Our Community Guide, Janet, with our participants from the NVPC COG Fellowship
On 23 April 2024, we were delighted to host NVPC’s current Company of Good (COG) Fellows representing different corporates of purpose on our Resilience Trails. Our Founding Director, Huijia, was a former COG fellow, and she was honoured to be able to share how we have shaped and sustained the Resilience Trails programme, which was the focus of her Action Project since her own fellowship experience back in 2022.
Specifically, she shared how one major concern we had was about the financial sustainability of the programme. This was because we had fully funded the initial development of the Resilience Trails ourselves, including all the training stipends to our Community Guides during the onboarding and orientation phase. When we conceptualised this community-led programme, we did not want it to be a one-off CSR project - we wanted the Resilience Trails to grow, thrive and be eventually owned and driven by the community, if possible. But we needed to ensure that we could establish a runway to allow us and our Community Guides to build a strong enough foundation to achieve that vision.
These were the 3 ways Huijia shared, where corporates and government partners can be a part of our ecosystem of impact, that would also help build our runway:
The NVPC team and COG Fellows discussing what community means to them
🧠Deepening Learning For Staff
For a holistic learning experience, client partners can engage us for in-classroom training in any of our recommended stakeholder engagement modules (e.g. Dignity, Empathy etc.) and stack them with the Trail experience as a practicum. This will help client partners experience how these concepts manifest on the ground through intentional design and implementation.
Janet, our Community Guide, sharing how her volunteering journey started
📈Multiplying Returns On Sponsorship (rather than transaction)
Corporate partners can consider sponsoring the onboarding of new Guides and/or the ongoing refinement of current Guides’ trails. Through this their staff will get opportunities to journey with our Guide behind the scenes during the onboarding, training and co-creation phase, before getting first dibs on experiencing the final version of the sponsored Guide’s trail together as a team. Wins for everyone.
Our Community Guide, Camy, explaining how he uses art to bring communities together
💪Fostering Greater Sense Of Team And Purpose Via Skilled Volunteerism
For a more meaningful volunteering / CSR experience, we now offer client partners the option of combining a Trail with a skilled volunteerism element with Skillseed and/or our Community Guides. As employees gain a deeper understanding of our communities through the Trails, they will be able to more meaningfully contribute their talents to our Community Guides’ causes and / or Skillseed’s efforts in the Resilience Trails programme. This encourages greater fellowship between staff, deepens their sense of purpose, and strengthens their notion as well as value of corporate social responsibility.
We are grateful that client-partners such as Singapore Pools and Pro Bono SG have started to engage us in the above partnership models, and also thank the COG fellows for their kind feedback about our Guides and Trail experience:
“It was a very fresh perspective hearing from Janet! She made me realize that we don’t necessarily have to do great things to make an impact on others, it’s how we do it that really matters. People will always remember how you made them feel!”
“The neighbourhood on any ordinary day is just that but it is nice to see it through the lens of the guide and understand how much it means to her.”
“It was helpful to have a facilitator to support our guide as well as provide the context of his perspective to allow his story to unfold throughout the tour. And the guide was really powerful in his cause and touching!”
Sincere thanks too to Samuel from NVPC for having us at the session, and we hope that our sharing and the Trails experience have inspired the next generation of COG fellows to continue to work on their Action projects, partner with each other and sustain their good efforts in the community even after the fellowship programme.
If you’re curious to find out more about our Resilience Trails, write in to us at info@skillseed.sg