SINGAPORE - Cooperative societies, or co-ops, should partner businesses to manage their finances better while they carry out their social objectives of helping their members and the larger community, said Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth Alvin Tan.

A robust business model would help give assurance to donors and investors in the co-op as well, he told about 30 students and young co-op workers at a Forward Singapore dialogue on Friday about how to support communities in need through cooperatives.

Forward Singapore is an ongoing, year-long public engagement exercise that will lay out the roles and responsibilities of the Government and citizens in the coming years.

The dialogue was organised by the Singapore National Co-operative Federation (SNCF) and the Co-operative Society of Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Other issues raised in Friday’s discussion at NTU were a lack of awareness of what co-ops are and how difficult it is for them to attract talent.

Co-ops are membership-based enterprises that operate on the principles of self-help and mutual assistance, according to the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY).

While business-driven, most have social missions to benefit the greater society in which they operate, such as moderating the cost of living.

Mr Tan said co-ops can play the role of intermediary between corporates and communities in need, showing where they can direct resources to help those in need.

Some well-known co-ops here are NTUC FairPrice, NTUC First Campus and NTUC Foodfare.

Mr Tan, who is also Minister of State for Trade and Industry, said co-ops need to think about how to develop a sustainable revenue model, management and corporate governance, among other things.

Corporates can help to mentor co-ops to help them become sustainable, he added.

In return, co-ops can consider providing services for corporates, such as in-house mental well-being programmes run by mental health co-ops, he said.

Third-year Yale-NUS College undergraduate U. Dharshini, 22, who participated in the dialogue, said sourcing funds is a challenge for co-ops here, as they are largely government-funded and face restrictions on funding.

Ms Dharshini, an SNCF scholarship holder who majors in environmental studies, said interning with SNCF and getting to work with a mental health cooperative inspired her to want to start her own co-op, or work with one in the area of food security or sustainability.

Another participant, Mr Gabriel Wee, works in the training and employment team in Industrial & Services Co-Operative Society, which helps ex-offenders and their families. The co-op works with electronic payment service provider Nets and real estate developer Far East Organization, among other corporate partners.

The 28-year-old said he hopes to collaborate more with businesses to further improve training subsidies and employment assistance programmes for the co-op’s clients.

There are 84 co-ops with 1.4 million members in Singapore, most of which are represented by SNCF.

Sixty-two co-ops are in the consumer and service sectors, while the other 22 are credit co-ops, providing financial services such as taking deposits or granting loans to associated members or those in a particular community.

SNCF chief executive Ang Hin Kee said buy-now-pay-later apps are a threat to credit co-ops, which have to come up with a new business model to stay competitive while upholding their values. He said the federation hopes to develop co-op leaders through a structured programme and draw talent from the corporate sector to lead co-ops as well.

For instance, Pizza Hut International president Vipul Chawla, based in the United States, took up the post of chief executive of FairPrice Group in Singapore in 2022.

He has held other leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies in consumer goods and food services.

Mr Ang added that the Government could also consider revising its yardstick in awarding contracts, giving the example of improving the living conditions in migrant worker dormitories by awarding tenders to co-ops that work to this end, rather than simply awarding them to the highest bidder.

“I think the next 10 years should be talking about how you get a sustainable yardstick on board, how you get community good into the evaluation of tenders and awarding them to who needs more resources,” he said. 

Mr Ang also said the role of co-ops in working to fulfil social good rather than for profit meant they could sometimes be more successful than businesses in ensuring objectives such as lower cost of living and food resilience.