Philanthropreneur-in-residence | Quantedge Foundation

IN SINGAPORE • The Sector

Philanthropreneur-in-Residence Programme

We believe that philanthropy is uniquely positioned to take on calculated risks with innovative, untested approaches to address social issues.

Announcement of the Philanthropreneur-In-Residence (PIR) Programme by Minister Masagos Zulkifli at the NCSS Social Service Summit 2023

There remains tremendous scope in Singapore for philanthropy to encourage experimentation and demonstrate the viability of new ideas that can create longer-lasting impact to benefit the most vulnerable in our society.

To complement our existing work to improve upward social mobility in Singapore, we have set up a novel platform that we call the Philanthropreneur-in-Residence (PIR) programme to “crowd in” current and future social sector champions, and incubate and catalyse the scaling of their best ideas to create outsized impact.

The PIR programme seeks to distinguish from traditional grantmaking by supporting exceptional individuals to incubate ideas to improve social mobility in Singapore and create impact at scale.It does so by providing a residency that offers end-to-end support (including but not limited to funding, strategy development, networking, capacity building and executive support from the Foundation’s staff who will journey alongside each PIR) to drive project development and bring ideas from conceptualisation to fruition, sustainability and scale.

Importantly, the PIR programme seeks to depart from the traditional “grantor-grantee” relationship in grantmaking. Instead, it is a collaborative model, where both the PIR and Foundation are on the “same side of the table”. We think this model of collaboration will allow our sector to develop better solutions, and go further in our shared journey to uplift the most vulnerable in Singapore.

Ultimately, we aim to holistically lower the barriers-to-entry for bold, innovative ideas; “crowd in” more social sector champions to experiment and push frontiers; and galvanise like-minded philanthropists to join the movement.