Spotlight on a Non-Profit Start Up: Sing For Joy

Two years ago I met a remarkable young man at the 2017 IAS Yale Young Global Scholars program. Humble, funny, and energetic, Do Nhat Nam, or Donut, quickly became one of my close friends at this academic summer camp hosted at Yale University. Now he studies at Pomona College, majoring in Music Theory, one of his greatest passions, and International Affairs. Though he is two thousand, one hundred and fifty seven point four miles away, that didn’t stop me from interviewing him for my first article for Emory Entrepreneurship and Venture Management’s IQ Magazine. Founding a nonprofit, Sing For Joy, in Vietnam based on his passions of spreading musical knowledge and sharing his love for music, Nam has helped the National Children’s Hospital in Vietnam by buying medical equipment in the first few years of operation and working towards building community through impactful building projects. Without further ado, I introduce you to my dear friend Donut as he navigates questions regarding the technicalities behind founding a nonprofit in Vietnam, running that non-profit, and eventually using that non-profit to bring musical appreciation for all and reshape his local community.

Can you give us a basic overview of what your non-profit does and its history and mission?

So my non-profit organization is called Sing for Joy and it is a music initiative that provides free education to children all over Vietnam, mostly in Hanoi. Every year we organize music classes on different musical instruments…we teach them [the participants] these musical [skills] over the course of a month or even longer. We have kids who are five and kids who are twelve. [In the end] we stage a really great performance at the Hanoi Opera house and we sell tickets online [and] all the profits from the tickets go into charity. So the year before we built a playground in the National Children’s Hospital in Vietnam and last year we built a classroom called the Classroom of Hope and hired teachers to teach [the] children in the hospitals who couldn’t go to school. Last year we raised 28 thousand dollars and all that money [went] into the project.

So what made you choose to go non-profit versus for profit?

So we went the non-profit route because we wanted it to be purely an educational initiative and we wanted all the money that we raise to be very transparent and dedicated to very singular cases. Also, making an non-profit organization is easier than [making] a for-profit in Vietnam.

What made you choose to address the problem you chose to address through your non-profit?

My family has always been very passionate about education. And [ever] since I was a kid, I was always passionate about allowing everyone to experience [music]…the education system in Vietnam is very much about regurgitation…what I wanted to do was to create an organization that allows [the children] to participate in the arts and to just have a lot of fun where there’s no strings attached.

What is the organizational structure like within your business?

We mostly employ volunteers, and [most of them] have worked there for all four years. A lot of [our structural organization comes from] pulling resources from the community so there’s not really a fixed staff. Every step of the way we are really pulling in support of the community and every year the support increases because of how big our organization has become. We also pull support from parents…it’s not very common in Asia when that happens. Normally there’s a very solid hierarchy.

What was the process like when you were founding this non-profit?

We had to be very transparent and be very assertive with the donors and tell them that everything that they are doing is absolutely legal and they are helping charity. We also had to apply [to become an non-profit] with the government and it was a really long process and they gave us a lot of trouble. The costs of staging [the] event in the Opera house and [hiring teachers] were very high. But it was very difficult and it took a long time for the nonprofit organization to be certified and it took a long time to know for a fact that we were able to put on the performance.

What is the most difficult obstacle you had to maneuver around?

Working with the government is hard but working with the parents is really hard. They are always on the mindset oh let’s teach these kids to sing a couple of songs really quick and like put them on stage so they can take a couple of pictures then leave. But I want to teach them arts from the ground up and have them really understand what they’re singing, what they’re playing, and what they’re doing. It takes time for [the parents] to understand how important it is for their children to participate in the artistic process.

What are the most effective marketing strategies you use?

We send our letters to some of the big corporations of Vietnam. It gets easier when we have already established a name for ourselves, but for the first year it was really hard. We sent out the letters and had some of the donors come in person with their children. We try to meet them in person. We try to use social media influence to allow the program to reach out to a lot more people. First we establish[ed] our brand image. [In the] first year we didn’t get that many corporations donating, so we relied a lot on personal donations from people on social media who support[ed] our cause.

What is the difference of starting an non-profit in Vietnam versus somewhere else like the United States?

I would say it is a lot harder in Vietnam…we have government officials coming to our rehearsals. There’s a silent expectation that we need to go through some backchannels, which we didn’t do [that then] extended the process even longer. But we were very adamant about it and we kept sending [the government] financial reports, testimonies…things to show that the organization is going very well.

What do you think made your non-profit reach where it is today?

Our ties with the community. From the positive reviews that the parents give, that the kids give on facebook with thousands of people commenting on how it has been very transformative for them. And that has always helped out with establishing the image of the organization. The fact that we are an organization that uses so much volunteering help and [has] so much support from the community is really the reason why we were able to go on for such a long time and make an impact on the community.

What lessons did you learn from starting your nonprofit?

I think the main lesson is to be really persistent. It’s a long process and it’s pretty crazy. I did not expect it to be that difficult when I started it. There were so many times when I wanted to quit. Like every year. Not just the first year. Every year there are always times when everything seems to be falling apart our venue is rejecting us, the government is giving us trouble, the parents are not bringing their kids to practice, the performances isn’t working out…there are always times we want to give up, not just me but the entire organization. My biggest piece of advice is to have a good support system. You can’t do it by yourself. I tried that, it doesn’t work . You need people who believe in what you’re doing and who will stand by you no matter what. And you need support from the community and you need to establish that before you even establish the organization itself because there are times when you will want to give up and it is the people around you that really helps uplift you.

Where do you see your non profit in the future?

We’re going to expand it to another city next year and hopefully to other countries as well, but I think that is a little far off into the future because we want to establish its stability in Vietnam first. So we are going to try [to expand the program] in Ho Chi Minh city next year and hopefully Da Nang. I am hoping it will in some way contribute to raising awareness [of] arts in Asia. I hope that parents will understand that kids do art because they want to have fun and it is also an avenue for growth [that is] not based on results and performance [because] that’s not the only thing that matters.

• **Note: conversations has been slightly adjusted for the readability of this article. A podcast over this interview will hopefully roll out soon. We will keep you posted!***

Written By: Yifei Gao | IQ Associate