Our Approach

Our Approach

At the FFF, we believe that fostering a dynamic civil society is one of the most important ways philanthropic organizations can engender real, systemic and progressive change in the world’s poorest countries. We work to achieve this by developing and supporting partnership projects in South-East Asia, which provide some of the region’s poorest children with the educational, healthcare and pastoral support required to maximise their full potential.

The FFF has a unique way of operating. We aim to be both entrepreneurial and innovative in our approach to philanthropy and problem-solving. We are ambitious and believe we can help address complex social problems by targeted initiatives, partnering and mentoring the best-in-class local NGOs, and helping them coordinate their activities with other partners.

With targeted country programmes focusing on South-East Asia, we work to achieve our mission through systemic interventions in health, education, scholarships and civil society.

We do not see ourselves as a typical donor. We are an active donor that engages fully with our partners, providing funding, but also strategic and business management support and additional opportunities through our networks. We do not fund organisations, we fund projects, and in some cases we are the implementer fully managing and funding a project.

Once we start partnering with an organisation, we make it a rule to follow the project until its end or its extension. Being an independent foundation gives us the freedom of being flexible. We try to make ourselves available for our partners, and focus on supporting them with the best of our abilities.

The FFF’s strategic approach is divided into three areas of focus; systemic change, best-in-class and join-the-dots.

Systemic Change

We believes in systemic development. Currently too much aid is spent on programs which do not have a lasting impact. Partly, this is because the temptation to go for easy short term wins is strong, and partly because many NGOs, charities and other organisations doing international development, work in silos. They often operate within their own sphere of specialisation – education, health, gender, and so on – and are not incentivised, (sometimes even dis-incentivised) to collaborate.

Additionally, development work is sometimes focused on short or medium term goals or processes rather than supporting broader social change. Schools are built but not in collaboration with the government, existing in isolation often not able to provide long term sustainable education even by local standards. To complicate matters further, they are often located in areas where the nutrition or health scenario impedes the capacity of students to learn. Girls are educated but their potential is blocked by lack of opportunity and intolerant cultural practices. Health projects are implemented, but they are not linked to the education or economic programmes that can address the poverty and poor governance which cause sickness.

The strategic goals of FFF partnerships are to address the root of development problems. The Foundation focuses its programming on contributing to the development of states and societies that uphold, nurture and promote positive universal human values.

The FFF also accepts that philanthropy alone will never be the answer to the world’s myriad of problems. Indeed, perhaps more than philanthropy, politics holds the real answers. This view informs the second prong of our approach. In more wealthy parts of the world, instead of working on traditional charitable projects we support academics, and NGOs advocating for political and social change in the way we manage and govern our planet.

Joining-the-Dots

Supporting social, economic and political change over the long-term and the wide range of activities this involves. For this reason, the FFF has developed its Joining-the-Dots approach, as a model of how development organisations can collaborate to address complex problems. To achieve our strategic goal of fostering civil society, we link together our partners’ public health, medical, leadership and education programmes. This enables the Foundation and our partners to have a far greater impact than we would have if we worked in isolation.

The Foundation has deployed both a Best-in-Class and Joining-the-Dots approach to contribute to building civil society in South East Asia. These methods can also be used to tackle a variety of complex problems. Poor community health, environmental degradation and gender discrimination are but examples of major social problems, which no one single organisation can fix.

However, by setting the goal of systemic change, and forming links and partnerships with the most effective charities and NGOs in their field, we offer a model that other foundations and development organisations can use to address complex social issues, thereby achieving a collaborative impact beyond their individual scope.

The FFF also accepts that philanthropy alone will never be the answer to the world’s myriad of problems. Indeed, perhaps more than philanthropy, politics holds the real answers. This view informs the second prong of our approach. In more wealthy parts of the world, instead of working on traditional charitable projects we support academics, and NGOs advocating for political and social change in the way we manage and govern our planet.

Best-in-Class

The Foundation has developed a model of how to spend aid more effectively by forming partnerships with Best-in-Class charities and NGOs characterised by the following:

  • A focus on systemic impact – all FFF partnerships contribute to processes that can result in meaningful systemic change.
  • Specialisation and capacity – each partner has the leadership and organisational capabilities required to develop and implement strategic, cost effective, targeted programmes.
  • Scalability – FFF partnerships develop scalable models, with the potential over time to improve the lives of millions of beneficiaries.

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