Interview Questions
Shared Question for All Interviewees:
1. In your view, what is the biggest strength and biggest limitation of this organization’s
approach?
Section 1: Social Innovation Goals of NGOs and Ses
For Founder/ Top Management:
1. What does social innovation mean to your organisation?
2. How do you define your organisation’s primary social innovation goal? (Following Q: is
it focused more on solving immediate problems or the roots causes)
3. What is the most core issue that your organization currently wants to solve?
4. Does your organization proactively refer to the SDGs when formulating strategies?
5. Has your organisation considered any risk when designing your social innovation goals?
Are there any feelings such as fear of failure?
6. Do social innovation goals influence daily organisational practice?
7. Does your organisation ever face situations where social goals and financial sustainability
need to be balanced? If yes, could you give an example?
8. Have there been situations where commercial considerations influenced the
organisation’s prioritized initiatives?
9. How do you measure the social impact that your organisation brings? Do you use specific
frameworks?
10. Are these measurements helpful for improving strategy or mainly used for reporting to
stakeholders?
11. Has your organisation ever affected people you did not plan for, that is, the unexpected
impacts?
Section 2: Social Innovation Models and Organizational Structures of NGOs and Social
Enterprises
For founder / senior representative / project coordinator:
1. How would you describe your organization’s overall model for creating social impact?
2. What makes this model different from a traditional charity, business, or community
project?
3. Would you say your organization focuses more on filling gaps in existing social services,
creating new social or economic value, or combining both?
4. Could you give an example of a program or activity that reflects this model?
5. Why did your organization choose this approach?
6. In your view, what are the biggest strengths and limitations of this organization’s model?
For staff / program or operations employee:
1. How does the organization’s model work in daily practice?
2. What usually happens from identifying a need to delivering a solution?
3. Do you think the organization’s actual practices match its stated mission or model? Why
or why not?
4. Can you give an example of when the model worked well or was difficult to apply?
5. What challenges do you face when implementing this model on the ground?
6. How does the organization usually adjust when the original plan does not work?
Section 3: Communication Strategies and Narrative Frameworks of NGOs and SEs in
Driving Public Participation
For communication, marketing, or public engagement representative:
1. Based on your practical experience in Malaysia, how does your organization approach
the balance between emotional storytelling and solution-oriented content in your online
communications?
2. How does your organization adapt its online narratives to fit the local Malaysian context,
particularly regarding local cultures, religious values, or language choices?
3. In your daily operations, how do social media engagement metrics such as likes, shares
and comments reflect or fail to reflect the real depth of public participation in your
projects?
4. Could you describe a major challenge or instance where your organization had to handle
public skepticism, such as when people grew tired of sad stories or doubted your true
motives, to maintain long-term trust?
Section 4: Public Participation Modalities in NGOs and Social Enterprise
For founder/ management:
1. How do you define the role of the public in your organisation’s mission? Are they
supporters, customers, or partners?
2. What specific channels or platforms have you created to allow the public to contribute
to your social innovation goals?
3. How does your funding model (e.g. grants/donations vs. product sales) influence the
way you communicate with the public?
4. How do you measure the quality and depth of public participation, beyond just numbers
of participants?
5. Do you find that your organisational structure (NGO vs. SE) makes it easier or harder
to build deep, long-term relationships with your participants? Why?
6. What is your biggest challenge in keeping the public engaged for more than a year?
7. What is your biggest challenge in maintaining long-term, meaningful public
engagement given your organisational model?
For program coordinator/ groundwork employee:
1. For a member of the public who wants to get involved, what is the first thing they
usually do?
2. How much influence do volunteers or external participants have over the day-to-day
tasks you manage?
3. Can you give an example of a time when feedback from a participant actually changed
how a project was executed?
4. Do you feel a pressure to narrate to the public to ensure continued participation/funding?
How does that affect your relationship with them?
5. In your experience, what makes a volunteer stay long-term versus someone who only
helps out once?
6. Does the need for financial sustainability (in SEs) or donor satisfaction (in NGOs) ever
conflict with the quality of the engagement you provide to the public?
7. Do you feel employees like yourself have enough influence over how participation is
structured, or is it mostly decided at the management level?
8. Have you seen participation levels change over the years? What do you think drives
those changes?
9. Do you think your organisation's model (charity-based or enterprise-based) helps or
hinders sustained public engagement? In what ways?