Daily Lesson from Life 09 September 2008

"Public's trust in charities up

Survey found 40 per cent of respondents had 'above moderate to complete confidence'. - Tue, Sep 09, 2008 The Straits Times

PUBLIC confidence in charities has rebounded, three years after the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) scandal rocked Singapore and confidence in charities sank to a low then.

A new survey by the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC), released on Tuesday, found that 40 per cent of respondents had 'above moderate to complete confidence' in charities, compared to only 28 per cent in a similar survey done in 2006.

That was shortly after the public found out about the excesses and abuses at the NKF under its former chief TT Durai."


This is a very interesting report. That the public confidence in charities has rebounded. I will like to know the sample size and the criteria for selecting the audience that participated in the survey.

The reason for my skepticism is mainly due to the fact that the man who created this huge loss of confidence, Mr. TT Durai, of ex-CEO of the disgraced old National Kidney Foundation, got away relatively lightly for the charges levied on him! In fact, the 2nd charge were dropped without even making it the court trial!!

When confidence is lost, it will take a great deal of efforts and money and resources to re-capture it. The treatment of the dropped charge is relatively controversial. It appeared strange to most observers of the case.

Anyway, the lessons fro me as a practitioner of The 7e Way of Leaders are:

1. be strict with yourself before you demand the same from others! You have to lead by examples;

2. take every care and efforts to keep the positive view of others about you and earn their confidence and trust. It is very hard to re-capture the trust lost! You may need to work doubly or triply hard!;

3. based everything you do on ethical ground. Like the old-NKF, the abuses that went out were the results of leaders who have gone soft and believing that they are ENTITLED to these perks and special treatments as they had contributed a lot! This is self-deceiving and is an easy trap for most of us to fall into. Hence, we need to specifically remind ourselves of it's perils!!

May I wish the charitable organizations in Singapore good fund raising in this season!!