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Inaugural Presidential Medallion Recipient - Lee Foundation
Our social service sector owes much to dedicated individuals who started to mobilise voluntary effort in days gone by to help the disabled, handicapped and the less fortunate in our society. In our early years, help for the blind, deaf, spastics and the young who fell out in life were spearheaded by our early social service pioneers who established organisations and programmes to assist them.

With financial support from philanthropic bodies like the Lee Foundation, voluntary effort in the field of social welfare took root. It enabled our early pioneers to venture aggressively into new areas, developing their organisations and programmes. In those days, government funding for such efforts were difficult to obtain. As projects had no track records of outstanding achievements to capture public attention, they could not meet the targets expected of them by government funding agencies.

The Lee Foundation has been in the forefront of assisting the needy, as plights of individuals and families became known in the immediate post-war years, when there was little or no philanthropic support. It was in the years following the Bukit Ho Swee fire in 1961 that the Lee Foundation took a much more aggressive and high profile role in helping the less fortunate through support for numerous social service agencies.

As Dr Lee Seng Gee has mentioned elsewhere that his father – the late Dato Lee Kong Chian – realised that beyond giving money, the Foundation needed to support the less fortunate in other ways through service and give them a better future. He saw upliftment by way of achievements in education as one area that needed to be encouraged. With that, the Singapore Council of Social Service (SCSS) was established in 1954. With the Lee Foundation as its primary source of support, the SCSS encouraged voluntary welfare organisations to follow a structured approach to service and philanthropy. Major gifts were made by Lee Foundation to new areas, such as support for medical needs, various social welfare programmes, and education, to mention a few.

Over the past six decades, the Lee Foundation has donated more than $400 million to a wide range of charitable causes, and remains the most significant philanthropic body behind voluntary social service effort, including making generous donations to the President’s Challenge and the Community Chest. Such support from the Lee Foundation has helped frail seniors cope through assisted living and lead dignified lives. Its gifts have also given wayward youths fresh purpose in life, helped socially disadvantaged individuals gain employment, and families be more self-reliant. It has supported home help services, daycare centres, befriending services and specialised services for caregiver support, early intervention programmes for children with autism and other special needs, Special Schools for children whose disabilities prevent them from attending mainstream schools, and counselling programmes that help youths-at-risk realise their potential. Collectively, these efforts have made our society more caring and compassionate, and set a luminary example of “giving” for others to emulate.

Beyond the social service sector, the Lee Foundation has given generously to education institutions, such as the recent donation of $150 million to the new medical school at the Nanyang Technological University, which was named the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. Other examples include contributions to the Singapore Management University’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business and the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kong Chian Wing in the University Hall. The Lee Kong Chian Reference Library at the National Library Building is also testament to the Lee Foundation’s commitment to supporting and nurturing public learning.

The Lee Foundation has also given generously to the arts and cultural sector, including gifts to the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and the Malay Heritage Foundation. Most recently, the Lee Foundation contributed $25 million to the National University of Singapore to build the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum which will be ready in 2014.

The Lee Foundation’s philanthropic legacy lives on in many landmark institutions and initiatives named after Dato Lee. The Foundation has had far-reaching and lasting impact on the lives of the disadvantaged and needy, and increased opportunities for them to live normal lives in Singapore.

The National Council of Social Service (NCSS), as the pioneer co-ordinating body for social service in Singapore, has instituted a special award to recognise a prominent philanthropic body that has contributed immensely to the growth and development of voluntary social service efforts in Singapore.

In recognition of the Lee Foundation’s sustained contributions, the NCSS is honoured to confer its inaugural “Presidential Medallion for Social Philanthropy” on the Lee Foundation. The Medallion recognises organisations that have made a significant impact on the lives of the poor and needy through sustained and outstanding contributions to the social service sector in Singapore.

This specially designed gold medallion, produced by the Singapore Mint and sponsored by Sembcorp Industries, is presented to the Lee Foundation as its distinguished recipient.