Ben Telfer:

Hello everyone, and welcome to today’s ICMIF webinar, “Education as a tool for cooperative development and organizational resilience”. We’re delighted to be joined by our member from the Philippines, CLIMBS. I’m delighted to be joined by Noel Raboy, who is president and CEO of CLIMBS, and Donna Dizon, who is VP of administration and corporate planning of CLIMBS, and she also serves as the executive director at the CLIMBS Institute for Management. Noel, Donna, great to have you here today, and Noel, I’ll hand over to you.

Noel Raboy:

Thank you Ben, I would like to take this opportunity thank also ICMIF for giving us the opportunity of CLIMBS to be part of this year long activity. When we have this CLIMBS Institute of Financial Management at the start, in 2011, we have this annual general assembly and some of our members, we included financial literacy program because most of the issues before us, the cooperative is getting bigger, and then we would like to know on other financial programs or education that focus on financial literacy.

So it was also the time that we saw a massive, what you call this one? Typhoon in the Philippines, and then the co-ops would be focused on how we can reach out, especially, the small, the medium cooperatives. And so, it was started, the CLIMBS Institute of Financial Literacy. It was created by our previous CEO CLIMBS Fermin Gonzales, together with a consultant, Professor Vicente Ballilion and the EVP of CLIMBS George Thomason, to come up with concrete program on education that focus on the cooperative principle number five, education, training and information.

And during that time, there was an issue on how this education will continue, the sustainability, considering also that other federations in the Philippines are doing this one. So we focus on the financial literacy because CLIMBS as an insurance cooperative, it is also in need to tell the co-ops how insurance finance link in the principles and the values of the cooperatives.

So in terms of sustainability, the beauty of the Philippine Cooperative, it’s in the law in the Philippines, that we have to set aside 10% from the net income, allocation for the education. So this is where we invested our CETF, we call that one as Cooperative Educational Training fund, to set aside this fund. And in order to be sustainable, we invited also co-ops to join this fund. This fund is different treatment because once they set up, they allocate their funds, we will invest these funds to other good investment facility, and then the income of these funds will be the one to spend on the training.

There were a lot of co-ops that joined this, and we called this fund before as investible training fund, or ITF. But through the years come, we change again the nature of the name, because there are some federations who are also asking why the difference between CETF and the investible training fund, because in investment, there should be an income or interest of the investment. But since this fund intangible interest that we can give to our co-op members, we give them a free education, so we call this one as redeemable training fund. That was during the time also that the CLIMBS introduced a weather protect product that was launched in 2011. The CIFL was the main vehicle to explain it to the cooperative movement about parametric insurance and the difference of the traditional and the weather index insurance.

So right now from the 12 partner co-ops in 2011, we reached around seven million or 15 million US dollars, 15 US dollars fund, and this fund is redeemable. If the co-ops reinvested this fund as long as they are part of it, they can enjoy free training. However in 2019, there was a cooperative created also by Mordino Cua, he’s the founder of CLIMBS, before he died, he created a NATCCO cooperative, and then this NATCCO cooperative, the national federation of primary cooperatives, a secondary cooperative, which we link the education. For this education, the focus mainly on education. So from the CIM, so CIM will be the one to manage the training programs and for the co-ops to join this free training, we set up a matrix, that if they set up a one dollar training, then they can use the 70% consumable on all their training expenses. They can go what training, what you want, or do you want also the CIM or NATCCO cooperative to create a training need, then this fund will be the one to be spent.

And then the 20% is still redeemable, and then the 10% will be more on advocacy because there’s always a need in terms of advancement of the cooperative values and principles. So we have this allocated fund that we can use, so we will not be using the internal funds of this organization.

Back then, when we may talk about the… Right now, we’re able to train 4,000 cooperative leaders nationwide. So as a sustainable model, it pulls training fund from the various cooperatives, which is called Institute Training Fund, ITF, which is really double in nature. CLIMBS as a federation also pulls in 50% of the cooperative education fund. So we have this local fund in CLIMBS, so we have to allocate it also to the training fund, so that we can accommodate also those cooperatives who don’t have this CTF or smaller co-ops, so that we can give them also free.

And then in 2017, the CIFL was poised to become the CLIMBS Institute of Management, or CIM by 2020, offering courses that ranges from the financial literacy, we go as the leadership development program, and management and risk management. The CIFL was presented during the International Cooperative Assembly, or ICA, global co-op conference in Malaysia in November 2017, as a sustainable model for cooperative learning. In November 2019, CLIMBS also shared experience in promoting education in the cooperative sector and centenary celebration in the cooperative college.

So the CLIMBS Institute of Management, the Now and Beyond, will be presented by the executive director Miss Donna Dizon.

Donna Dizon:

Thank you, thank you Sir Noel, and good day to everyone, it’s in the Philippines, I’m very glad that you are able to join us as you know about CLIMBS and also the institute, the CLIMBS Institute of Management.

So like what our president said, from 2011, there’s just about USD 15,000 of training fund, we have now reached to 42 million pesos for the training funds. But more than that, also the membership has grown from around just seven member cooperatives, we have now reached around 236 cooperatives nationwide, out of the, of course it’s still small chunk out of the 4,000 cooperatives network of clients, and also of the 14,000 registered cooperatives in the Philippines. But we are doing this, seen the progress and that is why we’re here to advocate more education.

The title of this topic is, how do we build organizational resilience through education. Right now, especially in the time of pandemic, this is more challenging for us. It is not a secret that we’re now entering the fourth industrial revolution where everything is just, all are digital. So how can we change this challenge, especially in the time of pandemic, into something that is going to be successful in an organization.

We said that education is really a solution, especially for, we need agility in the vocal world. We’ve been talking about vocal world, and then suddenly COVID hit us all, and then we’re asking, organizations are asking, even cooperatives are asking, which was around the world, what are the skills that are needed for the future?

So, as you can see here, there are a lot of soft skills, hard skills, sense making, cross mutual competency, social intelligence, computational thinking, novel and adaptive thinking, new media literacy, cognitive management, digital mindset collaboration. But what stands out is the digital mindset, because now we’re all forced into using the digital platform. So that’s why during this pandemic, this has also opened up a lot of opportunities for the CIM, for clients to really reach to our cooperative leaders, managers and next generational leaders to teach them, not just on financial literacy or risk management, but also leadership and management skills, through this digital platform.

We said, from building to strengthening. Sorry, I just skipped that slide, but it’s more of we’re talking about change and innovation management, and leaders that are equipped not only in technical, but also in soft skills. So as we always say in cooperatives, in mutuals, there’s a distinct leadership style that is values based adaptive leadership. So we adhere to the cooperative values and principles.

So we journey with our members and all stakeholders for transformation, growth and relevance. As you can see, we have not been hampered with training because the virtual platform has allowed us to conduct 24 trainings just for the year 2020, so it was just amazing that we’re able to reach to almost 1,500 participants, with almost 800 cooperatives participating nationwide.

How do we strengthen sustainability and resilience? We go back to our values, we always say, what is our social culture, as what Sir Noel mentioned earlier. Risk management at all levels, we teach business continuity planning. Our last face-to-face session, if we recall it right, it was in March, before the lockdown hit us, first week of March. But after that, we also moved to virtual platform, we did business continuity planning with our cooperative members in July, and then we’re planning something again this year, maybe conducting three more, so that we’re able to reach all of these cooperatives. It’s not only mandated by the government, before it was even mandated by the government, we already advocated for it because we know that business continuity is really very important, it’s an integral part of risk management.

And now we have here our client CAREScommunity action response emergency services. That does not only respond to disaster events, post disaster, but also for example in the pandemic, we have seen, ICMIF has run an article on that, as many of you must have seen it, how clients has responded during the pandemic using our community development fund. And also right now we’re also taking care of, we’re talking about climate actions, so it has been a theme over all cooperatives. We have the co-ops for 2030 of the ICA. So we’re helping that, we have coastal clean up drive. So we just conducted it last Saturday, of course with the health protocols, safety protocols in place, we do not encourage crowds, but hopefully when lockdown will be eased, we can invite more to participate, especially the young people.

So it’s just really not education in a sense that we’re advocating for what are really the values of the cooperative, but we want to also encourage, especially the youth to participate as well and become cooperatives attractive to them. And also we joined the world last week of the UN, last August, so it’s also part of our advocacy to participate in all of the measures of the government, local and international.

We have our statement of strong commitment on people development. It’s just not externally that we help our cooperative members, but also more so internally. So we need to enhance our adoptive strategies, in this time of pandemic, being adaptive is really a must skill for everyone, and we still do our usual honoring of the people, like a simple birthday honoring of the employees. We have employees of the month, we call it the CLIMBS excel programs, the CLIMBS excellent employees leadership program, which we run every month. We have the recognition of the employees, and also some other ideas that they want to present to us, we have the [HR-Champs 00:16:15], we call them the HR-Champs who support us in all of our activities and also trainings and leadership development.

And of course we believe in retooling and up-skilling our own management team, so we sent our management team to ICMIF [AMC 00:16:34], the one in Singapore, that’s pre-COVID, and we can see the photos there. And of course when we shifted to the virtual platform, we continued to send our own pool of talent to the leadership management course, because we’re also an insurance cooperative, we said we make sure that we can send our young managers to the [SAN 00:17:00] school for young insurance managers. And the same thing pre-COVID, and even last year we also sent, it was also their first time to do the virtual platform. And we continue to partner with industry experts all over the world, not just locally, like for example we partnered with the Cooperative College of United Kingdom for our cooperative executive master class, which is very important for a values based leadership. And we are also planning to have something done for the youth, also for the executive master class. And for SCI Singapore, that Singapore College of Insurance, we do that with our core insurance topics, industry topics that are relevant, especially in the region of Asia.

Okay, so in a nutshell, it’s like the three parts, it’s like a Venn diagram. We have the work that we have to be adopting to the current demands, especially in the context of pandemic. What are the workforce, are we values led? So like in clients, we have our vision, mission and goals, we have just properly formed part of it in our strategic planning, and in the workplace, are we all healthy or are we safe also inside? Do we take care of the mental health of our people? So that’s why we also do our mental health awareness webinars. In fact there’s one coming up on Friday, the 19th, it’s about the occupational safety and health in the workplace, and the heart wellness in this time of pandemic. So we also do that.

And of course we forge partnership for goals. Right now, since we all have to do participate in contributing to the sustainable development goals, we have forged partnerships for goals in sustainability and resilience, and a cooperative principle, which is the cooperation among cooperatives.

We can move to the next. We have our training partners there, okay. And of course, like what the ICA president said, that the youth is not, earlier I wasn’t doing well and some members of the team in the forum, conducted by the ICA of the Asia region. And then of course the president said that the youth is not tomorrow, but it’s really now, so we must take action, how to engage them, make the cooperatives, make the mutuals sound interesting and attractive to them. So we are very serious about it and we want to empower them, the next generation leaders. Actually we launched last year The Youth for Co-ops, it’s part of our campaign of CLIMBS 2024, the strategic 20 millions lives insured by 2024, and the youth will play a big role on that one. And because as we know, many young people are not really attracted, in the context of Philippines, not so many young people are attracted to the cooperative sector. So we want to engage with them.

As a result, we have conducted also a youth cooperative social action hackathon, so that’s one also with the cooperative college, and we have also seen they’re also in partnership, they’re supported by ICMIF, and that was translated into something that’s a doable plan. It was easy institutionalized and approved by CLIMBS board of directors, there has to be a certain part of the budget of the community development fund that will be allocated to youth development plans. So last year since education is very difficult, mobile learning is very difficult, so they launched this program, Adopt a School Program, where they gave out flash drives, so that students can still continue to have access to education.

So I end with this piece, and I’ll call back our president and CEO Noel, so he can talk more about what are the ways forward, how are we going to realize the dream. There are still dreams that are meant to be realized.

Noel Raboy:

So, thank you very much Donna. And on ways forward, this is something I know very ambitions, but looking at the numbers that we have in CLIMBS as an insurance cooperative, we are also rich in terms of data. Our data speaks that 48 years old is the average insured member in CLIMBS, looking into the 4 million population insured right now.And considering in our trainings also, a lot who attended training programs, the average is more than that, around 50 years old. So the question there is, how we can invite and attract and engage this youth to be part of the cooperative movement. The millennials and the new generations for, the co-ops for tomorrow.

And we go with the same on the youth for today, and I think we are ambitious that CLIMBS, the CIM will be positioned to register as a cooperative college that will focus on cooperatives, maybe on the basic of a four year course, or maybe we can start with two year course to accredit it with our government agency. Likewise also, we need help also from the cooperative college worldwide, and one of our partner is the Cooperative College of London, where me myself, Donna and some teams of CLIMBS, experienced renewed also, how the pioneers, how they invented cooperatives from Rochdale across the world. I think based on the values, the cooperative principles and values, I think it will not stop us on creating a cooperative college.

We are concerned on the sustainability, but since the Philippines is on the average age, maybe co-ops there are 14,000 cooperatives nationwide, if the cooperative funds related to community development and education fund is mandated by the government to spend on that, if they can sponsor scholarship to that cooperative college and maybe exchange some professors so that we can have a universal teaching also of our youth, what is cooperative, I think we can change the world. We can also create, we can attract these young people to be part.

Another thing also, we had the talks with, as we said, fulfill the mandate for the CIM to become a cooperative college in the Philippines, a premier cooperative learning center. And last month, next slide please. We are into consultations with other big federations like NATCCO is also a member of ICA, and then MASS-PECC, also a member of ICA. How we can go to work together our education program, so that since we interlock some of our membership. And we agree in principles, since we have the same mentor, the late Attorney Mordino Cua, the co-founder of these three giant organization. So if we are too passionate on doing things about education, we just look the picture of our founder, so that we’ll not be lost and guided by the values and principles of the cooperatives.

So right now, our main project right now is come up with cooperative college. Second also is on, in response to pandemic in the Philippines, I know other countries are reachable, when you talk about digital platform or education. But here in the Philippines, even though 73% are using smartphones or cell phones, 73% using cell phones, but a few only, only 25% are into digital smartphones that can access the distance learning using technology. How about those K1, or K2, or grade one, who are starting up to read and write? Those are a concern, looking into the principle of concern for community and education, the education training and information.

We agree among the three groups that we will be creating a mobile learning/reading hub so that if we can put that mobile hub with parapictures, we will involve the volunteers, the graduates of education to volunteer also, so that we can have, and you can teach how to write and read those who are grade one students because if this pandemic will last for so long, maybe two years or three years, how about those seven year old? And then when he reach around eight to nine, he or she will be ashamed already to continue the studies, especially on how to read and write. And I think in the cooperative, using the values that we have and the principles that we have, it is also our obligation to be concerned of these people, of these students. So, I hope that you can support us on our cooperative college. We will be, CLIMBS will become 50 year old this year, and I’m asking your support.

Another thing also, and a concern of the community, as way forward on the CIM also. CIM will be reaching the 4,000 members of CLIMBS, so that we can have a special dedicated for the youth training, leadership training and volunteerism. We’ll let our youth to engage on cooperative mission. Thank you very much, and we hope that this webinar can, we share something about education.

And on the final thoughts, commitment to the cause, our cooperative pledge, shared common values, the family, fairness, equality and loyalty, the honesty, the competence, the trust and innovation. So what do values mean in leadership? Again, in the cooperative pledge in the Philippines, alone I am weak, but with others, I am strong. Thank you very much.

Ben Telfer:

Thank you very much Noel and Donna for an excellent presentation going over CLIMBS, and CIMs journey in terms of providing education and cooperative development for people in the Philippines.

We do have a number of questions in. A reminder for everyone in the audience, if you have a question that you’d like to post to Noel or Donna, please do type them and send them in. Just a quick question for both of you about your experiences of using these digital platforms. Obviously when we go back a year, all this wasn’t expected, how have you seen sort of the levels of engagement by using digital channels? Has it made your training activities more accessible, or have you seen the quality of the training go down because of the virtual platforms you’re using rather than being in a classroom?

Donna Dizon:

Yes. Well, I think it is two factors. I think people were frustrated to go the digital platform, it’s lockdown. But also we are very surprised to see that they’re also willing to learn. Even us, it was our first time to use, besides from Zoom, GoToMeeting, and then Webinar. So it was also fun and educational, but it was limited to, especially with connectivity problem, so I think that’s the major obstacle for us here, because the connection is really not so strong. So there are certain times we got… But at the time when there was complete lockdown, it was very useful, but as lockdown eased and people were going back also to work, because some regions have also opened, Ben, sometimes it becomes, there’s also some information overload already, or go from one training to another.

And so, I think the adapting capacity of our people who were trained, hopefully it will be expanded. We were able to really grasp everything that has been thrown to them. But overall it is very helpful, and we just have to make the most out of it. Sir Noel.

Noel Raboy:

Thank you Donna. Ben, that’s a very good question and I think there are things, the positive side is very accessible because even though you are in a car or maybe in your, the timezone, it’s easy for you to access because technology binds us. And the other side also is the interaction, the sharing where it’s also very important, the chitchat about the small groups because when you go into online, everything will be, you will muted and then you cannot share, you’re alone in a room but you are there into many.

So those are things maybe in terms of education that we miss. But the brighter side is, education will continue, even though this pandemic it gives us also the idea to be more closer, how much more if, on the next normal maybe, we can do both. It means to say, there are things that we can work together in a modular platform. So that’s my personal views to that.

Ben Telfer:

That is actually the second question that I’ve got here, is will you continue with these digital platforms once you’ll be able to go back to the classroom? Or you’ll sort of take a hybrid approach to your learning activities?

Noel Raboy:

Yeah, I think so, a hybrid approach. There are things that we can do it in a digital platform, but when you talk about sharing of expertise, especially depends on the topic, the hands on, the face-to-face meetings with persons now that especially our colleagues. So that’s something that we have to consider also, learning from other delegates.

Ben Telfer:

Exactly. Something you mentioned throughout your presentation was the importance of collaboration and partnerships, and you even mentioned that is one of the cooperative principles in itself about cooperating amongst cooperatives. Could you just say a bit more about that, and how that is a key pillar of your strategy for education?

Noel Raboy:

That was very challenging because co-ops, they have their own pride and prestige, and they don’t want, some of them are in their comfort zone, so just like also me, if somebody will approach to me. But we have some commonality under the person who create, the co-founder of this organization, that this is where we started. Yes, we invoke the cooperation amongst co-ops, if we can join together and then look into specific projects and identify that specific project, support the project, put a project manager on that. And in terms of some issues later on, we just go back again to the values and principles, why we are here as a cooperative. So that’s how we started cooperating, and we will be expanding the collaborations without boarders on having education also as an agenda.

Ben Telfer:

And I guess, collaborate in a way, not just in the Philippines, but of course with global associations. You mentioned college, the ICA, and of course ICMIF, that’s obviously a key part, you see the education piece as more than just the Philippines, and on the global level.

Donna Dizon:

Yeah, that’s true. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, it has opened a lot of opportunities for CLIMBS, especially now that we’re talking about even reaching out to the agri-preneurs, especially in the Philippines, are really most affected in disasters. Because of ICMIF, we were introduced to other international partners, who we’ve just mentioned, ICMIF Network, and Global Parametrics. So those are really plans that were just blooming last year, but then we want to make it happen right away, and Mr Noel is very passionate about it and he said, “Let’s go. When there’s nothing that hinders us, there is a need and we’re able to do it, then let’s do it.” So I think that’s the way to do it Ben, it’s not enough that we have just laid down all of these plans, and of course we have the values and principles, what’s important is to embody that cooperative identity, so that’s the distinct.

It’s an old concept, but it’s still a modern movement, when all the legal cooperate conditions are good the cooperative was formed, and that perspective that social responsibility to help those who are underprivileged, within our goal.

Ben Telfer:

That’s an excellent point Donna about being the modern business model of a cooperative, model ways of modern business model, and it shows that the adaptive style and how it can be very agile in terms of responding to challenges and crisis’ that we have seen over the last 10 months. But also look for those future opportunities, and as you mentioned, that partnership with the network to move very quickly and it’s great that, that will come to market very soon.

A couple of more questions I’ve got for you here. You mentioned a focus on mental health. Of course this is a big issue, it was probably a big issue 10 months ago before the lockdowns that we have had all across the world. Can you just say a bit more and share about what you do around mental health and mental wellness and safety? Donna, perhaps you could answer that first.

Donna Dizon:

Yeah. There is, in Philippines actually before pandemic, it’s like a taboo to discuss anything about mental health, go to a psychiatrist and psychologist. But because of the pandemic, we have seen really the effects, not only in the community, but in families, as well as also in our workforce. So we really made it a point to make it a part of our wellness campaign for the mental health. And it’s a good support group, even if it’s just a virtual platform. We can hear just, not really affirm, but what they’re currently feeling right now, but just making sense that there’s a support group out there that’s connected that’s going to, if you need anything, you know who to call.

And we do it regularly, not only for the COs, the managers, cooperative leaders, but also in the workplace, we also do it, we have our, we conduct. And last year we did it I think twice or thrice. But before that, we invite really a resource person, a psychologist office to come to us. But now because of the pandemic, it limits the interaction, but we want to have it back as a regular program in CLIMBS internally and also externally.

Noel Raboy:

I think Ben, what I can add on that is on the, we focus also on the awareness that is there, and I think acceptance also, especially the support group, the family should be a family awareness. So there will be a lot of trainings that will be coming in, and also going back again to the basics of this mental health concern.

So, the CLIMBS in terms of the awareness program, we have this unique platform also that we will be, the technology, the digital platform now is a very good way of connecting among the cooperative network that we have. So we just hope that there will be assessment also since the Philippines right now, we are in the strictest lockdown. And I think more issues related to mental health, but we focus on the awareness.

Ben Telfer:

That’s an excellent, excellent response. I think we’ve got time just for one more question. You mentioned about your new focus on empowering young people and attracting young people as both employees for CLIMBS, and also as future customers. What sort of characteristics of the cooperative identity do you think really resonates with young people? And what does CLIMBS do to promote that to the future generations?

Donna Dizon:

I’ll start first in the perspective of human resource. People, we study a lot about demographics of a generation dense. We see that the generation right now, they want something that they feel that they can contribute something. So, I think that’s a very important thing when you want to do activities for this generation. We want them to be heard, so we want to generate ideas from them, what will work, what doesn’t work. That’s why In CLIMBS, there are HR channels that we follow. It’s very important for us because these are spread out in all departments. So there’s a feedback mechanism, it’s just like an informal way of being engaging them.

So I think that’s something that, that cooperative identity of, respond to something that’s bigger or more than yourself, so it’s an important thing for the young people right now. And they can have it in a cooperative setting.

Noel Raboy:

And I think looking into the gig economy, this pandemic also can boost on that economy, those who are part-time jobs and then those jobs that can be offered, a lot of young people who want into this gig work. So we’ll be exploring into that, Ben, in order to attract young talents.

Another thing also is again on attracting young talents. The average age in the office I think is around, what’s the average age that we have done, that’s very young, except for 20…

Donna Dizon:

22, the entrant. The average age is around 35, but the entrant age is around 22.

Noel Raboy:

So, the organization is getting younger. The more, maybe once we hire people, it’s also our policy that we have to go back the basic of what is cooperative identity. It’s where the orientation, not as a business side, this is a practice for the people, this is owned business by the people, and it’s the benefits should be to the people. This is where we started also our orientations, and cascading that also as a family, as basic values that we have. To involve the family, and that is cooperative all about.

And lately we are engaging into volunteerism, like the concern for the community. There are really young people that are attracted, not all are attracted about pay, there are some who would like to work because there’s some part of the company that will enjoy this. Those convictions in their mind related to environment, related to mental health, related to education. So this is where we try to align also, we align some of our projects and programs.

Last week, we had our team engaging, the employees sometimes we’re requiring them to render in a year time, not really requiring them, but it’s a pact, a compact with the people, with the community that they can engage themselves, so that they can also extend their work towards the community, and experiencing also what’s the, like a cleanup drive, the planting, tree planting, something like that.

Ben Telfer:

Thank you Noel, it was a fantastic response and I think that sums up CLIMBS approach completely, and I really thank you and Donna for sharing today. This is just a reminder for everybody in the audience, this webinar has been recorded and everybody will be sent the link to watch the recording.

So just finally thank you everybody for joining today, thank you Noel and Donna for presenting. Thank you for sharing your story, and on behalf of ICMIF, we look forward to collaborating with you in your education journey going forward. Thank you everybody and enjoy the rest of your day. Goodbye.

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