13 Feb Social Impact Partners Supports Teach4HK’s Effort To End Education Inequality
Hong Kong, 13 Feb 2018. Hong Kong-based Social Impact Partners (“SIP”) announced to fund Teach for Hong Kong Foundation Limited (“Teach4HK’) HKD2.5 million over the course of three years (2018-2020). In addition, SIP, together with its professional partners, will support Teach4HK with in-kind business expertise to achieve greater social impact and organisational maturity.
Founded by young leaders in 2015, Teach4HK’s mission is to enlist passionate and outstanding university students with diversified talents to serve in schools with underprivileged students through a one-year fellowship program. Teach4HK is dedicated to addressing two critical challenges facing Hong Kong’s education system: education inequality and difficulty in attracting talent for education. Since the launch of its fellowship program in 2015 with 3 schools and 6 teaching fellows, Teach4HK has recruited 41 graduates to teach in Hong Kong’s underprivileged schools, serving over 5,000 students.
Patrick Cordes, Director of the Board of SIP and Managing Director and CFO of Baring Private Equity Asia, said: “We believe every child should have equal access to learning opportunities. Teach4HK has established a strong platform to help drive systemic changes in education by nurturing future leaders with empathy and passion and enhancing disadvantaged students’ learning experiences.”
With SIP’s support, Teach4HK plans to scale up the fellowship program by six fold, and serve over 36,000 underprivileged students in Hong Kong from 2018 through 2021. SIP’s capacity building and in-kind business expertise will assist Teach4HK with streamlining operational management and enhancing brand marketing to build a strong foundation for long-term scalability and impact.
“The process of engaging with Social Impact Partners has been one of the most professional and rewarding one Teach4HK has had in our journey. The thoroughness of the due diligence process enabled us to identify gaps in our growth strategy. With SIP’s funding and the pro bono help from SIP’s partners, we are confident that we can scale up and create positive change in Hong Kong’s education,” said Arnold Chan, Founder and CEO of Teach4HK.
Rigorous due diligence was carried out by SIP’s strategic partners as part of our investment decision process. ALS International conducted management appraisals. Clifford Chance was SIP’s legal due diligence partner and PwC conducted a financial review.
About Teach for Hong Kong Foundation Limited
Teach4HK is a non-profit organization that enlists outstanding university graduates with diversified talents to serve in schools with underprivileged students through a one-year teaching Fellowship Program. We partner with businesses and institutions to provide leadership and career opportunities to nurture our fellows to grow as leaders with empathy, while thriving in various fields as they continue to be advocates for education post-fellowship.
Teach4HK is committed to deliver holistic quality education to underprivileged students and positively impact their achievement through recruiting and training enlisted passionate and outstanding university students as teaching fellows. In addition, we aim to nurture future leaders with empathy and passion while creating a growing movement of alumni network who are long-term leaders capable of facilitating systemic change in Hong Kong’s education.
About Social Impact Partners
Social Impact Partners (SIP) is a Hong Kong-based venture philanthropy firm with a mission to enable sustainable change to systemic social issues.
As a financing and strategic partner to growth-stage social purpose organisations, SIP creates tailored solutions that help develop the sustainability and scalability that social purpose organisations (SPOs) (non-profit organisations and social enterprises) need to achieve organisational maturity.
While itself is not-for-profit, SIP evaluates all potential SPO partners with the same rigour and due diligence as would a traditional investor deciding a portfolio opportunity. SIP is also distinctly equipped to drive rapid and effective organisational improvement: When SPOs partner with SIP, they are also partnering with SIP’s extensive network of world-class professional experts, long-term funding partners and global industry leaders. One dollar into SIP deploys two dollars of investment value into SIP’s SPO portfolios – an exponential return on positive social impact.