What's Really Baked into Impact?
By Sue Toomey, 29 July 2026
Before joining Asia Community Foundation, I spent many years leading HandsOn Hong Kong, a grassroots nonprofit organisation mobilising volunteers to meet community needs. I also had the privilege of working with nonprofit leaders around the world through the Points of Light Global Network, where HandsOn Hong Kong was one of more than 180 affiliates.
Those experiences gave me a deep respect for the work that happens close to communities: the everyday, often invisible work of listening, adapting, coordinating, responding and holding trust with the people being served.
During COVID, that work became both more urgent and more difficult.
At HandsOn Hong Kong, as with so many nonprofit organisations around the world, community needs shifted almost overnight. Programmes designed for one reality suddenly had to be redesigned for another. Volunteers needed new forms of support and safety. Communities that were already vulnerable faced new pressures. Teams were stretched emotionally and operationally, while also trying to protect the people they served. In that period, I saw very clearly what many nonprofit leaders have always known: impact depends not only on the quality of a programme, but on the strength and resilience of the organisation behind it.
It also depends on the nature of the funding.
Some extraordinary organisations struggled not because their work was unimportant, or because their teams lacked commitment, but because they did not have the reserves, flexibility or trusted funding relationships needed to respond to what the moment required. Funding was sometimes tied to activities that could no longer happen as planned, or budgets that left little room for staff time, technology, safeguarding, communications, management and the basic operating costs that make delivery possible.
Others were able to adapt more quickly. Often, the difference was not only the amount of funding they had, but whether they had funders who trusted them enough to say: use this where it is most needed.
That experience stayed with me. A few of us—women leading nonprofit organisations in Hong Kong at the time—came together to raise the dialogue around what social impact organisations really need in order to do their work well. One idea that emerged was Bake a Difference, a short video developed through Voice for Social Good. The analogy was simple. When you buy a loaf of bread, you do not pay only for the flour, yeast and salt. You understand that baked into the cost are the baker’s skill and time, the oven, electricity, rent, support staff, finance, delivery and everything else that makes the bread possible.
Social impact is no different.
The visible programme is only part of the story. Behind every tutoring session, food distribution, crisis response, community visit or advocacy campaign is an organisation that needs people, systems, leadership, finance, technology, learning, compliance and care. These are not distractions from impact. They are what make impact possible.
Today, in my role at Asia Community Foundation, I sit in a different position in the ecosystem. I work much more closely with donors, funders and philanthropic partners who care deeply about using their resources well. I understand the importance of accountability. Funders need confidence that resources are being used responsibly. They need clarity, evidence and trust.
But my years on the operating side also remind me that accountability and flexibility should not be treated as opposites. In many cases, the most honest and useful conversations happen when there is enough trust for organisations to speak openly about what is changing, what is difficult and what support is actually needed.
That is why ACF’s new report, Funding in Practice: Insights from Southeast Asia on Funding, Flexibility and Impact, feels important to me. It provides regional evidence for something many nonprofit leaders have experienced first-hand: funding practices shape whether organisations can plan, adapt, retain teams, build trust and deliver impact over time.
Much of the global conversation on unrestricted and multi-year funding has been shaped by research and practice from North America and Europe. Yet the realities of funding in Southeast Asia are distinct, shaped by different institutional histories, regulatory environments, philanthropic cultures and social sector landscapes.
Through this study, ACF sought to bring regional evidence into the conversation. Drawing on perspectives from funders and social impact organisations across Southeast Asia, the report explores how funding is experienced in practice: where it enables organisations, where it creates constraints, and how trust, flexibility and accountability can shape stronger funding relationships. The findings are nuanced. Rather than pointing to one funding model for all circumstances, the report highlights the importance of funding relationships that are practical, thoughtful and grounded in the realities of the work. It shows that flexibility can come with guardrails. It shows that accountability can be strengthened by more open conversations. And it shows that long-term impact often depends on whether organisations have the stability and trust needed to invest in their own capacity.
For me, the report brings evidence to something I first felt very personally during COVID: organisations need more than project funding to do their best work. They need relationships that allow them to be honest. They need enough flexibility to respond when circumstances change. They need funders who understand that the true cost of impact includes the people, systems and infrastructure that hold the work together.
We hope these insights open space for candid, practical conversations across the sector about what organisations need to do their best work, and how funding can support them more effectively.