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AWWA, one of Singapore's largest multi-service social service agencies, has released its inaugural report on the Family Empowerment Programme (FEP) — a study conducted with the support of Tri-Sector Associates (part of the Temasek Trust ecosystem), Standard Chartered Bank, and Temasek Trust as partners.
The FEP aims to provide income stability and empower low-income families with the mental bandwidth and financial flexibility to plan for and pursue their medium-to long-term goals.
Launched at a panel session on 17 July 2024, the FEP report revealed consistent improvements across a range of indicators for the families, including better mental health, greater job security, and a positive impact on family relationships.
Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam was the Guest of Honour at the event, accompanied by his wife, Ms. Jane Ittogi. (Photo credit: AWWA Ltd)
Collaboration fuelled an innovative Pay-For-Success model
The programme is based on a Pay-For-Success model, with Tri-Sector Associates as technical advisors, upfront funding from Standard Chartered Bank, and outcomes funding from Temasek Trust.
Tri-Sector helped Standard Chartered, Temasek Trust, and AWWA land on an Outcomes Amplifier model — a type of Pay-For-Success funding — for the FEP.
The programme received its first round of funding of S$750,000 from Standard Chartered Bank. If specific outcomes — focused on education, skills upgrading and employment — were met, Temasek Trust would come in to fund a second round of the project with another S$750,000.
As these requirements were met, Temasek Trust will fund a second leg of the project (FEP 2), enabling the refinement and expansion of the FEP to benefit more families.
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(Photo credit: AWWA Ltd)
Mr. Kevin Tan, CEO, Tri-Sector Associates, said that cross-sector partnerships like these enable different stakeholders to play to their strength, and the Outcomes Amplifier model ensures that impact can be scaled beyond a pilot.
“We look forward to working with the broader ecosystem on more innovative collaboration models that can lead to better capabilities and ultimately better outcomes for the complex issues we face,” Mr. Tan added.
Mr. Desmond Kuek, CEO, Temasek Trust, said: “Temasek Trust supports outcomes-based philanthropic funding to drive multi-sector coalitions for change. With its rigorous impact measurement and management, the Pay-For-Success model in AWWA's FEP provides for better accountability, and funders have more transparency on their impact per dollar. We hope this will inspire more collaborative funding and partnerships from institutional funders to support philanthropic causes and social innovation at scale.”
Going forward, AWWA noted in the report that it plans to share learnings from the design, implementation, evaluation, and outcomes of the FEP with the broader social service sector, and also work on scoping FEP 2.
In the second round of the project, AWWA plans to add stronger wraparound support services to help families with some of the more entrenched challenges they face.
Tri-Sector Associates, part of our Temasek Trust ecosystem, is a social impact firm dedicated to finding new ways for society to work together to solve the hardest social problems. Follow them on LinkedIn for their latest updates.
