1 October, 2025. If you think of soup kitchens and beach cleanups when you think of volunteering, Bang is here to change your impression of what volunteering can be. Bang shares his varied volunteering experiences, encourages us to begin our own volunteering efforts, and shares why he thinks larger organisations can better manage and reward volunteers for their time. 

Note: We’re experimenting with a different recording setup with this one so we apologise for there being more noise than usual!

Shian Bang, also known as Bang, is a photojournalist with the local press. Outside of work, he dedicates his time to contributing to community-building efforts in Singapore. Follow him on IG @bangsphoto. 

Ben talks about movies on his film podcast at deepcutpod.com, and writes about film at thekinetoscope.com. This episode also inspired him to build and create filmbulletin.sg He lived a past life working in film production. Find him online at benjaminyap.me

The Space

This episode was recorded in a Public Living Room, a crowd-funded community space in 195 Pearl Hills Terrace. If you enjoyed this conversation and would like to help us keep recording, please support the Stranger Conversations crowdfund. This supports their mission to build a third place at the intersection of self-exploration and collective good. You can follow them on Instagram @strangerconvos or go to linktr.ee/strangerconvos where you can find links to the crowdfund and find out more about what they do. 

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:09 Intro to Bang

02:38 Relationship to the space (and food)

07:30 Volunteering

17:04 Making the most of volunteers

20:07 What makes Bang volunteer

22:38 Bang's volunteering experiences

29:32 Bread and butter issues

33:36 Non-profits and economics

38:20 KPIs for charitable events

42:04 Visibility for smaller minorities

46:14 Different ways of volunteering

50:23 Continuity

57:50 Competition

01:01:55 Iron ricebowl question