Jack Sim's Insight into 'Beyond Charity - By Social Sector Organizations'

World Toilet Organization's (WTO) vision is to provide ‘Clean Urban Public Toilets and Adequate Rural Sanitation for Everyone’. Established in Singapore in 2001, the organization has been highlighting the need for better and environmentally conducive toilet standards in developed and developing economies.

In response to the post on 'Beyond Charity - by Social Sector Organizations' , Jack Sim (the Founder and CEO of WTO) reflects on the challenges of raising support for an unconventional cause like ‘toilets’ and shares his learning’s.

Breaking a taboo on a shoe-string budget

Charity is another word for professional begging. Yet, while a few are very good at fund-raising or begging, most NGOs are not proficient in this skill. The result is NGOs struggle. Other ways needs to be found.

There are 2 ways for financial longevity:
A) Bring in money
B) Cut expenditure.

At WTO, we started as a very poor and unfunded organization. I funded most expenditure out of my own pocket for the first 3 years (About $150,000).

However, being poor presents many benefits: 1. We do not attract people who came for money because we have none. So, although few came, those who came are largely genuinely interested in our cause. Those who came for financial objectives soon left us. As a small group, we cut bureaucracies. Thus, we can take risks and make decisions very fast whenever needed.

2. Without money, we were forced to create zero cost events, run at very low over-heads, and use other people's time, money, effort, etc. I work for free and still do. We have now altogether 7 paid staffs supported by various sources of funds.

3. We reckon that if our objective is social dividend, we can reach there with or without money. Organizations can lose sight of their mission if too much "housekeeping" work is involved in their daily work. Our attitude is not to ask what can we do with our limited resources, but to ask what projects we want to do and how to get them done. In this way, we avoid the "can't be done" option. Staff are empowered with decisions and given objectives. Thereafter, they find their own ways to reach the completion of projects with short discussions once a while. This cuts the "Snoopervision" cost. Although risks are involved, the staff also felt greater ownership of the issues and the results is greater than trying to be careful.

4. Cost control: Instead of a bureaucratic and hierarchical power structure, WTO created a network structure by making itself a service platform that leads by service instead of lead by power. In this way, we focus on facilitating others instead of controlling them. We saved the controlling cost and also the waste of time on housekeeping matters. For that reason, we do not have a President, secretary, treasurer, elections, etc. Just 2 directors, one of them is me, the founder. You can also fly for free with UN air service and often with freight forwarding planes. If your cause is recognised, commercial airlines may offer you last-minutes seats too.

5. Free is Fastest. I remember the father of the internet once said," If I would have levied any charges, the internet would not have grown so fast”. Likewise, to grow fast, we do not collect any membership fees. We do not charge for services rendered, unless it is a long consultancy. Hosting rights of World Toilet Summits or World Toilet Expo & Forums are also without charge from WTO.

6. How to identify partners. Everyone is a potential partner if you can align your objectives with theirs. Everyone we meet is asked what is the areas they like to work in. And either we immediately offer an idea of working together or wait for an opportune time later if no ideas occurred.

7. How to leverage on partners. We tailor projects towards achieving their goals. Think of their motivation first, what will make their work fulfilling, bring visibility to them, give them credits, make their people happy, etc. Then, we tailor our programme to match our objectives as well. Usually, if applied creatively, it is possible to achieve such win-win situation. Often more than one partner is involved and we similarly make everyone win. Currently, we have experts from Germany, South Africa, China, Japan, Australia, Sweden, Norway, etc whom we can deploy for field projects. Volunteers time is money worth, too.

8. How to leverage on Media. The Medias main objective is to sell the story. They need good original stories. We craft head-lines photo-angles, story angles, time the media release, etc and help the journalists to be most effective so that their editors will print the article and also give stories big coverage. Media is also money worth. And unpaid media space is worth 3 times more than paid advertisement. The public educational value goes beyond the money value.

9. How to at least have some money If you do a good job, and make your cause known, start asking for funding both from private and government sectors. Ask from those whose mission is similar to yours. Commercial interests also contact us, and as long as we keep our own integrity and never promote their products, we can create win-win projects in the form of sponsorships.

10. How to ask from the government. There are many government schemes available. Check is any are in line with your work and apply. If you strongly feel you qualify, stay the course and chase them till they give you the funds. They normally give if you are clearly inside their criteria. Also Lien Foundation started becoming our regular donor recently, so we have some money for overheads.

11. How to create zero cost events. We have 2 international conference each year paid by foreign governments and NGOs. We also have other events throughout the year. Most are fully paid by others. Often, they are willing to pay for the prestige of hosting the events, our ability to initiate change and creating a momentum for local people to follow up, and the media coverage that we bring to their cities. This is equivalent to fund-raising except that the money is paid directly by the sponsor to their vendors. Each event cost about USD200,000 to USD500,000 but none of these monies passes through our accounts. So far, we did it successfully with Singapore, Beijing, Belfast, Moscow, Shanghai, Taipei, Seoul, Bangkok and next year in Bahrain and Australia.

12. How to build a global brand at zero cost. If your work has no visibility, who will know how hard you work? WTO is today a global brand purely using Media’s editorials on TV, radios, newspapers, magazines, conferences, word-of-mouth, etc. We create humour, punch-lines, sacrifice for photo-opportunities when it is effective, make everything interesting for the listeners, readers and viewers, which helps them retain our messages in their memories.

13. How to generate new projects all the time. Find a pain, give a comfort. This is the logic of social entrepreneurship. There are many problems not yet solved:- The UN Millenium Dvelopment Goal for Sanitation where 2.6 billion people have no proper sanitation.- The tsunami affected people who needs their toilet back;The long queue of ladies at the public toilets; The lack of knowledge in design, maintenance, behavior, legislations, financial returns of toilets investments, environmental risks, ecological sanitation etc. All these need us to build capacities for them to improve themselves. Find something common, make it speak for your cause. For WTO, an artist is for toilet arts, a doctor is for teaching us about toilet borne diseases, a product designer is for designing toilets products, etc, everyone visits the toilet and everyone has experiences. Everything is related to the toilet, because the world is designed for humans and toilet is an intimate part of human survival.

14. Social enterprises: World Toilet College was another dream.-No school: Partner Singapore Polytechnic-No teachers: Use foreign and local experts.-No curriculum: Write one based on the current social problems , offering the solutions which become the curriculum.-No students: Promote and recruit.-No funds: Match the course with current government schemes, eg JRP, SDF, etc. Eventually, the dream comes true.

Future projects are:-1) WcCafe- This is a theme cafe where patrons will be educated with plenty of toilet information, often in a hilarious way and leave with a certificate certifying that they are now toilet-trained.2) WTO Quality Mark- The world has no standards for toilets products and services that is universal. Often, we experience a sensor that don't work a flush that is faulty, toilet papers that tears when wet leaving your finger in contact with the faeces, toilet cleaners that are untrained, etc, etc, Therefore, having world standards can bring up quality. WTO can also levy subscription rates for assessing, award and monitoring of the quality standards, Singapore laboratories can get business when they are on our panel of approved laboratories, toilet users enjoy better services ultimately and everyone wins.

Toilet Development Bank- Poor people can afford to build toilets if they get micro-loans. Through a system of rural micro-loan management similar to World Bank's model, we can create a bank to help farmer build their own toilets. The human waste can also be generating income as fertilizers or bio-gas energies. Pop-arts is the fastest way to reach the young with our message, music, painting, sculptures, performances for toilets public education programme. In fact, young people are more uninhibited than their parents on the subject of toilet so we can get them to teach the older folks some good habits.
Toilets projects in East Timor, Acheh, Sri Lanka, India, China, Africa, etc- Ministerial meeting in Asia for Sanitation.
World Toilet Day discount of cleaning equipment and detergents in all supermarkets in the world, School children makes marathon call from Australia to Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Europe, Africa, USA telling each other about how they care for their school toilets and their feelings, (We hope Singtel /Starhub/or M1 or other telco world-wide will sponsor the call) This list is long and fast growing.

15. Why it is important to work beyond your current capacity all the time. If you want your work to grow, you need to stretch it. You'll be surprised how much more capacity to absorb new work you can have once you completely enter the realm of your work. This focus is meditational and gives you depth and spiritual fulfillment. This in turn brings high inexhaustible energies because your resistance to work disappears.

16. Passion is infectious. If you are passionate, people around you can't stay skeptical for long. You exude energies that often attracts them and make them want to join you or do something about their own lives. We live only once and we must make the most of it by enjoying everything we do.WTO is still a poor organization having only 7 to 9 months overheads in our treasury at any day. But if we received more funds, we'll certainly increase our work volume. Living on the brink seems to keep us very awake. It is not that I don't like to have a bigger coffer; I just live with what life hand down to me.

Cheers

Jack Sim