NeuroDivergent Capability Partnership 神经多样能力协作组织

Current status: NDCP is inactive with no plans for revival. This site describes an example organisation, not current operations. Details.

Low cost should mean fewer unnecessary expenses, not essential work quietly transferred to exhausted volunteers.

NDCP’s core runs on membership fees: a members’ platform, two organised activities a month, support navigation and coordination with partners. No centre, no full-time payroll. Specialist services, clinical trials and property ventures are funded separately and are never presented as benefits this budget can buy. All figures are illustrative Singapore-dollar assumptions matching the membership model, not actual income or a fundraising target.

Launch test

NDCP starts only when a crowdfunding campaign has pledged one full year of routine spending. If the target is not reached within a year, pledges are refunded. Launching on hope, then closing when the money runs out, does more harm to members than never launching at all. Key paid volunteers commit to at least one year, and roles may be combined where they do not conflict.

Recurring income

Application fees (S$100 per new individual or family membership) are not counted as recurring income. They pay the honoraria of the volunteers who vet applications and are held apart from the operating budget. Family subscriptions are accounts, not a forecast of attendance; places are booked against the format and staffing available.

Core spending and reserves

At start-up, honoraria are supplementary recognition for defined roles with defined hours, not wages. Whether a role is legally employment depends on its actual terms; the example assumes volunteer roles with token payment. Nine roles at S$1,300 a month is the entire paid commitment. The model also assumes 24 contributed hours a month for governance, peer assistance and agreed specialist input; at an illustrative S$25 an hour that is S$600 a month, so routine cash plus contributed time comes to S$25,800 a year. The contribution is limited and recorded, not an open-ended promise to work for free.

If quotes, support needs or workload exceed these assumptions, the affected activity is reduced, separately funded or not offered. Accessibility and safe staffing are never sacrificed to protect the headline total.

A workload and capacity test

The cash table is not a staffing plan. Before using the model, each role would have agreed hours and a record of preparation, delivery, moderation, administration, safeguarding, supervision and follow-up. For each activity, delivery hours multiplied by the number of people needed would be added to the total staff-hours for preparation, coordination and follow-up. Shared duties would be counted once, with time for absences and unexpected work.

The stated 24 contributed hours must be mapped to actual tasks and distinguished from hours attached to honorarium-funded roles. The S$25,800 annual figure combines routine cash spending with the stated contributed-time allowance; it does not establish the full economic cost of the work. A replacement-cost assessment would value all required labour and non-labour inputs without counting both a labour payment and the full replacement value of the same hours.

Planned commitments would be checked against those hours before places are offered, then reviewed against actual use. If the work does not fit, the activity would shrink, gain separate resources or not proceed. New parenting support, acquisitions, individual awards and specialist audits would not silently become obligations of the existing subscriptions or volunteer roles.

The same model at scale

Many caregivers are homemakers holding part-time jobs. The goal, once income is reliable, is to pay enough to replace that part-time job so they can serve the community wholeheartedly. At 600 paying members (S$15,000 a month at S$25), the same structure pays S$1,000 a month to each of five key roles (President, logistics and marketing lead, technical lead, Honorary Secretary for legal and compliance, Honorary Treasurer for accounting) and S$600 to each of ten supporting roles (eight admins and moderators, the Vice-President and the Assistant Honorary Treasurer), S$11,000 in all. About S$1,000 covers venues, platforms and accessibility, and S$3,000 goes to contingency and reserve. Even then the honoraria are small beside equivalent for-profit salaries; nobody gets rich, and the community gets people who can afford to show up.

More paying accounts do not establish how many people can safely attend activities or receive individual assistance. The larger illustration would have to pass the same workload test, using actual participation, support needs and the scope of each role. Revenue can fund additional capacity; it does not prove that the capacity already exists.

Working capital and continuity

The example assumes S$6,000 in opening unrestricted capital, with S$500 for setup. The minimum cash floor is three months of routine spending, S$4,650; the reserve goal is six months, S$9,300. With the stated income, full routine spending, the whole contingency spent and setup paid, closing cash after the first year is S$7,300: above the floor, still short of the goal. The S$1,800 reserve contribution stays as cash. An unused contingency raises the balance rather than inviting new spending.

The model does not depend on a major donor, but it is not immune to lost income. A 25% fall in individual and family collections cuts monthly income to S$1,425, S$125 below routine spending, with nothing left for contingency or reserve. The board then cuts commitments or finds replacement support; a depleted reserve is not a revenue source.

Contracts that fund a successful handover

Separate projects could earn income by leaving a partner able to maintain an improvement without recurring NDCP delivery. The payer, scope, full cost and continuing obligations would be agreed before work starts. This income would not be assumed in the membership-funded core, and restricted project money would remain with its stated purpose.

Example: an employer purchases better onboarding. A qualified team would identify a recurring problem in work instructions, redesign the process with affected workers, test it in real tasks and help the employer’s staff take over. The contract would use three paid stages: development; acceptance and handover; and a review at an agreed later point. The budget would cover staff time, access needs, worker participation, administration and the review; it would not expect volunteers to absorb those costs.

The parties would agree acceptance criteria before the trial: correct task completion, errors, time, worker fatigue and assistance still needed, with appropriate comparison to the starting arrangement. They would name who can approve delivery, settle defects or disputed findings, and maintain the result. The employer would receive the agreed usage rights and necessary operating information. Follow-up payment would reward completion of the agreed review and correction work, not the production of a favourable finding.

Less coaching would count as progress only where the worker can sustain the task without hidden overload or transferred unpaid work. An unsuccessful trial would be reported honestly and handled under the agreed payment terms. Necessary support would continue, increase or change provider as the evidence requires. This illustrates the masterplan’s capability-and-handover funding principle.

Research has its own budget

Ordinary project discussion fits within agreed coordination time. A clinical study does not. Its institution, sponsor or grant funds investigators, clinical supervision, ethics and regulatory work, products and quality checks, participant costs, data systems, adverse-event response and follow-up, and NDCP’s study-specific coordination is budgeted rather than assumed free. This is how a low-cost community organisation takes part in substantial research without pretending to run a clinical-trial unit on subscriptions. A cheap supplement can still need an expensive study.

Development awards need a complete budget

A scholarship or capability award would have funding separate from the membership baseline. The budget would include assessment, necessary preparation, access support, mentoring, administration, independent review and follow-up, as well as tuition or project purchases.

A service-linked award also needs a viable delivery budget after training. The professional host’s salary, supervision and operating commitments should be identified before promising a placement. A scholarship reserve is not automatically money for running a clinic or employing a graduate.

The agreement would state the funding secured, commitments still conditional, staged payments, unused balances and the response to a donor or host withdrawing. No unfunded stage should become a personal debt merely because the recipient has begun training.

Coordination hours would pass the existing workload test. Review would count opportunity costs and unpaid assistance as well as cash, without double-counting the same contribution. Donated service can return community value but does not replenish a fund with cash; future awards need an actual source of finance.

The Community Bond Programme supplies the proposed terms. This addition changes no figures in the illustrative core budget and announces no fundraising appeal.

Payment, fundraising and accountability

Paid roles have a defined scope, hours and terms. Nobody pays to apply for work. Financial reports separate actual spending, reserves, restricted projects and contributions in kind. Payments need records and an independent approval; transactions involving organisers, their families or related businesses are disclosed and assessed without them in the room.

A designated appeal states its purpose, costs, conditions and what happens to unused money. Research and capital funds never become operating cash by convenience. The Charity Portal’s Fund-Raisers’ Duties and Obligations set out the requirements for accurate appeals. No appeal, donation facility or tax-deductible status is announced on this inactive site.

Reviewed 6 September 2026. Links to other websites open in a new tab.