The 2018 NCSS Social Serivce Summit was held at Fairmont Hotel on 24th July.  Mr Desmond Lee, Minister for Social and Family Development, Second Minister for National Development gave the opening speech. For this year, the key topic was centered around funding.

One of the key areas which left an impression was Mr Lee's description that the relationship between funding bodies and charity organizations can best be described as "lost in translation". On one side there is a wide variety and type of funding bodies and organization having different objectives when it comes to fund allocation or priorities. On the other side, there are charitable organizations who needed funds but had no reach to private or corporate funding bodies. Since most charity are already on very tight manpower resource allocation, the time spend for fundraising maybe limited or inefficient. These challenges add onto the long term sustainability of each charitable cause.

Participants were also given some time to brainstorm, discuss about funding process and what could be some alternate platform or means to raise funds much more efficiently. In the afternoon, we participated in the annual AGM and also witness the leadership handover for NCSS - Outgoing President Mr Hsieh Fu Hua with incoming President Ms Anita Fam.