Volans Connects – Cambodia – Hagar International

Kevin Teo

October 12, 2008

I’ve just completed a two-day planning trip for a Volans Connects engagement in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This engagement will involve a major multi-national professional services firm (name withheld for confidentiality reasons) and Hagar International, a social enterprise that serves the needs of women and children who have backgrounds of violence, abuse and trafficking.

This professional services firm has over the past 3 years operated a senior management training program that includes components of personal development and service learning. This firm has previously engaged with governments and charities on the service learning front. The participants of this program, being senior members of the firm, wanted to identify service projects that could more comprehensively utilize their skill level. Volans was brought in to help create a program that will allow this firm to partner with a social organization that could meet this goal. It was also important that the social organization had the ability to “grow with the program”, and the professional services firm was looking for a 3-5 year partnership. This was when we connected Hagar International with the firm.

Hagar started operations in Cambodia in 1994, and has since created an ecosystem of social businesses in the Catering, Nutrition and Garment manufacturing sectors that serve to provide skills training and employment for the women and children in Hagar’s social programs, as well as to channel profits back to sustain those programs. With its track record in Cambodia, Hagar is currently embarking on a bold initiative to expand operations to Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan and Mumbai. A for-profit enterprise which undergoes a similar international expansion program would typically bring on professional and advisory services to address the various financial, legal, IT and accounting needs of its operations. Being a social enterprise, Hagar does not have the luxury of acquiring the full range of these costly but critical services. We felt that Hagar and the professional services firm had highly complementary objectives, and started working to bring both parties together.

Over the past 2 days, representatives from the professional services firm, Hagar and Volans met to discuss what a joint partnership program could look like. There will be a team of senior staff from the firm arriving in Phnom Penh towards the end of the year and they will be working closely with various Hagar social businesses to provide advisory input into Hagar’s current operations as well as the regional expansion.

Of particular interest is the newly formed Hagar Social Enterprise Group, which will be based in Singapore. With Hagar engaging in a range of social businesses around Asia, there is a need to consolidate administrative and oversight functions into a single holding entity. This holding entity will also serve to consolidate all financial activity, where the collective surpluses from all social businesses can be aggregated and then channeled to Hagar Singapore, a charity entity based in Singapore. These funds will then be distributed to the various Hagar social programs around Asia. The professional services team will thus be working with Hagar’s senior management to put together an effective structure to manage the governance, financial and legal aspects for the Hagar Social Enterprise Group.

Volans is privileged to be part of shaping the future direction for Hagar, and to create robust models for addressing the thorny issues of gender equality and dignity. More updates to follow when we move into the implementation phase of this Volans Connects project.