All About SALT

Wel­come to SALT

SALT Online is about bring­ing peo­ple together – the non-​profits, vol­un­teers, phil­an­thropists, social enter­prises, vol­un­tary wel­fare organ­i­sa­tions, vol­un­teers and any­one else who cares. It is about fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of giv­ing – cre­at­ing a Sin­ga­pore where every cit­i­zen feels it is nat­ural, accept­able and desir­able to give back to the com­mu­nity in some way.

This web­site is cre­ated by the National Vol­un­teer & Phil­an­thropy Cen­tre (NVPC), a non-​profit organ­i­sa­tion that has been pro­mot­ing vol­un­teerism and phil­an­thropy in Sin­ga­pore since 2003.

Why the name ‘SALT’?

Through­out his­tory, salt has been a sig­nif­i­cant ele­ment of life, the sub­ject of many sto­ries, fables and folk­tales. Its eco­nomic, cul­tural and reli­gious sig­nif­i­cance has played a sig­nif­i­cant part in world history.

Salt made it pos­si­ble for food to be trans­ported for long dis­tances, and as a sea­son­ing it enhanced the flavour of food and qual­ity of life. Highly prized, salt caused wars and influ­enced economies.

We liked the idea of salt as an enhancer, a change agent, and its sig­nif­i­cance in lit­er­a­ture, his­tory and pol­i­tics. ‘SALT’ became the moniker for our print edi­tion launched in 2003. By 2009, it was time for a change. A dif­fi­cult deci­sion was made and our beloved mag­a­zine was dis­con­tin­ued. We felt we needed to broaden our mis­sion and our reach through a dig­i­tal plat­form. As we set to the task of cre­at­ing a web­site, we re-​examined the iden­tity and phi­los­o­phy of SALT, and we won­dered if the name still meant anything.

To our sur­prise and delight, we heard over and over again that the mem­ory of SALT Mag­a­zine still res­onated. Read­ers hoarded col­lec­tions of copies, and told us how much they had looked for­ward to each issue.

And so the name lives on.

Why go online?

We felt that we could reach more peo­ple and cover more top­ics with a dig­i­tal plat­form. We also wanted to be able to inter­act with our read­ers and respond to their needs, con­cerns and com­ments. A dig­i­tal plat­form can offer updated and easy to access infor­ma­tion and resources that the bi-​monthly print edi­tion could not.

What is dif­fer­ent and the same about SALT Mag­a­zine and SALT Online?

Like the mag­a­zine, the web­site will pro­vide thought-​pieces, sto­ries and inter­views that will appeal to dif­fer­ent read­ers. In addi­tion, SALT Online is a cen­tralised plat­form where read­ers can check a jobs board in the non-​profit com­mu­nity, and read daily national and inter­na­tional non-​profit news. What’s more, read­ers can influ­ence the con­tent of the web­site by com­ment­ing on the articles.

What are we try­ing to achieve?

We want to inspire action as well as thought. 

Whether an indi­vid­ual chooses to sup­port a cause, and how, is a very per­sonal deci­sion. We try to bring atten­tion to lesser known and smaller non-​profits, as well as new non-​profits. By shar­ing this infor­ma­tion and show­ing there’s a wide choice out there, we hope read­ers are moved to iden­tify with a cause and sup­port it in a way that makes sense for them.

By encour­ag­ing read­ers to write in with their per­sonal expe­ri­ences, we hope to show the many dif­fer­ent ways that one per­son can make a dif­fer­ence. When our read­ers spread the word by for­ward­ing sto­ries, spend their money at a social enter­prise or sim­ply vol­un­teer, they’ve taken action to build a bet­ter soci­ety for all of us.

We want to sup­port non-​profits in their work.

We fea­ture inter­views and pro­files to help increase expo­sure, inter­est and par­tic­i­pa­tion in their cause. Read­ers can click on a link in the arti­cle that takes them directly to the related non-profit’s website.

Aside from pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion and advo­cacy, SALT Online also gives non-​profits the oppor­tu­nity to reach out. “Ask The Expert” pro­vides a plat­form where non-​profits can sub­mit a ques­tion and we will get an expert to answer it. There’s also the oppor­tu­nity to con­nect with other non-​profit organ­i­sa­tions through our Face­book page.

We want make cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­ity more meaningful.

We want to show that cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­ity is alive and well in Sin­ga­pore, and pro­vide ideas on how it can be more mean­ing­ful for employer and employee alike. We want more cor­po­ra­tions to be inspired to step for­ward and start giv­ing back to the community.

How is the National Vol­un­teer and Phil­an­thropy Cen­tre (NVPC) involved? 

SALT Online is a web­site funded, man­aged and staffed by NVPC. Although SALT is not a voice for NVPC, it sup­ports NVPC’s capac­ity build­ing efforts for the vol­un­teer and phil­an­thropic community.

We hope you enjoy read­ing the arti­cles on SALT Online.