The founder and CEO of social enterprise Tri-Sector Associates is doing this by strategically connecting the public, private and people sectors
Evolving the ways Singapore solves its social issues is at the heart of the work of social enterprise Tri-Sector Associates. By positioning his start-up as an “investment bank for social services”, founder and CEO Kevin Tan hopes to restructure the giving sector. To be more specific, the 30-year-old hopes to complement government-led solutions with more scalable, bottom-up initiatives led by civil society organisations, with the help of innovative philanthropists and the private sector.
One way Kevin does this is by utilising the Pay for Success (PFS) model, which he came across while studying for his master’s degree in public policy (business and government) at Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. With the model, he explains, private investors will “provide resources to non-profits or social enterprises to try out innovative social services, and when these social services achieve certain pre-agreed outcomes, the government repays the investors”.
In Singapore, Kevin and his team are currently designing projects to target issues such as mental health and youth recidivism. Here, he describes the barriers he has had to overcome in his own words.
Breaking barriers to connect three key sectors
"I work with three of the most conservative fields—government, finance and philanthropy—and used to think being young and an outsider was disadvantageous to me. But I’ve realised this also means I’m coming to the table with a fresh perspective. By building up from first principles, I’ve seen how it’s possible to bridge different fields that have grown siloed due to their assumptions about how things have always been done, and have been able to provide valuable insights."
(Related: A Drink with Veerappan Swaminathan, Social Entrepreneur And Founder Of Sustainable Living Lab)