Newsroom

21 December 2020

S$2 million Maybank Momentum Grant to boost the capital and capacity support for smaller charities

Bringing Maybank’s year-long Covid-19 community support to S$3 million, focusing on sustaining livelihoods

Maybank Singapore and The Majurity Trust will launch Singapore’s first interest-free recyclable grant to help small, promising charities in 2021. The S$2 million Maybank Momentum Grant (the “Grant”) will provide capital and capacity support for up to 20 small charities that are struggling due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The grant seeks to enable the charities to continue their work with communities-in-need.

Dr John Lee, Country CEO and CEO of Maybank Singapore remarked, “We have served Singapore for 60 years and yearn to play a part to uplift the Singapore community since the outbreak of the pandemic. In view of the long-lasting impact of this pandemic on the vulnerable communities, Maybank has been focusing on reducing economic-societal inequalities through programmes that support financial security, jobs and livelihoods as well as empowering charities. As a bank for the community at large, including non-profit organisations, the Maybank Momentum Grant strives to help smaller charities transform the way they work at a critical survival point, so that they can continue programmes for the vulnerable communities which face employment or financial needs.”

Mr Martin Tan, CEO of The Majurity Trust, said, “The demand for social services has increased since Covid-19 struck us. The prolonged pandemic has however hit our charities hard. Many are experiencing a drastic 50% to 90% drop in donation income. These are charities that have been doing important work tackling ongoing needs before the pandemic. From our stakeholder engagement, we discovered that some of these charities have an average of only three to six months of reserves left. Smaller charities, especially those which are not registered as Institutions of a Public Character (non-IPCs), are hit harder due to lower reserves and lean in-house capabilities.

“We are piloting a new way of grant-making. We want to help promising charities supported by the Maybank Momentum Grant to get on track to become sustainable. When these charities are able to repay the grant, it creates a positive and empowering ecosystem so that we can continue to support other small charities facing cash flow issues — multiplying the grant impact by recycling each philanthropic dollar given.”

Mr Asher Low, Executive Director of Limitless, said the grant is timely, "Covid-19 has impacted us on several fronts — with events no longer possible, outreach took a hit and fundraising taking a further hit due to economic instability brought on by the pandemic. I think it’s a great idea, if we’re talking about operational funding. A charity at the end of the day cannot be 100% funded by government grants. Its budget must be diversified across different sources to ensure the charity can run sustainably.”

A key component of the Maybank Momentum Grant is a capacity-building process that grantees will undergo. Grant administrator, The Majurity Trust in partnership with Tri-Sector Associates and funder, Maybank Singapore, will roll out a series of masterclasses and mentorship programmes for the grantees.

These charities will also be offered a Maybank Community Package, which is a set of comprehensive SME banking solutions that consist of a current account, preferential time-deposit interest rate, free coin deposit/counting service and a suite of subsidised digital solutions from the SME Start Digital programme. In future, Maybank will also appoint the grantees as charity recipients of Maybank Cards’ TREATS points donations as well as encourage bank employees to volunteer with them to serve community needs.  

As an advocate for sustaining livelihoods, Maybank’s year-long Covid-19 community support amounted to about S$3 million. Maybank started the Maybank Food Aid Programme in April 2020 during the circuit breaker period, and has since provided cooked meals and food packs for about 9,000 people, including vulnerable families, migrant and Malaysian workers here. Besides the Maybank Momentum Grant, the bank has started a “Heart of Singapore” campaign during SG Cares Giving Week to rally members of the public to create 60 campaigns to raise funds for the President’s Challenge in the month of December 2020. Maybank is also working with five Community Development Councils (CDCs) under the People’s Association to launch a CDC Jobs Scheme in early 2021.

For more information or application, please visit https://www.majurity.sg/funds-and-grants/momentum/.