Boost for fund supporting new non-profits that help school dropouts, vulnerable

Temasek Foundation is new anchor partner of fund started by The Majority Trust

- Theresa Tan

In Secondary 3, Ms Nur Syafizan Mohamed Rasid dropped out of school owing to anxiety, depression and a sense of hopelessness. After spending several months at home, she began free tuition classes with non-profit group Starfish Singapore to prepare for the N levels as a private candidate.

One of four children raised by a single mother working as a canteen stall assistant, Ms Syafizan, now 23, said: "Starfish gave me the only hope to fix my life and succeed."

Starfish is a grantee of the Temasek Foundation New Horizon Fund.

Philanthropic organisation The Majority Trust started the fund in 2021 to support new non-profit or ground-up groups with three-year seed funding of up to $150,000 each.

Temasek Foundation, the philanthropic arm of investment company Temasek, is the fund's latest anchor partner.

In late March, Temasek Foundation announced it was committing $1.1 million over five years to the Temasek Foundation New Horizon Fund and the Oscar Mentoring Programme.

This is to expand efforts to start, grow and scale the ground-up movement in Singapore.

The Oscar Mentoring Programme is a partnership between Temasek Foundation and social enterprise Empact, where leaders of ground-up groups are matched with mentors from various sectors to receive guidance on growing their organisations.

The Majority Trust's senior director of philanthropy Charles Tan said the fund was launched to support new ground-up groups or non-profits as such new outfits find it hard to attract donors even though they play a crucial role in meeting emerging or unmet needs.

The fund was earlier known as the Lam Soon New Horizon Fund, which was named after its previous anchor donor, the TL Whang Foundation, which gave it $1 million.