The Campaign

In light of Singapore being declared the most unfeeling, least positive and one of the least giving countries in the world, FairPrice Foundation launched the Do Good initiative, a public education campaign to inspire a more giving Singapore. They decided to tackle the next generation of givers – youth – to reverse deep-seated negative perceptions of doing good due to years of mandatory volunteering in schools. Youth needed to believe in the impact of their good deeds, no matter how small they were. So the Do Good initiative started by transforming a dreaded obligation into something fun and meaningful with the Giving Store, a mini-grocery-store in a truck where youth could receive little treats in exchange for good deeds. By giving youth the chance to jump-start doing good in a novel way and lead their own movement through the Giving Store tool-kits and booth, thousands came to believe in the power of “Small Deeds, Big Differences” and even shared their ideas on how to make Singapore a better place through the Make A Difference Challenge. Through an experiential journey that took youth from detractors to society’s change-makers, the result was 62,000 pledges to do good and 1.43 million Singaporeans engaged in making Singapore a more giving nation.

The Brief

From our focus groups, social listening and monitoring, we realised that because CIP ultimately became an academic grade based on the number of hours of community service students clocked in, this made them feel perceive community involvement as a dreaded and meaningless obligation, and that their efforts are only perfunctory. Hence, to jump-start youth’s journey to doing good, we needed to show them that their actions do impact the community. We re-framed good deeds as micro-actions – easily achievable but impactful deeds youth could pledge to do. The goal was to achieve 20,000 pledges within 9 months.

Results

With the initial goal to reach 20,000 pledges of good deeds within 9 months, we collected 62,000 pledges – 210% more than what we had set out to achieve. Of these 62,000 pledges, over 9,000 pledges were fulfilled. 67 secondary and tertiary institutions adopted the use of the Giving Store tool-kit. This was a third of all public secondary and tertiary institutions in Singapore (approximately 57,000 students). In addition, more than 2,000 youth also stepped forward as Giving Store ambassadors. For the two-month long Make A Difference Challenge, 39 original submissions were received from a diverse range of youth segments - secondary school students, National Servicemen and even young working professionals. As testament to the popularity of the Do Good initiative, we amassed a Facebook community of more than 16,500 followers and reached a monthly average of 587,645 unique Facebook users.

Execution

1) Activation: We created the Giving Store, a mobile grocery store which brought the campaign to youth at schools and hang-out areas over three months, and gave away treats in exchange for good deeds. Student volunteers guided visitors on pledging good deeds on a mobile application which also published them on their Facebook timelines. 2) Engagement: The Facebook Page and microsite shared updates, positive stories and engaged our community in reshaping the conversation around doing good. 3) Empowerment: We recreated the Giving Store in more portable formats for youth to own. The Giving Store Booth was set up at selected FairPrice supermarkets and community events. Students used the Giving Store Toolkit to set up mini-Giving-Stores in schools, as part of the competitive Giving Store Toolkit Challenge to encourage team-bonding through doing good. We launched the Make A Difference Challenge to award funding to proposals on making Singapore a better place.

The Situation

In 2012, Singapore fell to 114th out of 146 countries on the World Giving Index, and was declared the world’s least positive and most unfeeling country. NTUC FairPrice Foundation decided to take their mission of creating a better life for the community one step further beyond grant-giving, with a public education campaign to inspire a more giving nation. They decided to tackle the next generation of givers: youth aged 13 to 25. However, initial research revealed that youths perceive community involvement as a meaningless obligation due to years of mandatory volunteering under the Community Involvement Programme (CIP) in schools.

The Strategy

The strategy was to: 1. Make the idea of community service fun, meaningful, and most importantly, achievable, by demonstrating how good deeds can be micro-actions – small but impactful, such as sharing a snack with a friend or making breakfast for mum 2. Let youth learn through experience by simulating and gamifying the notion of doing good, instead of just telling them 3. Sustain a social support system via regular and consistent contact with the youth 4. Empower youth to own a movement, not be led by one, so that they are able to see the tangible benefits of their actions beyond themselves, and show they can be so much more than just tools for fulfilling community needs