Community Connections

What is Community Connection?

Community Connections is a collaborative program started in 2015 to connect corporate employees with social impact organizations that seek directors, committee members, and skills-based volunteers. After FSI took over the program in 2020, Community Connections now also provides training to equip corporate employees with leadership skills.

With a presence in Hong Kong and Singapore, over the last few years, this program has enabled more than 300 Skilled Volunteers to be paired up with around 170 Community Partners.

Vision and Mission

Community Connections is an FSI program that aligns with our Shared Impact Philosophy. By facilitating broad collaboration between the private sector and the social impact space, and the free sharing of resources, information, and knowledge, Community Connections aims to accelerate change.

Through Community Connections, we empower social impact organizations with problem-solving business mentalities, while providing opportunities for corporate employees to contribute to the society through skills-based volunteering. Our mission is to drive collective social impact by helping high-impact organizations reach their full potential, resolve bottlenecks, and maximize resources.

Our Services

For Our Community Partners

Prepare Community Partners for “Connection Sessions”, so that they can find suitable, long-term partnership with corporate participants for mutual benefits.
Comprehensive evaluation of current boards and strengths and weaknesses in the context of their current plans.
Empower Community Partners with skills such as pitching practice and corporate expertise through one-on-one advice and consultation.
Build and share online resources and toolkits with Community Partners to help them reduce operation costs and increase efficiencies, as well as improve efforts on board and advisory creation, governance, director and insurance, financial and legal literacy, among others.
Match Community Partners with a broad array of skilled professionals, thereby helping them gain more practice in private sector engagement.

For Our Skilled Volunteers:

Provide our Skilled Volunteers with new perspectives on local community issues and the operation of social impact organizations.
Enable them to build their networks and skills through skills-based volunteering at various levels of engagement, including short-term one-off volunteering, long-term skills-based volunteering, joining a stakeholder or an advisory board, or joining as a board member.

Participating Corporates in 2021

Impact Stories

Impact Story: Mobilizing Corporate Philanthropic Resources to Advance Gender Equality and Women Empowerment

Find out how a law firm built a community around public interest work through FSI’s Community Connections Program!

June 16, 2023

Impact Story: Why This Experienced Marketing Professional Volunteers for Asia’s First and Largest Soap Recycling Charity

Nick Shao-Wilson, Tatler Asia’s Marketing Director, and Michelle Li at Soap Cycling talk about their mutually beneficial volunteering experience.

March 27, 2023

Testimonials

When I participated in the first Community Connections session in 2017, I expected to better understand the NGO landscape in HK, to identify a few NGOs where there was alignment of vision and mission and I would be interested to volunteer my skillset. What was memorable was that there was a diversity of causes represented at Community Connections. It was heartening to see so many worthwhile causes represented there. Because of the program, I became a board member of Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI). My ongoing commitment includes developing impact assessment, conceptualizing strategy, networks and partnerships.

Sanjukta Mukherjee Head of Thought Leadership and Asset and Wealth Management Insights, PwC

When I first started with Community Connections it was focused on matching professionals with board roles on NGOs. However, it took a few tries and a few years to find an NGO that I wanted to make the time commitment for. I think the Connection Sessions are always so memorable – being in that room which is buzzing with exciting conversations and full of passionate people. It’s hard not to be energized and inspired after that. The Community Connections Program gave me exposure to a number of different charitable organizations very quickly, something I don’t think I would have been able to do easily on my own.

Sun Kim Head of Regulatory Risk Asia, Macquarie

Since April 2017 I have been involved with Soap Cycling as a board member, and it's been an enjoyable and challenging journey so far. As one of Soap Cycling's directors, I help with keeping a dialogue with hotels about our projects, and finding new corporates to have volunteering activities with. I reach out to my network to support us when there are events, such as the periodic networking and stakeholder meetings at PizzaExpress. I 'm like a scout often, seeking out potential sponsors. I have found an auditor who will do pro-bono annual reports for us soon. And in 2019, I volunteered to be MC at the G.R.E.E.N. Hospitality Conference. It’s been nice and fun and a a satisfying experience, to be able to do something meaningful for our communities in Hong Kong and in the Asia-Pacific Region, especially helping people who need soap and amenities. The approach to have the MEY program, which helps Hong Kong locals, is very rewarding, too.

Marcel Thurau Previously efx IT Product Owner, State Street Asia Ltd.

I participated in two Connection Sessions in 2019 as JGIS was looking for people with financial, marketing, or governance skills to volunteer or join the board. We are delighted to have participated in the Programme as it gave us a chance to meet people we would not otherwise have encountered, pitch for our organization, and identify potential volunteers. One of the corporate professionals began volunteering with us by leveraging his legal skills. He has now joined the board, focusing on improving JGIS governance and helping in other areas as well. We would definitely participate in the Community Connections Programme again in the future.

Richard Hartung Board member of the Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore) (JGIS)

Get in Touch!

If you are interested in joining this program, please reach out to us on communityconnections@shared-impact.com