Relating to Our Community
We believe in seeding social capital to foster a more inclusive and resilient world, so every generation prospers.
As a global investor, our social licence to operate depends on our ability to create value for all stakeholders, including our communities. We believe in seeding social capital to foster a more inclusive and resilient world, so every generation prospers.
Our journey in building social capital started over 20 years ago, when we adopted a deliberate and structured approach, anchored on the twin pillars of governance and sustainability, to give back to communities.
Since 2003, we have been setting aside a portion of our net positive returns above our risk-adjusted cost of capital for community gifts. These are approved by the Temasek Board and then donated to partners to achieve our community objectives.
Community Gifting to Temasek Non-Profit Ecosystem
Temasek Trust (TT) has been the primary beneficiary of our gifts. TT disburses grants for programmes to be developed and delivered by our non-profit ecosystem, including Temasek Foundation, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Stewardship Asia Centre, and Mandai Nature. Our non-profit ecosystem has evolved over the years to better handle multi-faceted and complex social challenges.
To date, Temasek’s gifts to TT have impacted about 3.7 million lives across Singapore and beyond.
TT has made good strides towards its vision to become a responsible steward of philanthropic assets, a trusted advocate of sustainability, and a proactive catalyst of positive impact.
Underscoring its catalytic role, the TT-backed Philanthropy Asia Alliance (PAA), with over 80 members and partners, crossed S$1 billion of collective pledges last year. These pledges will help address key issues in the region surrounding climate and nature, holistic and inclusive education, and global and public health.
On the climate action front, TT became a Founding Partner of The Earthshot Prize, which aims to showcase and scale innovative climate solutions for a more sustainable future. As a Founding Partner, TT hopes to spotlight Asia in the fight against climate change.
More cross-border collaborations will be forged through TT’s Asia Centre for Changemakers (ACC). Hosted by the Wealth Management Institute, the ACC aims to develop a regional community of active and informed changemakers ready to deploy their resources, skills, and passion for a better tomorrow.
Community Gifting Beyond Temasek Non-Profit Ecosystem
Beyond our non-profit ecosystem, Temasek works with partners from the Public, Private, and People sectors to advance our community objectives, where our philanthropic capital, network, and industry insights can make the most impact.
Advancing Capabilities
In June 2024, we announced T-Spring, a S$150 million gift to the community to advance capabilities and contribute to preparing Singapore’s workforce and organisations to embrace a different world. The gift — which supports skills development, scholarships, and fellowships — is Temasek’s tribute to Singapore’s past, present, and future generations on our 50th anniversary. It reflects our intergenerational focus, underscores our roots, and acknowledges human capital as the driver of our journey and its role in Singapore’s success.
Amplifying Impacts Through Philanthropic Capital
This year, we launched a pilot funding scheme to support impact enterprises that seek to achieve social objectives while operating in a financially sustainable manner. This highlights our belief that social and financial outcomes need not be mutually exclusive. Impact enterprises that aspire towards achieving a double bottom line represent a more sustainable way of delivering long-term impact. Under this scheme, we will provide recoverable grants to help impact enterprises scale their impact and operations. Our staff will also provide mentorship with the aim of empowering these impact enterprises to achieve self-sufficiency.
Strengthen Accountability Through Impact Measurement
As our programme reach and partnerships widen, we must ensure that our gifts are truly making a difference to the communities. We have developed an Impact Measurement and Management framework that links the desired outcomes with programme activities across all our gifts. We see impact measurement as an essential part of good governance on our philanthropic journey and are working with our partners to co-create the measurement metrics. This will pave the way for more clarity and accountability, and ultimately, better outcomes for our communities.
Doing Good in Our Communities
As a responsible corporate citizen, we support local charities with donations and staff volunteerism across all our offices. When staff decide to launch a fundraising effort for a charity or cause, Temasek will provide matching grants.
