Despite their diverse missions, nonprofits and social enterprises, collectively known as social purpose organizations (SPOs), share the operational standards similar to corporations, necessitating sound governance, contracts, and insurance to manage risks and limit liabilities. When internally assessing organizational health, SPOs may often overlook the need to address issues like employment, data privacy, tax, and compliance, or lacking access to resources to fill this gap, leading to costly financial, legal, and reputational consequences.

The Foundation’s capacity-building efforts mainly focus on a decentralized, bottom-up approach that embraces peer learning and the sharing of experiences and strengths. At the same time, for critical operational gaps such as legal and organizational health that often receive inadequate attention due to skills gap, time and resource constraints, the Foundation seeks to partner with experts to collaboratively address these existing gaps.

Recognizing the importance of enhancing the resilience and operational health of social good players in Hong Kong, the Foundation has co-funded PILnet Hong Kong’s (PILnet) legal health check program for SPOs together with Swire Trust. The initiative guides interested organizations through a comprehensive self-assessment of operational standards, and connects them with law firms and individual corporate lawyers, providing actionable support at no cost.

Through the assessment and communication facilitation, PILnet acts as a bridge between SPOs and legal professionals, fostering longer-term relationships that encourage SPOs’ proactive action. The program also features awareness-building seminars and workshops, along with customized tools and resources tailored for the needs of these organizations. The Foundation hopes the initiative will sustainably increase legal awareness and resilience among the social good sector in Hong Kong.