“Excellent service overall, incredibly valuable market knowledge and above & beyond level of service”
So, in June 2009, I went to work with Krista Slade and her team at the CASE Asia-Pacific office in Singapore. CASE Asia-Pacific opened in 2007 and the office is now situated on campus at the National University of Singapore, in the Shaw Foundation Alumni House which officially opened in March 2009. This purpose built and dedicated Alumni House was a great base to learn more about advancement in the region.
Once at CASE, we decided that I would be of most help working on the inaugural Asia-Pacific Institute in Educational Fundraising in Melbourne, Australia, scheduled for late October. This was the first intensive training course of its kind for fundraisers in the Asia-Pacific region. We built the programme based on the successes of its sister courses that have been running in the USA and UK for thirty and eight years respectively, and had a stellar faculty line-up consisting of eight very experienced educational advancement practitioners from around the world. The faculty had all volunteered their time for CASE and in support of the advancement profession, to deliver a “philanthropic powerhouse of learning” (Quote: the Institute Chair Ann Badger – Director of College Advancement, Ormond College, University of Melbourne). The venue, a stunning facility in the Mornington Peninsula situated on the coast and an hour outside of Melbourne, is an executive education campus of the Melbourne Business School. It was a great space for us to deliver the programme to our delegates from schools and universities from 8 different countries in the region. To give the delegates some time away from the packed learning schedule, we organised Tai Chi lessons, a barbeque night and a wine tasting reception. All in all, the week was a great success and the delegates went home tired but energised, ready to put what they had learned into practice.
During my time in Singapore, I met with a number of senior development professionals in the higher education and cultural sectors. During our conversations I became aware that, on the whole, they were facing the same challenges as their peers in the UK not-for-profit sector, such as where to find talented fundraisers who could increase and retain support for their institution. I did however, notice a difference in that it was not so much a case of these institutions asking where to find good fundraisers for specific income streams, but more how and where to find talented and experienced fundraisers, or how to grow your own. Educational and cultural fundraising as a profession, does not appear to be as well established in Asia as in North America and Europe, therefore it may seem harder to find experienced and talented individuals. To address this question, CASE Asia-Pacific organised two seminars in Singapore and Hong Kong led by Moyra Doyle. The seminars, “How to recruit and retain the best advancement talent” and “Careers in advancement”, attracted a large number of development professionals from the education sector and introduced them to best practice in recruiting strong advancement teams and keeping them motivated. We received positive feedback on these sessions and delegates left with ideas on how to identify, recruit and retain top talent.
The CASE Asia-Pacific team is an inspirational group of people who, having all worked in educational advancement, truly understand the challenges that the education sector faces, and work hard to ensure that CASE delivers the resources, training and networking opportunities of which their member institutions can take advantage. I was incredibly impressed by the amount and quality of the work they produce in order to serve their members across the whole region.
On a personal note, living and working in Singapore for six months was a great experience and one that I will never forget! It is a truly unique country with high ambitions and the drive to charge full steam ahead in order to achieve its goals. New buildings are constantly being quickly constructed, with work often being carried out around the clock. I was impressed by the efficient and clean public transport system, how safe you feel, and the “hawker centres” – a great idea of food courts built in public housing developments to build a sense of community and encourage working families to eat together.
Singapore is very well connected on the budget airline network and I had the opportunity to visit Thailand, Malaysia, Viet Nam and Hong Kong – all destinations on my travel wish list and all proved to be great experiences. In Thailand we visited golden palaces, temples and markets. In Viet Nam, we crawled through the hot and pitch black Cu Chi tunnels to get a sense of how the local people lived in these intricate networks of tunnels and underground rooms to hide from the US military. In Hong Kong, we saw pandas and rode the star ferries and peak trams. In Singapore itself, we visited its world famous zoo, cycled around the last old island village in Pulau Ubin and tried the multi-cultural cuisine – from world class steaks to fish head curry. All in all, having the opportunity to live in Singapore and work with the CASE Asia-Pacific team was fantastic. I would recommend Singapore to anyone interested in experiencing an Asian culture but within a safe environment, and with minimal language barriers.
Here are 5 useful tips of things that I learned within my first few days in Singapore:
2. Always carry tissues, a cardigan/extra layer and a strong umbrella!
3. Always carry your business cards, ideally with your name translated into Chinese (or Japanese) on the reverse side.
4. Don’t worry: the smell of gas in supermarkets is probably the famous durian fruit.
5. Singlish – like English Cockney rhyming slang, if you listen carefully, you’ll understand what’s being said!
Richmond Associates continues to support CASE activities and wishes the Asia-Pacific team all the very best in the run up to their next advancement conference, Scaling New Heights, scheduled for 24 – 26 March 2010 in Kuala Lumpur.
