FAQ

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What is LM's vision?

Our dream is that every charity and social enterprise in Asia has access to the professional skills they need to carry out their environmental or social mission.

According to research conducted in 20181, 74% of charities surveyed by the Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society report that they have difficulty recruiting skilled staff and 71% of charities report that they have difficulty retaining skilled staff. (Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society (2018), "Doing Good Index 2018", http://caps.org/our-research/doing-good-index-2018)

The implication of this is that charities in Asia are massively unresourced with respect to skills.

We want to provide the skills to change this.

What is LM's mission?

We are enablers (in the good sense of the word!). We exist to help other people make impact.

We assist charities and social enterprises by providing their talent with the back office professional support they need to effectively execute their organisation’s social or environmental missions.

Put simply, we think that most charities and social enterprises know what they need to do, they just might some extra (professional) hands to do it.

Our skilled support to social or environmental organisations takes the form of short term skills based volunteering projects with discrete deliverables that the organisations can put to good use right away.

In this way, skilled volunteers from LocalMotion act as a force multiplier for the staff in organisations. When our volunteers assist charities and social enterprises to take short term skilled projects off their plates, our volunteers free up the time of staff in these organisations to focus on addressing the social and environmental challenges that affect us all.

Equally importantly, we give opportunities to skilled professionals to make really useful contributions to social or environmental organisations that they can be proud of.

By donating their skills to short term projects that take between 10 and 30 hours to complete, professionals have the opportunity to make personalised, valuable and measureable contributions to trustworthy social and environmental organsations. And in this way, skills based volunteering can help professionals find satisfaction and become part of a bigger story of positive social or environmental change.

Which skills do you focus on?

We have started with marketing, design and communications. We are currently branching out into other professional skill sets such as IT, business development and legal.

How do you measure impact?

We focus on providing back office professional skills to charities and social enterprises. We can’t really claim, “Volunteer with LocalMotion and you can directly alleviate Hong Kong’s housing issues.”

What we do with confidence is measure the effect of a skilled expert's short term project on the organisation they worked for.

We do this by:

1. providing an impact certificate that quantifies the commercial value of the project to the organisation, and

2. asking the organisation provide feedback to the volunteer about the qualitative effect of the project on their organisation.

Is there a fee for your services?

Yes, we are a social enterprise ourselves and believe in sustainability.

We charge charities and social enterprises below market rates for short term implementation projects and consulting. This helps us to sustain ourselves and to ensure that charities and social enterprises have some “skin in the game”, when it comes to co-creating a successful outcome with skilled volunteers.

We also charge companies for custom designed CSR programmes, which include skills based volunteering, social sector experiences and sponsored events.

Who can volunteer?

Anyone who has the relevant skills and professional experience and is permitted to work in Hong Kong may volunteer.

If you do not meet the professional prerequisites for a job, you can still fill out an application and tell us why you should be considered.

What types of NGOs and social enterprises do you work with?

We work with trustworthy and reputable NGOs and social enterprises across all types of social and environmental challenges.

This means that we collaborate with:

· Companies which have s88 status in Hong Kong, or

· Charities registered outside Hong Kong,

· Social Enterprises which have a social or environmental mission in their Articles of Association

All these organisations pass through our vetting process which includes checks on vision, impact and reputation.

We also help social entrepreneurs get high potential early stage social or environmental initiatives get off the ground. Our criteria for supporting these kinds of initiatives include the social entrepreneur’s track record, sustainability and the potential social or environmental benefits of the initiative.

How long are your projects?

Our projects are all short and between 10 and 30 hours in duration.

What are the benefits of becoming a skilled volunteer

By volunteering your skills you can:

1. Use your skills to benefit charities and social enteprises which address the social and enviromental challenges you are interested in,

2. Volunteer on your own time and from a location that suits you,

3. Extend your skills and build your portfolio,

4. Connect with other like minded changemakers.

And did we mention impact?

Most importantly, each volunteer receives a personalised outcome measurement of how the donation of their skills has helped charities and social enterprises. Your skills will help these organisations to make an impact.