Charity Journal is a corporate-social responsibility initiative of Golden Season Pte Ltd in support of Mercy Relief’s endeavour for disaster preparedness in the region. Disaster preparedness places the communities in a stronger position of defence both mentally and physically, and is especially beneficial when disaster strikes. It is encompassed by three primary components – volunteerism, social networking and stockpiling.

Volunteerism: A key component of any disaster response effort, the investment of human capital goes a long way in augmenting the defence of communities against the onset of disaster. Mercy Relief’s Volunteer Expedition Programme facilitates the involvement of volunteers in disaster relief and development work

Stock Piling: Currently, when a disaster strikes, Mercy Relief has to channel their resources to fund-raising before they can respond to the disaster on a larger scale. Only when substantial funds have been raised, will they then be able to procure the supplies for the main relief operations. This is a time-consuming process which affects the timeliness of response.

The onset of disasters means that fast response times are required to address the basic needs of those affected (food, shelter, water and sanitation etc). However, in most instances, speed of response is often compromised by various factors, including the environmental conditions in disaster zones.

Recognizing this, Golden Season has set up Charity Journal to help Mercy Relief to :

1. Generate a stockpile of relief items before disasters happen
2. Improve preparedness and response times
3. Neutralize the effect of inflation
4. Reward companies through advertising for supporting this initiative
5. Channel advertising funds from corporate into humanitarian works
6. Improve Singapore’s position as a humanitarian hub
7. Promote CSR in Singapore

With a stockpile of relief supplies on standby, the response times can be cut dramatically, facilitating the timely and efficient delivery of relief supplies to the affected communities.

This initiative is only as big as the support it gets from the corporations who recognise its importance and benefits. A primary feature is the fusion of enhancing the social responsibility level of corporations, as well as optimal exposure from advertising on Charity Journal. For details of the dynamics, please refer to Advertising Opportunities.

The companies who support this initiative will also be recognized and given a listing under the web portal www.charity-journal.com As such, they still obtain their advertising through CSR works, which is a powerful and effective way for advertising. In addition, advertisers will also have control on what items to purchase with the money they donate through Charity Journal to Mercy Relief. Through Charity Journal’s donation form, companies can select the items to donate from the list of relief items. This list will grow exponentially with the support for Charity Journal.

As Charity Journal is a legitimate fund-raising platform for Mercy Relief, donors will have access to information on details like the use of their donations. Also, as all donations are to be addressed to ‘Mercy Relief Limited’, there is the assurance that all donations will be channeled directly to support Mercy Relief’s humanitarian work.