November 2nd Post - Interview

For the interview assignment, I decided to interview my father who is one of the founders of the social enterprise Sodata Analytics Foundation Association, where I am interning at. He is also a businessman and philanthropist.

1) How did you come up with this idea of starting Sodata?
While I was studying at Chicago Booth Business School AXP EMBA, I was able to connect with other graduates, and we all had a conviction to make an impact in the society. We started this non profit social venture for impacting on social enterprises through making a positive market influence on the corporate philanthropy culture by way of our data analytics and promotions, and through our efforts in crowdfunding platform for social enterprises in need. 
 
As far as philanthropy is concerned, either individually or corporately, it tends to be hindered by the deep rooted Asian culture. When the news of people like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg announced their donation of their entire wealth, it became headline news in the Chinese media for a prolonged period of time. Many Chinese people found it utterly unbelievable that people would do such an act. This defies their very belief and their tradition of passing on all their inheritance to their offspring.
 
With this backdrop, expanding the social enterprise sector in China / Hong Kong presents much challenge. Inspired by Booth's SEI (social enterprise initiative), we are prepared to take a stance to tapping into this area.


2) How do you think collecting and analyzing data can make an impact?
We will build up a database on the charity works especially on each year donations made by the listed companies in Hong Kong, Singapore and China. This will also cover the corporate social responsibility work disclosed each year in the annual report. Simply put, this is a venture for corporate donation and CSR data collector and promotor.  We aim to give these companies who have demonstrated a high level of social responsibility a greater recognition in the marketplace which we hope that would inspire more enterprises to follow suit. At the same time, the public would also have a better understanding of their corporate social responsible activities.

3) How much personally have you donated to the society?
I personally donated USD $150,000 to the society. I believe that giving back to the society is a responsibility.  

4) Why do you think business leaders only donate an average of 0.2 percent of their profit? What is holding them back?
Social enterprise is nothing new by any standard, neither is philanthropy in many western developed countries. However, it is only beginning to receive more attention in very recent years in Asia, largely due to the vast difference in culture and economic structure between the Western and Asian countries.

5) What is the next step for Sodata?
Our role, being an independent agency function, would help achieve a multiplier effect. We strongly believe that philanthropy is a confirming trend in Asia, following the footsteps of the western counterparts. What we do is to help create a good soil to foster this culture. Our next step is to directly help certain social welfare projects on fund raising. We aim to provide fund raising access to certain projects which we consider have certain specific benefits but not yet known to the institutions. Next, we can set up a crowdfunding platform for certain number of social welfare projects aimed at the general public.