Segal Family Foundation
The Segal Family Foundation (SFF) is a social impact funder and advisor. It invests in visionary local leaders with bold ideas and huge potential to transform society and helps progressive donors do the same.
The Tanoto Foundation is an independent philanthropic organisation founded in Indonesia by Sukanto Tanoto and Tinah Bingei Tanoto in 1981. It began when the founders established a kindergarten and elementary school in Besitang, North Sumatra, and now works across Indonesia, Singapore and China.
Principle
Mr Sukanto Tanoto, Founder, Tanoto Foundation
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The Tanoto Foundation is an independent philanthropic organisation founded in Indonesia by Sukanto Tanoto and Tinah Bingei Tanoto in 1981. It began when the founders established a kindergarten and elementary school in Besitang, North Sumatra, and now works across Indonesia, Singapore and China. Tanoto Foundation’s core belief is that every person should have the opportunity to realise his or her full potential and that quality education accelerates equal opportunity. The Foundation harnesses the transformative power of education to realise people’s full potential and to improve lives.
Since 1981, the Foundation has successfully implemented impactful, life-improving programs; yet, these were primarily limited to particular local areas. After several years of pilots and trials – building experience, confidence and data collection – the Tanoto family expanded their work to have a greater impact on more communities nationwide and regionally and fostered deeper collaborations with a broader range of stakeholders.
To achieve this ambition, the Foundation underwent a transformation in 2017. Recognising the challenges and opportunities in the education sector, they realised that a sharper thematic focus would enable them to seek larger-scale implementations and longer-term partnerships to create meaningful impact. Mr and Mrs Tanoto established a sizable endowment fund to drive the transformation. To benchmark their work and gain insights into best practices, the Foundation visited leading philanthropic organisations in the United States and participated in a study with the Asia Philanthropy Circle and McKinsey to identify market gaps in Indonesia’s education sector. Through their visits, they learned the importance of clarity and focus on their strategy and goals.
What followed was a journey of organisational growth and institutionalisation. Over a four-year period, the Foundation grew over three times in size, reaching 173 employees by 2020, including expansion of the organisation’s managerial and subject-matter expertise. The leadership recognised that this scaling-up would require a more institutionalised organisational culture, as cross-divisional coordination and information flows were now much more complex. The main challenge, however, was to ensure that this was done whilst still staying true to the Foundation’s original mission, values and spirit of agility and continuous improvement.
From the outset, the founders saw their Foundation not only as a platform for giving back, but also as a way to share their family values of gratitude, diligence, frugality, harmony, and filial piety. The younger generation of Tanotos are also fully committed to their parents’ legacy, as they increasingly take on leadership and governance roles within the Foundation.
Under the guidance of the Tanoto family, in 2017 the Foundation’s newly hired Global CEO Dr. J. Satrijo Tanudjojo began the transition towards a more strategic operating model. This required a robust organisational structure, high-performance culture, effective programme portfolio, and a strategic approach to developing partnerships and embedding the Foundation’s mission and values across all levels of the new organisation. The Foundation worked with the Bridgespan Group to identify critical elements needed for expansion, including a laser focus on education, partnerships, and leveraging the power of data, all of which formed their strategy refresh. A central priority was harnessing the passion and potential of the Foundation, without losing sight of their core values.
Through all of this, the Tanoto family’s values needed to remain central to the Foundation and its work. To ensure that this was the case, the family and senior stakeholders asked themselves several key questions:
The insights they gained from considering these questions at the senior management and Board level were then used to create a range of practices:
The Early Childhood Education and Development (ECED) programme in Indonesia and China trained 86,951 individuals, impacting 13,846 children and parents to address early childhood issues.
Internal alignment: after a One & Diverse Workshop in 2019, 93% of staff participants gained a better understanding of Foundation targets, KPIs and processes.
Since transforming and scaling the organisation, the Foundation’s PINTAR program has enhanced student learning outcomes for 636,000 students in Indonesia and trained 20,000 partner educators.
Tanoto Foundation’s TELADAN future leaders program in Indonesia, Singapore, and China has provided 7,825 scholarships, with 100% of recipients gaining employment within 6 months of graduating in public, private and academic sectors.
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