Ease and Convenience does not drive results.

My book will be launch tomorrow, and I've already been giving several talks on Social Impact.

The most common respond I commonly get is, "Getting real impact is very hard. Can we just donate instead?"

Is this is the state of mind we have now?

Do we require everything to be easy and convenient?

Sadly, this is probably a reason why the current solutions do not really address the problems the world faces. Its because many people don't really think about social impact of their actions.

Many people want to help, they donate to large organizations for disaster relief, they donate to programs to support kids living in poverty. Some people even volunteered and visited the recipients of their aid.

I have met some good Christians who donated their time and effort to support the elderly and helped cook meals and cleaned the homes.

Many people however did it out of duty, or did it out of convenience. When you do not think about the problem, and assume the dollars or even actions you have done is enough to solve the issues the recipients are facing, you are often wrong.

Social intervention does create an impact, but not always positive.

When you help, you life decision for others.

The recipients often do not ask for help, and when you force your "help" on them, you may make them feel helpless and dependent.

Sometimes when you help, you do things for your own convenience, because you don't take joy or pride in whatever you do. Your only excuse is, "Well, I'm still better than most people who are doing nothing."

When you help, you exclude the locals and make decisions for them.

When the initiative fails, you blame the recipients for not taking initiative.

If you want real results, it is not going to be easy.

Just like starting a business or becoming a successful athlete, it takes time and effort to yield results.

There are multitudes of problems we face today, many are created by man, and they all have solutions, but we have yet to found them. Instead, we often look of convenient solutions to patch the problems and continue to patch as we go along.

The problems are getting more serious as time passes and apathy, complains and protests do not solve problems.

We need to take ownership and work with communities, support these initiatives and work towards sustainable change. There are solutions out there, solutions to many problems we face today, but everyone wants to pretend to be a savior to solve the problems, when they need to consult the locals who face the problems and know the situation best.

Lets find some time to contribute our capabilities, skills and resources towards disruptive activities which create real social impact. Lets explore the boundless possibilities and test solutions to make this happen.

We all live on the same planet. Lets create a brighter future for all.

-- Robin Low

Moving forward – What else can we do for Social Ventures?

With the amount of financial support from some government on social enterprises and social projects, you would have thought that it will taken off by now, but strangely, you just see more awareness created and not really more impactful social enterprises in existence.

I’ve been involved in many social enterprises in Asia since 2010, and I have seen this sector grow. Social enterprise today is no longer a new concept. I’ve read books written two decades back, regarding social impact and systems change, and things are continuing to evolve.

In Asia, governments have been interested in this industry for at least five years now, and many governments do provide grants to support social enterprises. Just like entrepreneurship, the numbers are growing, but there is still not a significant number of them coming in to solve the pressing issues of society.

I have been looking at this trend and here are some of my observations.

Funding Students. The most common group of people I see that are able to access funding easily, are tertiary students. In fact, many universities and polytechnics push for social entrepreneurship, and they do have in house staff to help the students navigate the government bureaucracy.

In Singapore, many students who go to universities are from the middle to higher income group. And for the groups of students who are interested in entrepreneurship, they generally come from the upper middle class, where they can take some time off to explore their interests, instead of having to work immediately to pay off student loans and support their families.

Many of these students have not experienced poverty, and do not know friends who are in parts of society who experience social problems. However, they seem to want to solve these problems with their good intentions. Armed with some ideas and a vague understanding of the problems, they get funded and start their social ventures.

From the ideas I’ve seen, many of them are simply running a business with a slight social angle. Setting up an expensive sandwich shop and donating part of profits to a charity does not really fix or solve any problems. Hiring ex-inmates and the handicapped to do retail, or work in the kitchen of a restaurant provides possible employment, but still does not do enough to address social mobility.

For those living in the communities may need help and support, if they do not have a good command of the English language, or they cannot articulate their ideas well enough with a good business orientation, it is almost impossible for them to get any funding, yet these are the people who would best understand the problems they face everyday.

Systems change. The social entrepreneur may have found a good solution to support a community, however, if the system creating the problem is still creating more people who fall through the cracks, there is only a limited impact the social entrepreneur can do.

Sometimes, working with a marginalized community, the social entrepreneur can see the full scope of the system he is trying to change and identify the pressure points. For real social impact, the government also needs to consider to engage these social entrepreneurs to understand how they can support with policies which can support the activities of the social entrepreneur.

Policy. Changing policy is often a critical component to change the underlying systems that can create sustainable social impact. However, this is often difficult and politically polarized. With funding from the government, it is also hard to engage the government on a policy discussion if the government is not interested to talk about it. Policy change also have a deep impact on social enterprises trying to fix a problem. Sometimes, policies can also create NGOs and other government linked charities to come in and give freebies, affecting years of good work done by the social entrepreneur.

Lack of data. There may be research and analysis done, but information on poverty and marginalized communities are hard to come by. The government holds a lot of these information and shares only part of the data from time to time, and studies are also considered politically sensitive.

Communications. The communications between organizations and between government departments in Asia are generally bad. Within an organization, there is also sometimes a lack of transparency. It is important for a social venture to communicate              transparently both internally with stakeholders and externally with key audiences.

In the context of Singapore, some of these NGOs and social enterprises see each other as a competitor. With the kiasu mindset of Singaporeans, there is also little support and collaboration between NGOs, and social enterprises, even when they serve the same beneficiaries.

Technology. In Asia, many of the social ventures would use technology to solve many pressing problems. However, many established charities in this region are still very slow in embracing technology and innovation.

As such, collaboration is not easy as the technology level is very far apart, and what’s worse, some of the large NGOs and Charities just started to have more than 1 email address for their whole organization.

Cost and pricing. Many people still think that products and services from social enterprises are more expensive. In some cases, this holds true (especially if it is a charity trying to earn money and sell products involving their beneficiaries) These organizations still have the mindset that the public has the responsibility to support and pay more for these products and services. Sadly, because of this, the quality of the products and services are also not high.

Social enterprises still compete with many traditional businesses, but they may have multiple bottomlines to satisfy. Their cost structure may be higher as they need to be ethical with their staff, but the public may not want to pay more for this.

In conclusion, I believe that there is more the government, and the public could do to support and nurture social ventures. Social enterprises and projects need access to information regarding their communities they serve in, and corporations and government can support by using their services, or helping out with marketing and events.

The social ventures need to be better at communications, and be more transparent to build trust and the public needs to give them a chance, trying out their products and services. It would definitely cost society less if these social ventures are doing things right, and in time, they can also build their brand, and competence and scale their operations up to benefit more beneficiaries.

Disaster Recovery through Art - Come be part of Social Innovation

Art Impact Nepal is coming to Singapore in August. (https://www.facebook.com/artimpactnepal/)

This event was launched in Kathmandu in April, and has been to Providence, Boston, San Diego and Rosarito so far.

I've learn a lot engaging with artists and meeting the visitors to the event. this event was the idea of various artists from Nepal and I'm learning something new all the time. There were a lot of unintended consequences.

Art Impact Nepal is not an art show. It is not about art appreciation and not about art education. The artists are Nepal fine Artists who are award winning artists, and they are there to display their art and share their experience during the earthquake. They will also talk about the progress of the recovery and how they are leveraging on art for disaster recovery.

One of the artist -- Ajit Sah is already training survivors in the earthquake to make handicrafts and the handicrafts are already sold in Kathmandu to allow the survivors of the earthquake to earn more money for rebuilding of their homes.

One of the goals of Art Impact Nepal is to raise funds to build a residential art studio in Lumbini, training and allowing more survivors to make handicrafts and sell handicrafts for a living. Foreign artists can visit the residential studios to work with the artisans, learning local art, as well as sharing their crafts with each other.

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After running this art exhibition for some time, I've already learn so many new things.

1) Art Therapy.

One of the artists in Nepal experienced a lot of loss, and almost quit art. But when he saw the artists coming together for this project, he started painting again with mixed media. He realized that his post disaster art is much darker than his original art. Now, he is using all dark colors, showing broken temples and bells.

He realized that he could express what he could not vocalize with art, and it was good for his mental health to release his feelings bottled inside him.

As such, art is also used to understand the mental health of the survivors, and used as a therapy, a channel for some of the troubled survivors to express themselves.


2) Caste System.

I learn a lot more about the caste system, and how different castes will not come and support because of the type of art on display (lower caste)

In Nepal, I ran the exhibition and managed to get the various people to come, however, in the US, evidently, the community was fragmented and it was hard to get support from the Nepal community.

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If you are in Singapore, please come by and support and show your solidarity to the artists. If you can please come and buy some handicrafts as well. There are organic soap and other handicrafts made by the villagers using only sustainable locally found materials and vegetable dyes.

I'd like to introduce conscious consumerism and you can support Nepal recovery by shopping in the new Singapore way, instead of donations. We can enable the survivors to support themselves and rebuild their communities by buying the things we need or meaningful gifts.

-- Robin Low

The unequal distribution of resources

Many societies have come to a point where people feel that the unequal distribution of resources is part of life. Some of my friends in Singapore buy into the prosperity gospel -- a religious belief among some Christians that financial blessing is the will of God for them, and that faith, positive speech, and donations will increase one's material wealth. Others join mega churches and believe that they should earn more in order to give more.

In the US, my Conservative Republican friends dislike paying taxes and make socialism a dirty word. They also believe that people are poor because they are lazy, and seek ways to reduce social spending.

Resources are materials found in the environment that humans use for food, fuel, clothing, and shelter. These include water, soil, minerals, vegetation, animals, air, and sunlight. People require resources to survive and thrive.

Due to the difference in the environment that results in different natural conditions, resources are distributed differently across the globe. Countries that do not have the resources they need can trade for them. Sometimes, conflicts happen when countries try to control resource rich territories.

Within the countries and society itself, there is also unequal distribution of resources. Today, the income gap is widening. Many people consume fewer resources they need for survival and well-being. As a result, there is much poverty in these countries. However, not everyone in these countries is poor, there are also a few people controlling all the resources, making them very rich.

This unequal distribution of resources, the legacy of imperialism, is the result of human rather than natural conditions. But this problem is not only found in third world countries, many countries do see a large income gap and the number of "working poor" in these countries is also on the rise. In fact, the world’s 62 richest people hold as much wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion in 2016.

We praise billionaires for their charitable donations and philanthropy. But where do they get their massive wealth from? Many of these billionaires are driven to make as much money as possibly at any cost. After making money, they hoard their wealth and give a small portion to charity while putting the rest in a tax free financial vehicle.

Corporations are also hoarding Trillions of dollars; some say they hold it for a "rainy day", while some corporations focus on "tax efficiency" which most of us call "tax avoidance". If they were to spend it, the economy would instantly grow, and we could see more jobs with better pay. Strangely, the stock market is also rewarding companies for hoarding money, namely software and healthcare companies which hoard the most cash.

Perhaps this is a result of our dysfunctional society, a society where people suffer from curable diseases simply because they cannot afford medical care -- because they are too poor. There is massive income inequality in the world and many that could not earn a sufficient living now require aid in order to get by.

In many societies, people with materialistic wealth are looked up on as idols. No matter where he gets his wealth from, corruption, unfair business practices which kills of other smaller competition, he gets more respect for having more.

Many aspire to accumulate wealth and will find all means to get there, and only when they are rich, they participate in philanthropy. This is the kind of mindset that creates the income inequality, where people around die from poverty and creates a need for the billionaire philanthropists to come to the rescue.

We need to address the distribution of resources at the root. We need to treat people in our society with empathy and consideration. It is definitely possible to do well while doing good. Through social innovation, marginalized communities can be freed from a life bound by servitude and dependency.

Poor people are not stupid. They have ideas and aspirations, but lack resources to even solve their most immediate problems. They do not need the help from the billionaire philanthropists; they do not need aid and donations. They need to be able to be included in deciding their future, and be connected to be resources and be empowered to solve their own problems.

What we need is just for people to rethink their consumption habits. Supporting chain stores who exploit their workers in the different levels of supply chains, just because they sell cheaper products may not the best way to save money. We need business owners who treat their workers with respect and encouragement. We do not need to worship billionaires because it will encourage people to accumulate their wealth at any cost.

Everyone plays a role to empower their communities and enable the ones who are marginalized to do more. Charities are temporary solutions and the main problems we need to address the unequal distribution of resource.

Billionaire philanthropists and large corporations do not hold the solution of the problems we face today, it is up to us to take actions and accountability to make things right.

-- Robin Low

CSR Lessons from Shanghai

I was speaking at a B4B event in Shanghai, and the whole line up of speakers was very impressive, with a good mix of experienced social innovators and CSR practitioners.

There are a lot of good initiatives and ideas too. Not really looking at the impact some of these initiatives have created, but they do sound innovative and solve some problems.

1) Buick - Human Traffic Signs (CSR) on road safety



2) Voice of China

The Voice of China, a popular TV program crowdsourced viewers and used their voices to read popular Chinese novels, so that the blind and the illiterate can listen to the novels.

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There are various other cases where big organizations do CSR without "donating" but leveraging on their expertise to create sustainable change.

Of course, being China, there are many people who leverage on accidents and fear to create sale.

A swim coach used this message after a boating disaster in China. "Learn to swim to survive." It did get him more sales and created more visibility to the problem of people not able to swim, however, many people strongly agree that the message was not in good taste, and purely for profits. But taking a step back, I do feel that it is a communications issue and if the message was "Learn to swim, to save lives" It could also promote the importance of swimming, and people should learn it to save the lives of others.


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CSR boosts a company’s brand, manages risk, and just plain saves money. But perhaps most importantly the general public is clamoring for companies to enact good, fair business practices — and most of that public pressure comes through social media.

There are many examples of businesses moved into more sustainable practices by a social media backlash, so is CSR done dues to public feedback or social media? Or does a company need to do CSR because of public feedback?

Feedback through social media is immediate, permanent, and extremely public. When individuals feel strongly about a company’s performance on social or environmental issues, one small voice can quickly become a swarm, difficult for even the most shielded executive to ignore. For this reason, social has become a driving force in many companies’ CSR agendas.

And CSR today is not as primitive as many Asian countries think. Donating a % of profits to charity is not really CSR, but rather, a poor attempt at CSR. CSR today is integration into key business operation. One of the easiest ways to be on the right side of the social media tide is to be proactive — and personal — by listening to feedback and responding in an authentic way.

CSR should not be just donations for sustainability. CSR leadership development creates a cool company to work, and improves employee retention. In many forward thinking organizations, CSR is so in line with business that the word social does not even need to be uttered and business practices will consider many social end environmental aspects before implementing.

Many companies with unsustainable practices are interested in CSR, but CSR cannot "white wash" the pollution they create. CSR should be looking to change the business model or change the product!

When the CSR budget is from Marketing budget and is percentage of profits, sometimes there can be a budget issue with CSR as it is seen as "unimportant" and a cost center, and when profits drop, the budget for CSR tends to follow. This creates a detrimental effect as some programs cannot be terminated halfway and trust will be lost.

CSR can also be co-created by NGO and Corporation and this collaborative engagement is key. Much empathy is needed and it can create a Win-Win situation for both parties. However, the corporate skills and NGO needs must match. It should not be done at the convenience of the corporation, but rather, done together as equals.

CSR should be in the DNA of everyone instead of just a department in the company.

-- Robin Low

A definition of social innovation

“We contend that social innovation is the best construct for understanding and producing lasting social change. We redefine social innovation to mean: A novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals.”

Source: Phills, Deiglmeier, and Miller (2008)

A definition of social entrepreneurship

• Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value
• Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission
• Engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning
• Acting boldly without being limited to resources currently at hand
• Exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served

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There may be many ways of solving a social problem.

1) NGOs / Government - Mission Driven Way

Funds can be raised, the government can set up departments and fund social projects

Government usually like large scale projects, focusing on equity, and the funds used should be accountable to voters. Generally slow moving and takes a long time to implement.

NGOs are often shaped by beliefs and values and the projects tend to be responsive to the board, community, donors and the public. It is also mission driven and operate under a non-distribution constraint.

2) Social Entrepreneurs

4 main criteria:

• Innovation
• Financial Sustainability
• Impact
• Scale

Mission and money are balanced Takes the best of “both worlds”

Goal: to create innovative, sustainable, effective, and scalable solutions to social problems

“Not just businessmen who see that something has to change…” 

M. Yunus

"As I see it, there are two great forces of human nature: self-interest and caring for others. Capitalism harnesses self-interest in helpful sustainable ways, but only on behalf of those who can pay. Philanthropy and government aid channel our caring for those who can’t pay, but the resources run out before they meet the need… To provide…for the poor we need a system that draws in innovators and businesses in a far better way….I like to call this system creative capitalism…."

B. Gates

"Social entrepreneurs are…the practical dreamers who have the talent and the skill and the vision to solve problems [and] to change the world….Social entrepreneurs have a unique approach that is both evolutionary and revolutionary, operating in free markets where success is measured not just in financial profit but also in the improvement of the quality of people’s lives."

Skoll Foundation

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For social entrepreneurs, the starting a business with a social cause is not enough. Taking an Entrepreneurship approach brings innovation up front is key. I strongly feel that problems should be tackled at the source.

For example, instead of giving homeless people food and shelter (which many other NGOs are doing) A social entrepreneur should focus on how to prevent people from getting to that point of homelessness. Or ways where homeless people can get back on their feet and eventually rent / own a home.

Getting the beneficiaries choices and empowering them to solve their own problems should be key as they should feel more involved in the solution that will directly affect them. I've met many brilliant social entrepreneurs who would "think for" their beneficiaries, and for many cases, it works after much iteration. However if the beneficiary is a person, shouldn't they be engaged be part of the solution, instead of being seen as the problem?

I always have a quote which I deeply believe in. 

"Poor people are NOT stupid people." 

M. Yunus.

And I feel that engaging them from the start, and empowering them to be part of the solution should be the first start of any social enterprise. 

-- Robin Low