[ADV] Fund Your Idea to Reality!

When buddies Aseem, Yu Ming, Raziuddin and Zi Huan decided to set up their latest venture Give.sg, they already had a successful and profitable business venture behind them, set up at no cost, during their university days at the National University of Singapore (NUS).

With graduation day looming, they knew they had to put their enterprising minds together again, this time, to pursue their common passion of helping to change and make the world a better place.

They realized the many issues that exist in today’s society and decided to make a difference, no matter how big or small the impact would be. Their solution? To socially evangelize everyone towards a good cause and thus ‘give back’ to society through either monetary or item donations, participating in fund-raising activities or other good causes.

Give.sg is a web portal that allows anyone who wants to raise awareness or funds for their special cause, to set up their very own page dedicated to that cause. It uses social media marketing tools like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and emails to reach out to a wide network of people for contribution to the cause. And a simple eNets payment mode means a donation is made hassle-free. It is like shopping online, except you are doing good for a special cause, and making a difference to someone’s life.

So far, Give.sg has served over 30 charities based in Singapore, and reached out to more than 3,000 donors, raising a whopping S$250,000. Its latest fundraiser campaign “Grow a Mo to Help a Bro” goes to assist male cancer patients in Singapore through the Singapore Cancer Society. Guys can participate by having a clean shaven face when they begin and grow a classy mustache for the rest of the month. They would need to take pictures of the process and upload them regularly on their preferred social networks to reach out to donors. Ladies are encouraged to spread the word to their male friends to take part in this ‘hair-raising’ experience that aims to raise S$50,000.

When Give.sg first started out, it wasn’t all a bed of roses. They had to raise the right capital, brainstorm for the perfect business plan, and then to rally support for people to believe in their idea. Joining the Ideas.Inc. Business Challenge 2010 gave them that huge boost they needed. Their idea impressed the judges so much, they were shortlisted to be one of the six finalists and later even went on to win the competition. They received funding up to S$65,000, mentorship and entrepreneurship training to better manage their young business, and in addition received S$15,000 in prize money!

A year after winning the competition, Give.sg has proven to be a success, and they hope to further innovate in their area of doing social good, by helping people from more countries, all races, all backgrounds and transcend these physical and cultural barriers through the use of even more advanced technology.

If you have an idea you’ll like to materialize, wait no further! Take part in Ideas.Inc., an annual business competition organized by the Nanyang Technopreneurship Center for aspiring entrepreneurs aged 26 years of age and below. Ideas.Inc. provides significant funding, mentorship and skills enhancement workshops for its successful participants. More details can be found at http://www.ntu.edu.sg/ideasinc and join the Facebook fanpage here.

You can read more about Give.sg in our previous interview with them.

Ideas.Inc. Business Challenge 2010 is an advertising partner of Young Upstarts.