Leave No Room for Betrayal

OFTEN at the hawker centre, teenagers approach me soliciting funds for charity. I seldom contribute as I know that for every donated dollar, a significant amount will be used to pay the fund-raising company.

Sometimes, I will request that they leave the address and contact of the charity for me to make a direct donation instead.

Of course, professional fund-raisers often argue that they ought to be paid for the work they do. They say that with their expertise, they can raise more money with less effort. This will free up the social workers and volunteers to concentrate on their work with beneficiaries.

Coming at fundraising from this perspective, I do not object so strongly to paying fundraisers, for they are doing a job.

However, the revelation that the salary of Vincent Lam, executive president of Youth Challenge, accounted for more than half the $442,287 raised through volunteers in 2005, is different.

It must have hurt the volunteers very much when this was revealed. British Commissioner Alan Collin, in his speech in September 2004 at Youth Challenge, praised these volunteers for being what made the charity tick. He thought these young people were incredible to be "willing to give up their time and effort to do fundraising".

It must be painful to discover the money they had raised had been used to pay for Mr Lam's holidays, club memberships and even birthday gifts.

The double blow of the National Kidney Foundation civil suit and the Youth Challenge investigation would surely dampen the spirit of volunteerism in Singapore — the tightened rules for the charity sector passed by Parliament on Tuesday notwithstanding.

Some people may question the raison d'être for continuing to volunteer, if they perceive that it is the culture for leaders of charities to misuse funds.

Some will feel they have been taken for a ride and vow not to be conned again. Others will congratulate themselves on not "falling" for fundraising pleas.

But we must remember, one or even two spoilt apples do not mean a whole barrel of bad fruit. Perhaps, instead of reacting negatively, we as a society should strive to encourage a new, stronger culture of volunteerism. Like the phoenix, we can rise from the ashes of disillusionment with renewed wisdom and commitment.

Leaders of top charities should be required to declare their nett salaries to the Government — and not merely encouraged to do so as a "best practice". Perhaps, the terms of leadership positions should also be restricted, so that there is less opportunity for the temptation to misappropriate funds.

Just as minority shareholders are well-known for asking tough questions at corporate AGMs, donors and the public must also develop this culture of making charities more accountable. Often, we simply assume that those who work in a charity are of morally upright character and do the job out of passion.

We also cannot continue to depend on the Government to be the sole watchdog to police charities. There is a need for more good men and women to step up to volunteer in the executive committee and on the board of directors.

If they do not do so, then the opportunity for others to use charities to milk donors and volunteers for their own selfish benefit, will always be there.

This article first appeared in TODAY on 25th January 2007