CONTACT US

The Challenge:

  • Limited resources and financial capacity for individuals and families in chronic poverty.
  • Lack of long-term planning ability.
  • The need for stability and support.
  • Financial hardships exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Solution:

  • Implementation of the Family Empowerment Programme (FEP).
  • Offering income stability to shift focus from short-term to long-term planning.
  • Emphasizing long-term education, skills training, and employment goals (ESE).
  • Tailored interventions and financial assistance.
  • Fostering long-term success and empowerment.

The Results:

  • Eligible households receive fixed monthly cash stipends for 18 months to enhance income stability.
  • Cash allowance empowers families to prioritize and plan for long-term ESE goals.
  • Positive outcomes in ESE trigger additional funding from Temasek Trust to expand and refine the FEP.
  • Experts evaluate impact measurement and verify achieved outcomes.

Project Partners

Impact

USD 560,000 (SGD 750,000) funded upfront to kickstart AWWA’s Family Empowerment Programme’s (FEP) initial 18-month phase, funded through a Pay-For-Success model (PFS) and supported by Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Limited and the oscar@sg fund by Temasek Trust Ltd.

17 key indicators were developed to measure the education, skills training, and employment (ESE) outcomes.

For more detailed information, please refer to the project fact sheet below and the press release here.

AWWA Family Empowerment Programme

AWWA Family Empowerment Programme Fact Sheet

Download
Image courtesy of Temasek.

Problem Statement

Individuals in chronic poverty often lack the bandwidth and financial resources to plan for and invest in the future.

AWWA’s Family Empowerment Programme (FEP) recognizes this reality and aims to provide stability and support to families in achieving their personal goals and improving long-term education, skills-training, and employment (ESE) outcomes.

Cash can act as a buffer for emergencies and help prevent spiraling into bigger challenges for individuals and their families. This may be especially relevant with more Singaporeans seeking financial support during the COVID-19 pandemic.

More stability in financial assistance would allow individuals to mentally emerge from ‘survival mode’ and shift their focus from short-term to longer-term planning.

Approach

Tri-Sector Associates partnered with AWWA to design an intervention and funding model tackling the root causes of chronic poverty that its clients faced. This involved several stages:

Prepare

  • Developing potential interventions to address these challenges.
  • Generating tailored filtering criteria to narrow down the list of potential interventions before validation.
  • Conducting a gaps analysis to identify areas that needed further attention.
Prepare Icon

Assess

  • Determining a suitable issue area fit.
  • Identifying the root causes through focus group discussions and research.
  • Conducting a landscape scan to gather a comprehensive understanding of the challenges.
  • Identifying other potential collaborators to strengthen our efforts.
Assess Icon

Create

  • Forming partnerships with relevant organizations or stakeholders to strengthen the program's efforts and expand its impact.
Create Icon

Evaluate

  • Engaging independent experts to evaluate the impact measurement framework.
  • Verifying the outcomes achieved.
Evaluate Icon

Later, Tri-Sector Associates worked with evaluators and impact auditors to develop a comprehensive plan for ongoing operations, evaluation, and governance. This plan ensures effective tracking of project outcomes and establishes a dynamic management structure for continuous feedback and capacity building.

 

About The Programme

AWWA, one of Singapore's leading social service agencies, launched the Family Empowerment Programme (FEP) to provide income stability to families in chronic poverty. The FEP aims to address the needs of AWWA-supported families by focusing on long-term education, skills-training, and employment (ESE) goals.

The 18-month pilot phase is funded through a Pay-For-Success model (PFS) and is supported by Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Limited as an Upfront Funder with a generous donation of USD 560,000 (SGD 750,000).

Positive outcomes in ESE during this period will unlock further funding from Temasek Trust as the Outcomes Funder, enabling the refinement and expansion of the FEP to benefit more families.

The impact measurement framework is rigorously evaluated by independent experts to ensure its credibility.

This collaborative effort aims to enhance innovative, outcomes-driven models that can effectively address emerging needs and foster greater collaboration within Singapore's social sector ecosystem.

 

Tri Sector Associate Vector Icon

Let’s make impact together

Whether you are a government organization, a social service provider, a foundation, or a financial institution that wants to make a difference, we are here to help you maximize your social impact.

CONTACT US