, or else its just activity for activity's sake.

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To add value in the relation, corporates should:

1) Find a value proposition to pitch to the organization.
       - List skills which the volunteers can provide.
       - Sometimes pro-bono work for the administration is better than donations and engaging the                   beneficiaries.

2) Understand the needs and constraints of the organization.
       - Working with children may require background checks on the volunteers.
       - Working with gardens or disaster relief may require tools and outfits which organization may                not be able to afford to provide.

3) Plan in advance, NGOs need time to plan and respond.



At the same time, the non-profits should:

1) Create a list of support they need (skills)
     - List opportunities available. (Training kids, chefs in soup kitchen, etc)
     - Have some budget to pay for some pro-bono work. (Reimbursements, etc)
     - Share needs openly (IT Support, Tech, Marketing, Accounting)

2) Hire a event planner to manage volunteers.
     - Create volunteer programs which enrich experience of volunteers and allow them takeaways and        shares for more awareness. (Photo Ops, learning experience)

3) Be honest and truthful.
      - If you cannot handle volunteers, just say no.


-- Robin Low

Liberated by disasters

When a disaster happens, some people are burdened by a task of picking up the pieces caused by a force beyond their control, others are given a gift, a gift of being spared from the disaster. Some people take it for granted and do nothing, others may volunteer or donate.

Many things we learn about relief is not true. We are often told that individuals are not effective in the field. We are told not to donate clothes, but only give money. However, when you think of it closely, do you know how your charity money is spent?

I have been to several disasters, and I have realized that there is a big role for individual volunteers to play. Large charities and governments bring aid to the field fast, but due to top down bureaucracy, they are unable to act fast enough to satisfy the changing needs on the ground, and individuals are required to fill the gaps and meet the needs on the field.

I have often seen children running around naked, and yet charities tell us not to donate clothes. The reason why the charities tell us not to donate clothes, is not because the people do not need them, but rather the charities do not have manpower to sort them. As an individual, I have been to a shelter and got the children in the shelter involved to help sort the donated clothes. At the end of the day, the sorted clothes are picked through and used by the survivors.

There are times which I do not agree on how the charities act. Most incoming resources for recovery are managed by foreign organizations, professionals & volunteers and they excluding local stakeholders. Funds provided largely spent on foreign resources - Local resources and Stakeholders are not actively engaged in relief & recovery initiatives, often being displaced by foreign providers. But instead of complaining, I felt that one should take action to do what is right.

Fear prevents people from taking actions. Even when you feel that you can contribute, you will find excuses to stop you from taking actions. Procrastination sets in and it is hard to overcome.

With social media, emails and smses, the world is a much smaller place. Everyone is interconnected. With information that others are burdened by disaster, I decided to go to the areas and contribute as an individual. When I wanted to contribute actions, I constantly send information of my actions back on social media, and request for reimbursements from my friends to support my effort. When they see my actions and photos, much of my costs are covered.

When I declare to friends that I am going to Japan a week after the tsunami, there were people who cautioned me about the dangers, and others who wanted to contribute. Some asked me how effective I could be on the ground, some asked why I wanted to go. Frankly, I don't really have the perfect answer. Some time ago, I have decided to live life by my rules, not by rules other set for me.

It is a liberating experience not to be controlled by fear, but have the courage to do what you think is right. It is not easy, but defeating procrastination is a lifelong skill which I intend to master.


-- Robin Low

Human Inadequacies

Knowledge both saved us and burdened us.
Experience may help us in may ways, but also make us fear new ways of doing things.
Planning may help us accomplish many things while avoiding problems, however, over planning is the main reason for "failure to launch"
Eagerness to help may sound noble, but too much aid may result in more harm than good.

From medicine to finance, business to government, the world we live in is not as simple as it seems as many problems faced may not be solved by only apply one discipline of knowledge but diverse knowledge is required to understand the root cause.

With the Internet, we all have stupid amounts of information (and misinformation) on our finger tips. Putting this knowledge in the hands of experienced, competent and hardworking people, we have accomplished much, yet failures are common, persistent -- sometimes frustrating and demoralizing.

We live in a world of extreme complexities. Many things are intertwined. High school drop outs may not be just an education problem, as homeless kids will most likely drop out of schools. Over legislation tends to try to sweep the underlying problems further and when the problem arise again, it will only come with increased intensity and magnitude.

We need to recognize that we are humans, and we have egos -- egos which may get in the way of making the best of choices. Even the best of intentions may fail

The snake trying to save the drowning fish may think it is doing the fish a favor by bringing it out of the water.

Though meeting many people, trying out many different solutions and perspectives, I've came to understand the simplicity, complexity and duplicity of many problems, and I hope to share my experience with some anecdotes and stories. Some may apply to you and if you relate to them, please share, comment and discuss.

-- Robin Low

Misconception of success

I am influenced by my upbringing in Asia and I could see that many people consider success to be "Being Rich and Famous".

I have read on the news and know some people who are really rich and famous as well, and it seems like many of them are not happy. In fact, one of my favorite actors, Robin Williams killed himself. There may be no correlation between being successful and suicidal, but I do think that this concept of people striving to be rich is flawed.

I've several friends who are ridiculously rich, I met him in Boston recently and he brought his mom over as well. He was originally from China and had an uncle who is a government official and he is considered an "Investor" and he owns a Maybach and has a driver. I would say he would be considered by many people in Asia a successful person, but when I met his mom last week at a supermarket, she was shopping at a Chinese supermarket squeezing vegetables and throwing them back. She seemed to have a foul mouth and tried to bargain at a supermarket and cursed at the cashier when she did not get what she want.

I met up with some investors who know him and when they talk about him, they say that he was very driven by returns and often loses more money because he picks the companies with the highest risks.

I recall many people I know in Singapore who are "investors" from China as well, and they all seem to buy the most expensive things and create this appearance of "wealthy businessman" but when you start talking to them about their investments, even in real estate, about Gross Floor Area, Plot Ratio and other terms used in property development, they do not seem to know anything at all.

I know many people who would worship these "rich" folks and consider them successful. However, if you are not a property agent or investment banker, what value do these people add to you, if all they care about is money?

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I would consider successful people as people who have great influence and insight. They may have a simply life, but their works affect many. Successful people also continual add value in things that they do.

Prof Muhd Yunus is someone I look up to. He has transformed banking with microfinance and he still stays true to his vision of ending poverty.

I feel that people's concept of success is flawed and picking role models, because they are rich is not a good way. I've know many people with a lot of money have a lot of addiction problems and I do not see them as being happy.

I consider myself rich when I have a choice of what to eat today and I can buy a friend a meal, yet I've known some friends who are parents and make over $250,000 a year, and never thinks about charity or giving back to the community as they feel that by donating, their children will get less money for their college funds.

I would say that children are mostly affected by their parents, and I've seen many kids growing up to be compassionate and yet with the knowledge to know the value of things.

The last thing I'd like to share is:

Pick a right model of success as it affect who you hang out with and what you do, and eventually who you become.

-- Robin Low

Paradox in the social sphere

Remember: Poor people have money

When you give out of pity, you tend to create a dependence and a mindset that the rich should give and the poor should just receive. If the poor is "given" enough to get buy and by working, this giving stops, it will destroy ALL motivation to work.

Subsidy / Wage Gap

If you work, you get less support and less that when you do not work. Sometimes, subsidies prevent people from working as the rules for subsidies prevent those low income earners from getting subsidies, making them poorer than those on subsidies.



Free things make destroy local economy

When you donate food to end hunger, the food is usually imported and local farmers and workers lose their jobs because they cannot sell. Ending up with more people who need food.



Free / subsidized housing.

When the best of intentions build subsidized housing, free schools and offer jobs, millions will move in. If there is not enough money as the money is intended for thousands, there will be slums created, schools will be overcrowded and there will be not enough jobs. Eventually, education standard will be poor, living conditions bad, and jobs scarce -- leading to more poverty. (Dertu, Quest to end poverty)



Owen Barder (Center for Global Development)

If we believe that trade is important, we could do more to open our own markets to trade from developing countries. If we believe property rights are important, we could do more to enforce the principle that nations, not illegitimate leaders, own their own natural resources. ... If we believe transparency is important, we could start by requiring our own companies to publish the details of the payments they make to developing countries.

This is seen in many developed countries as well, like rich families owning everything, creating monopolies and unfair advantage as they can influence government to create laws which favor them.



Free Mosquito nets

Angelina Jolie and a few other famous artists gave out more than 1 million mosquito nets to fight malaria, destroying the whole industry of mosquito net makers and repairs. Many could pay for mosquito net repair decide to just use the new ones which put many out of jobs.



More food /= better nutrition.

In many projects where people are given better food, more protein. (Subsidized diets) In many cases, the receipients who save some money on food do not use the protein to subsidize their diets, but decide to make it what they only eat, and spend the moeny saved on cigarettes.



Unequal perception triggers wrong innovation.

When a neighboring village gets a clean water project and other benefits because of polluted water, many other villages will soon have polluted water, because many of them may be smart enough to see that having polluted waters may result in them having cleaner drinking water for free.




Funding do not fund results.

In many cases, funding is spent on the doing. Many people like donate to initiative to fix clef lips, give stationaries to students, deworming kids. And funding can be massive to impact millions, yet there will be no funding given to investigate reports whether doing such initiatives could reduce poverty, build capacity or give the kids a brighter future. No tests, no accountability, no results.


Overheads to run charity well are seen as "inefficient"

Most of the time, NGOs are compared based on total % delivered to beneficiaries. However, they are not measured by quality of service rendered, or transparency and detailed reporting. As intelligent humans, many NGOs pay their staff very little, and provide bad service.

A soup kitchen using a 60% of donations for free food may be seen as a worse soup kitchen than one using 80% of donations for free food. But here are the numbers.

Kitchen 1
$10,000,000 donations per year
$2,000,000 Auditing, Administration infrastructure and salaries
$2,000,000 Marketing and fundraising

Quality campaigns and events are run to engage donors, Donors can visit and communicate with receipents directly. Quarterly reports given, 2,000 beneficiaries served.


Kitchen 2
$200,000 donations per year
$30,000 for Salaries
$10,000 for Marketing and Administrative

Not much awareness created, run by volunteers. No reports or accountabilities. 30 beneficiaries served.


With just some numbers, it is hard to compare charities as numbers do not show the whole picture.



Success, scale, fail

This is seen in many projects, whether in entrepreneurship or social impact. The skill set to run a startup and to run an enterprise is very different. without the abilities to delegate, many founders of these companies will fail to scale.

Through lean startup, many people are able to run a simple model to verify their assumptions and test their ideas, and once proven successful, some are able to get funding to scale. Our idea of think big, scale fast in many cases are the root cause of these failures.

When a VC or a large foundation provide a big grant, they expect results fast. Hence the implementation is done without further testing and based upon initial prototype. In many cases, the situation is different and without understanding other communities that they wish to operate in, the assumptions that may have worked with the prototype may fail. And with testing and firefighting multiple sites at the same time, catastrophic failures is inevitable.

Entrepreneurship Training at Najayo Jail

Najayo Jail in San Cristobal holds about 2000 inmates and is in the state of transition from a traditional overcrowded prison to the new model of prison (Restorative system). However, at the end of October, there was a jail break which resulted in 4 deaths and many seriously injured.

There is also much overcrowding in the old part of prison, with many prisoners sleeping on the floors and in small "cubes" made they built as shelters which they buy. The stories of overcrowded prisons is true, and its shocking to see so many people inside the prison having their  own economy, with Colmado and barber shops all around.

Despite it all, some inmates are still trying to study, and many interested in improving themselves inside the prison without their external distractions.

Civil Innovation Lab gave a free entrepreneurship talk to the prisoners and close to 100 showed up. Most of them came prepared with paper and writing materials and asked lots of questions. There is a strong interest in entrepreneurship and when questioned whether fear will stop them from taking action, and will they be able to do it and succeed, the room roared with the cheer "YES WE CAN!"

It was quite inspiring for these inmates to have experience so much to be still interested and willing to learn a new skill.

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Of course these ideas of training inmates in entrepreneurship and then starting a microfinance or seed funding platform is not without resistance. When pitch to people outside, they tend to as the simple question. "Why are you not helping other Dominicans?" The fact is, we are. Civil Innovation is participating in the Global Entrepreneurship week with many events in the Dominican Republic which includes this in the prison.

There is actually a little more urgency with working with the prison. Firstly, when the person is in prison, they are using resources of the country. There are cost involved in running the prison, organizing events, food, water, medicine.

There are many programs giving these inmates jobs when they are released, but many of them end up in prison again. There is also a 15% unemployment rate in Dominican Republic and the odds are against these ex-inmates like anywhere in the world.

The idea of starting a social business run by ex-inmates hiring other ex-inmates is trying to reduce the rate of them returning to prison. As an ex-inmate, they can understand and communicate with each other better. There can be less discrimination and as long as they perceive to be paid fairly, We think that there is a higher chance for the ex-inmate to stay in the job.

This is our social experiment, and if there are any information or similar projects, feel free to contact me, and I am glad to put up more information once I get some results.

-- Robin Low

Entrepreneurship training at Najayo Correctional and Rehabilitation Center

Civil Innovation Lab has been planning to work with prisoners on giving them options to support themselves. Getting a job is tough in their situation as many employers do not want to hire ex-prisoners. In the case of Dominican Republic, where there employment rate is 15% (est), it is not easy to find a job that pays living wages.

In a country where there are lots of problems, there can be lots of opportunities as well. We want to investigate whether the (women)prisoners are interested in starting their own business, and so we ran a free social entrepreneurship talk to share lean startup methodologies and talk about entrepreneurship mindsets.

We were surprised by the overwhelming response and feedback, and many of them like to start their own business, and are not sure how. Some of them have pretty savvy ideas and after understanding social entrepreneurship, they asked many question and had concerns about resources and reach, and wanted to learn more.

As such, Carlos Miranda Levy (Certified lean started trainer), co-founder of Civil Innovation Lab will run a 8 week Entrepreneurship bootcamp to train lean startup methodologies to them and work with them on their business model and prototypes.

Civil Innovation Lab will also seek to create a funding platform to seed fund some of these companies to get them started, and hopefully employ others in their communities as well.

-- Robin Low