On a humid September morning in Singapore, a group of nonprofit leaders, social entrepreneurs, and corporate sustainability champions gathered for a two-day masterclass at the Foundry, a co-working space for nonprofits. The setting was a safe space to explore where the messy realities of building organisations for good were confronted head-on. 

I was fortunate to be given an opportunity to contribute, and listen in on the many different conversations taking place. My observations form the basis of this article. 

Why ground up charities matter

Ground-ups, community-driven initiatives (GUIs) that spring from lived experience, are often the seedbed of truly innovative social impact work. Unlike established charities or foundations, GUIs tend to be scrappy, small, and deeply rooted in the communities they serve.

Their strength lies in authentic proximity: they know the rhythms of the ground, the needs of beneficiaries, and the subtle cultural nuances that rarely make it into board reports.

But their very strengths are also their vulnerabilities. Ground-ups often lack strategic frameworks, financial sustainability, or long-term governance structures. Without nurturing, their passion risks being dissipated by the grind of day-to-day survival.

That’s where strategy and capacity building come In, not as external impositions, but as supportive scaffolding to help GUIs thrive.

The majurity way of thinking and doing

In Singapore, The Majurity Trust has emerged as a crucial enabler in this process. More than just a grantmaker, it plays the role of unlocking philanthropic capital and channelling it strategically into areas of need. By bringing funders, corporates, and nonprofits into the same conversation, The Majurity Trust lowers the barriers for GUIs to access resources and provides the scaffolding they need to grow sustainably.

But money alone does not guarantee impact. This is where the partnership with TalentTrust becomes critical. TalentTrust specialises in capability building for nonprofits, providing mentoring, strategy support, and leadership development. 

Together, they combine funding with enablement, ensuring that grassroots initiatives are not just resourced, but also equipped to use those resources effectively.

In practice, this partnership looks like carefully curated programmes, such as the masterclass, where ground-ups gain access to structured strategy tools, while also networking with peers, corporate leaders and funders. It is a rare but vital fusion: capital plus capability, offered in a way that respects the unique DNA of each nonprofit. For GUIs, this kind of support can be the difference between burning out and breaking through.

Beyond chequebook philanthropy

Singapore’s corporate sector has, in recent years, been nudged toward greater sustainability and community engagement. The Maybank Singapore team, for instance, shared during a fireside chat how they are mobilising billions in sustainable finance while also committing to one million hours of staff volunteering. Their approach highlights a growing recognition: meaningful corporate citizenship is not just about money, but about skills, culture, and long-term partnership.

Skills-based volunteering is one of the most promising pathways. Imagine a data analyst helping a small nonprofit clean and interpret its beneficiary records. Or a communications professional training grassroots leaders to tell their stories more powerfully. These forms of volunteering are multipliers: they transfer knowledge that can permanently upgrade a nonprofit’s capabilities.

Yet, as several facilitators emphasised throughout the two-day Masterclass, such efforts only work if experienced individuals from the corporate sector first listen to the unique DNA of the nonprofit sector. The social impact world operates on different timeframes, values, and measures of success than quarterly corporate KPIs. A nonprofit’s “bottom line” might be stronger family bonds, lower recidivism, or greater community trust, outcomes that defy easy quantification but are no less vital.

The ideal role is to serve as a useful outsider, providing advice, guidance and ultimately enabling change that is led by GUIs. 

Strategy as a living framework

Strategy, as framed in the workshop, is not about producing glossy documents. It is a living blueprint linking an organisation’s mission and values to its daily actions.

This process, when applied to GUIs, is both empowering and challenging. Empowering, because it provides clarity where there is often uncertainty. Challenging, because ground-up leaders may fear that structure will dilute their authenticity.

Here again, the role of corporates and capacity-building partners is not to dictate but to facilitate: to help GUIs articulate their purpose without imposing external jargon or metrics. As one charity leader put it: “Help us plan, but don’t box us in.”

A case in point

A highlight of the masterclass was the case study by Saleemah Ismail, CEO of New Life Stories, a nonprofit serving children of incarcerated parents.

Her organisation’s journey illustrates both the fragility and resilience of GUIs. From humble beginnings, they have grown to serve over 800 clients, achieving outcomes as diverse as improved literacy rates, reduced recidivism, and stronger parent-child relationships. 

Their strategy evolved not from imported models but from lived realities—what Saleemah called “connecting heart and head.” For Saleemah, the strategy tools shared represent a vital communication tool for her to explain the why, how and what of her work to others.  

For corporates listening in, the lesson was clear: before offering expertise, first understand the human stories. Strategy in the social impact space is not a spreadsheet exercise, it’s a bridge between aspiration and lived experience.

Decision-making in the social impact space

The second day of the masterclass turned the spotlight on decision-making. Through a “Human Library” format, corporate leaders, product innovators, and nonprofit executives shared candidly about their dilemmas: when to scale, when to say no, and how to balance short-term needs with long-term sustainability.

These conversations underscored that the cadence of decision-making differs sharply between sectors. Corporates often prize speed and efficiency; nonprofits weigh trust, community accountability, and sustainability. Bridging this gap requires not only strategy but empathy.

Towards a shared future

So where does this leave the social impact ecosystem in Singapore and beyond? The masterclass surfaced three guiding insights:

1. Nurturing ground-ups is non-negotiable. They are the frontline innovators of social change, but they need scaffolding (strategy, governance, and skills) to thrive.
2. Corporations and experienced corporate leaders have the opportunity to go beyond donations. Skills-based volunteering and strategic partnerships offer transformative potential, provided they start with humility.
3. Listening comes before leading. The social impact space is values-driven. Unless corporates and capacity-builders attune themselves to those values, even well-intentioned efforts may misfire.
4. Field building is critical. Beyond capital and capability, GUIs need a safe and sustaining community around them. Field building provides the follow-up, the space where grassroots leaders can voice struggles, exchange lessons, and lean on peers who understand their realities. It is the steady companionship that walks alongside GUIs, linking them to mentors, resources, and skills when needed, while reminding them they are not alone in the journey. In this way, field building transforms isolated passion projects into resilient movements that can weather setbacks and grow into long-term contributors to the social fabric.

In this sense, the role of convenors like The Majurity Trust, working with partners such as TalentTrust, becomes even more critical. By combining capital, capability, and connection, they ensure that support is not one-off but systemic.

The role of organisations

For experienced corporate leaders, the temptation when entering the nonprofit or social impact space is to move fast and fix things. After all, speed and efficiency are prized in business. But when it comes to working with ground-ups and charities, whether in Singapore, Australia, or beyond, the playbook looks different.

Here are five guiding principles to carry forward:

1. Start by listening, not leading. Every community has its own history, values, and pain points. Before launching a skills-based volunteering programme or writing a cheque, invest time in listening tours. Ask community leaders and nonprofit practitioners: What do you need most?
2. Respect different measures of success. In business, quarterly returns and market share are clear markers. In the nonprofit world, success might look like fewer children entering the justice system, stronger intergenerational bonds, or a community feeling more resilient. Learn to celebrate outcomes that don’t always translate neatly into KPIs.
3. Offer skills, not just money. Philanthropic capital is crucial, but the real multiplier effect comes when corporates share expertise in areas like data, digital transformation, financial planning, or governance. In both Singapore and Australia, nonprofits often cite capability gaps as a bigger barrier than funding. And where donations are made, try to minimise restrictions on how it is spent. 
4. Build with, not for. Partnerships thrive when they are co-created. That means avoiding top-down, prescriptive approaches and instead asking: How can we walk alongside you? In multicultural contexts like Singapore, or geographically vast ones like Australia, this sensitivity to local nuance is critical.
5. Think long-term, not transactional. True impact requires sustained engagement. Explore models where your organisation commits to multi-year partnerships, mentoring, or embedded volunteering. Over time, this builds trust and allows nonprofits to plan with confidence.

The role of individuals

Not everyone holds a corporate title or philanthropic cheque book. But individuals—professionals, retirees, students, or simply neighbours—are vital threads in the social impact fabric. Contribution begins less with grand gestures and more with posture and presence.

1. Practice deep listening. Before offering help, spend time understanding the lived realities of the community. Attend dialogues, hear nonprofit leaders, or listen to beneficiaries. Sometimes, being heard is itself a form of healing.
2. Offer your craft. Every skill matters. A designer can make an annual report sing, a coder can streamline workflows, a teacher can help with literacy programmes. A few hours of sharing your craft can ease real burdens for grassroots teams.
3. Support with flexibility. When giving money, consider unrestricted donations that cover rent, utilities, or salaries—the unglamorous but essential costs of keeping impact alive.
4. Build relationships, not transactions. Go beyond one-off volunteering. Return regularly, because continuity breeds trust, and trust enables nonprofits to plan with confidence.
5. Carry the stories forward. Advocacy is powerful. Share the journeys of the nonprofits you support within your own networks. By amplifying overlooked voices, you widen their reach and multiply their impact.

Conclusion

Singapore’s social sector, like in many parts of the world, is at a crossroads. The challenges, of aging populations, climate change and social disadvantage are too complex for any one actor to solve. The future lies in collaborative capacity building, where corporates bring skills, nonprofits bring proximity, and both commit to a cycle of listening, learning, and co-creating.

Ground-ups will continue to emerge, messy, passionate, imperfect. But with the right nurturing, they will not only survive but reshape the very fabric of community care. And for corporates willing to step in, not as outdated saviour archetypes but as true partners, the reward is a richer, more resilient society that reflects the very values we claim to prize.