Social Change Can Be Achieved by Being a Professor

- I must be a very skilled and wealthy professor to make students see how excellent their professor is. I always wear designer brands to teach, not to be depressing, but to be an example that you can be both academically successful and wealthy. There's nothing wrong with that.

- Being a university professor in Thailand is no different from being a judge. If you conduct yourself well, write books, and teach, firstly, you will have honor, and secondly, you will have your own army, which is our students. We create an army of 300-400 people per year. In 10 years, that's 5,000-10,000 people.

- The reason I might want to move to a central university in the future is probably just one: to teach at the master's level. This would accelerate the process of building an army of young leaders because the students are already executives, capable of driving social change. This can create change in 3-5 years.

- I can tell you why OnArt Company works on demographics, like our non-profit collaboration with UNFPA. It's work we see as "necessary" to push these issues forward.

Dr. Sorawit Limopas Pulsawasd, or "Pom" as his friends call him, is a lecturer at Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai Campus, Faculty of Management Sciences, Department of Public Administration. He holds a doctorate in Nonprofit Organization Management, so he currently teaches Nonprofit Fundraising, Volunteer Management, Local Administration Management, as well as HR and AI. His personal passion is Diversity Management, which aligns perfectly with the university's vision, allowing him to fully explore his interests. He also teaches Innovation Management for Sustainability, another area of interest. These subjects don't quite fit within the Public Administration major, but the university administrators recognized their mission and importance for the public sector and students, so they were approved.

In addition to this, Pom is also a special lecturer at Thammasat University, College of Interdisciplinary Studies, where he teaches sustainable tourism and new forms of tourism, focusing on increasingly diverse tourist groups, such as people with disabilities, LGBTQ individuals, various religions, genders, and ages. He also covers modern tourism and the creation of new tourism destinations, such as creating hipster areas in Malaysia, transforming old cities into new ones, and investments in man-made towns in Singapore. All of this is viewed through the lens of development, which is similar to the nonprofit work he studied and can be analyzed using a development perspective.

With such a heavy teaching load, how does he manage his time, especially since he also runs a business?

It's a perfect fit. The teaching at Prince of Songkla University and Thammasat University aligns with his work at OnArt Company, where he is the Strategy Director, overseeing all nonprofit and international organization accounts, such as the United Nations (UN), the German development agency (GIZ), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as government projects related to development, like OTOP entrepreneurs, for whom he develops strategies. OnArt Company is primarily a PR agency, so every project includes a public relations aspect, which is a key strength. OnArt has been involved in campaigns like changing alcohol sales hours and promoting equality.

Currently, there's no room for more. The teaching and coordination with Thai and international government agencies fill all available time. Even KMITL (King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang) invited him to teach, but he had to politely decline due to time constraints.

Oh, and there's one more thing: he's a committee member of the LGBTQ Thai Business Association, which he co-founded with friends almost two years ago. Due to everyone's busy schedules, there hasn't been much progress, but it's registered, and policy plans are in place. Importantly, it has received certification from the US, as there is a global LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce there.

What is the impact of Donald Trump's return to the presidency?

It definitely has an impact. No matter which way the world turns, I will go against the current, insisting on doing things our way, as Thailand just passed the same-sex marriage law not long ago.

What is the purpose of establishing the LGBTQ Thai Business Association?

When people suggested establishing this association, the same-sex marriage law was still just a draft. But my friends and I looked ahead. We believed the law would pass because we see sustainability and equality as not just human rights issues but also intrinsically linked to wealth and income. This world runs on money or business; that's structural change. Once you grasp financial institutions or social structures driven by money, that's true sustainability. So, we started focusing on gender equality tied to and emphasizing businesses related to LGBTQ individuals. We will bring this into the capital market, which is a sustainability indicator in society. At the same time, it will encourage business owners to support the LGBTQ Economy more, as Thailand will definitely be a hub now that we have passed the same-sex marriage law. For example, in the medical field, LGBTQ couples will come for gender reassignment surgery, name change, marriage businesses, or adoption. Any business related to people in the future, who are modern families of all types, will flourish once the same-sex marriage law passes. Life insurance companies, schools, travel agencies, wedding planners – our association members will be the first to get involved. We are not just looking at equality anymore; we are looking far beyond. Our association is the first group doing this. You don't have to be LGBTQ, but your business must have LGBTQ customers or stakeholders. Everyone can participate in this association, seek knowledge, and create opportunities together. Ultimately, we cannot avoid it; everything is interconnected. Airline businesses, the Songkran festival – look at how many LGBTQ individuals attend Pride events every year. These muscular men come from all over the world. If we don't do it, who will? The Pride event in Taiwan attracts hundreds of thousands of people every year. Think about hotel costs, airfare, food, bars – the revenue generated is immense. I attend this event every year. We need to plan long-term, ensuring that the stock market recognizes that in the future, there will be rights and indicators. If you need to measure gender equality, do transgender individuals have the right to take leave for gender reassignment surgery? If you are single, can you take leave? What benefits do you receive? What are the indicators? We need to plan for the long term, whether it's 5 or 10 years, and make it legal.

Importantly, these things must be driven by money; without money, it's not sustainable.

Once the top 150 companies in the stock market achieve this, the LGBTQ community will have enough money to sustain the entire country. That's sustainability, and ultimately, those companies will profit.

Thailand has a huge LGBTQ population that generates a significant amount of money.

I don't want to talk about this, but in reality, the word "kathoey" is part of Thailand's soft power. But no one dares to talk about it. If you ask foreigners for three words about Thailand, they will say "som tum, curry, kathoey." It will definitely be on the list. This is authentic soft power that doesn't need any modification.

We also need to educate people more about diversity moving forward to create an LGBTQ economy.

After the same-sex marriage law passed, I can tell you why OnArt Company works on demographics, like our non-profit collaboration with UNFPA, without profit, or works on some projects and with agencies where we only cover employee salaries but have no company profit. It's work we see as "necessary" to push these issues forward.

When I first heard UNFPA talk about "All Types of Modern Families," I knew we wouldn't be discussing same-sex marriage anymore. This issue goes much further because the family structure of the new generation can be anyone; they don't necessarily have to be related by blood. This is the modern family, like how I was adopted by my aunt. I am my aunt's child. This is the modern family, and we need to talk about it more, discuss it more. For example, Thai schools are debating this more during Father's Day and Mother's Day events because Thai society is currently in a period of development. These rituals are being deconstructed and reconstructed, but no one is seriously discussing what this event is and what is about to happen. So, if the government would state that society has now changed to the modern family structure, whether blood-related or not, whether perfect or imperfect, all of that doesn't exist. Just accept the concept of the modern family.

These seem to be the main issues you focus on the life.

I just keep doing this – teaching, company work, and association work – because they all have the same goal: "development work."

Actually, everything mentioned could be compiled into an interesting book.

I really want to do that. It's been a dream for over 10 years. The only problem is I have no time right now, but I'm slowly starting. Especially, I want to write a travel book about my experiences in London, about my own spiciness. I want to tell and describe it, using the pen name "Mae Baan Ploenchit" (Ploenchit Housewife). For a serious book, especially about nonprofits in Thailand, there isn't one yet. I can only teach students, but people in Thai NGOs and foundations don't have a reliable source of information. Other professors who graduated in this field haven't written about it.

What are my academic career plans for the future?

I can tell you that I don't want to be a full professor. I want to be a knowledgeable professor, known by people, but with a more famous social impact. I will work with international organizations, work with the government, provide opinions on urgent current events to the media, and importantly, "I want to be rich." So, I will go down this path: work with the LGBTQ Business Association, work in the House of Representatives, be a consultant for private companies. I will go this way and definitely not towards becoming a full professor. So, in the future, I want to publish books to build a readership that supports my various endeavors and makes them more well-known.

What is the foundation that made you interested in social sector issues, which has become both your academic field and life compass?

If I had to think about the foundation of this idea, I would have to credit Pa Tae (my aunt). Since I was in high school, she had me intern at the Amata Foundation. This showed me that corporate work is one way, and foundation work is another. Corporate work is very stressful, while foundation work is more relaxed, working with artists and writers. Combined with my grandfather at home, even though he was retired, he was always working for society, helping temples and communities. This made me see that development work is very close to home. This was my family inspiration.

Then, when I started working, my first job was at the American Chamber of Commerce. They liked to organize workshops or talks on various issues, about 20 events a month. And there was one event I really liked: corporate social responsibility (CSR). I felt that I would definitely go into this field, whether it was CSR, development, or charity.

After that, I applied for a job at the Kenan Foundation Asia. The work there further confirmed that I had chosen something I liked. I was fortunate to be responsible for diverse projects in the CSR field and managed an entire project myself: the Thailand NGO Awards, which received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in New York. I worked on this for three years, becoming close with Thai NGOs and traveling for training throughout the regions. This confirmed that the work I was doing was the happiest work. I helped teach them about fundraising, volunteer work, and helped a blind association and a foundation develop a business plan to avoid losses. Everything was work I enjoyed. Putting me in the business world was a no-go. Being a salesperson or selling advertising, like my friends, I knew it was lucrative, but my heart wasn't in it. But foundation work, getting to read, helping to oversee cool things, like "this investment is cool," "this ice bucket challenge is really cool," everything I thought about was related to this field. So, I was clear with myself that I liked this work.

Then, the Office of the Higher Education Commission (OHEC), a government scholarship, opened applications, and there was a Nonprofit major. When I went to take the exam, I saw people sitting and reading books in front of the exam room, and I got stressed. I was confused about what books there were to read because I had been working in this field for three years and had never known there were books about it. In the end, I passed, being one of the three scholarship recipients that year. So, I went to study Charity Management at St. Mary's University, London.

So, when you received the scholarship, you already knew that upon returning, you would become a professor?

I already knew I wanted to be a professor, so I applied for the scholarship. I felt that being a professor is a job without a boss and with freedom in your work, no need to clock in and out. When I passed the exam, I immediately had a vision of what kind of professor I would be, and also a vision of running an implementation or consulting company, because these two jobs could be done in parallel.

You see, most famous professors do this. If they don't bring money into the university, they open their own consulting firms. Everyone is both famous and provides good opportunities for others, and they also make money. I felt that this career path was great, so I wanted to follow in their footsteps.

And being a university professor in Thailand is no different from being a judge. If you conduct yourself well, write books, and teach, firstly, you will have honor, and secondly, you will have your own army, which is our students. We create an army of 300-400 people per year. In 10 years, that's 5,000-10,000 people. I believe that if we want to support the Nonprofit Sector in Thailand, we only need to build people, add people to the industrial system, and rebuild it. Let others fix the old people; to change the future, we need to add an army of young people to solve the problems. This kind of work takes time, and the only profession that does this is "professor."

The reason I might want to move to a central university in the future is probably just one: to teach at the master's level. This would accelerate the process of building an army of young leaders because the students are already executives, capable of driving social change. This can create change in 3-5 years, which is faster.

Actually, this way of thinking is similar to Ms. Panchana Vatanasathien.

I told her the same thing. We are both boxers, but in different rings. Whatever can create change for the country and society, we will do it.

And what did you study for your doctorate? Was it still in this field?

My doctorate is in Social Sciences from the University of East London. The field I studied was NGO and Development Management in the International Context.

I chose this because my master's focused only on fundraising and similar things, like an MBA but for charity management. The doctorate provided a development lens. As a development professional, I learned about social structures, economic structures, poverty issues, the nuances of those issues, and more critical analysis. It wasn't just about management anymore; it made me a social scientist who looked at these issues, broadening my perspective and making it more complex.

I see both advantages and disadvantages in social science because its definition is very broad. You could call it "alchemy." My research borrowed from anthropology, sociology, and public policy because everything falls under the umbrella of "social science."

We believe that a single tool cannot solve a social problem. But the weakness of this alchemy is how we can compete with actual anthropologists and sociologists.

What was your doctoral research about?

My research was on a very simple topic: "Examining how Thai foundations working with multinational companies select beneficiaries."

I looked at how foundations, for example, those providing scholarships to students or helping elderly people affected by disasters, are the target groups for foundations that try to raise money to improve the quality of life for these groups. I discovered that when they receive CSR money from multinational companies like IKEA, Prudential, or even Citibank, they might select "poor people" as beneficiaries differently.

It seems simple, but it took 6-8 years because it involved theories of poverty, stakeholder theory, and I used the work of French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu for analysis. I found that foundations' selection of beneficiaries uses social capital data, and ultimately, the truly poor are not selected because they lack sufficient social capital.

Is there actually a pre-existing brief from those multinational companies in selecting target groups?

Actually, the companies that provide funding are good. But it's the NGOs' own operations that require good indicators because this money is the main funding for managing the foundation. If the results are not good, they might lose funding in the following year because some poor people simply don't improve, no matter how much help they receive.

This shows that these projects have their own framework, so they cannot truly penetrate the social structure. Because each project's structure has different indicators or frameworks, the work of NGOs today doesn't create real change in society. The poor get poorer, and the rich get richer.

The research committee even said that this research was very significant because it dealt with the heart of development work, played with the interests of the poor, and explained why the poor are not selected. This is the answer to the global development narrative of why it's so terrible.

So that's why poverty hasn't been eradicated yet.

It's similar to treating cancer. Initially, you have to help the group breathe. Another group helps those who don't have the chance of getting cancer. It's like giving different medications. Ultimately, many ideas state that "the poor are part of the country's structure," which is true.

Simply put, look at the deposit interest rates in Thailand. At most, it's 0.25-1.00 percent. But loan interest starts at 7 and goes up to 24 percent per year. In Singapore and Malaysia, deposit interest is 3-5 percent, while loan interest is 4-8 percent. Just looking at this, you can see that our country is designed to make the rich richer and trap the poor in poverty. A 2 million baht house, even with a 30-year mortgage, you'll die before paying it off because the interest floats at 8-20 percent without you realizing it. Some people take out informal loans to cover it, making it even worse. This is like creating "systemic entrenched poverty."

It's no wonder Singapore and Malaysia have developed so far.

People who go to work in Singapore hardly return poor because they earn 7 percent interest per year. Who wouldn't want that? Fixed deposits have higher interest rates than corporate bonds in Thailand. So, people there are wealthy and only plan to save money because they have no debt. As for our country, it's getting poorer, yet banks make billions and trillions of baht in profit each year.

The real solution to poverty is actually very simple: fix the deposit and loan interest rates.

What is the current and future purpose of everything you're doing – teaching, building an army, your beliefs and driving change, and working with various nonprofits?

I want to keep teaching until I retire because it's a profession that keeps me from being lonely. I enjoy talking and sharing knowledge. As for my company work, I want to retire around the age of 50 and shift the money from the PR side of the business into other businesses in the manufacturing sector. I think that if I want to become wealthier or have more to live on, I need to make a change. In PR, everyone wants to meet with us, but if it's about manufacturing something, we can let everything run on its own, which would sustain me in old age. The rest would be consulting, serving on boards, and so on.

Actually, I don't think about it too much. Everything I'm doing now, whether it's the PR company, foundation work, or teaching, is related to development work. I just want to have the opportunity to make the area or community around me a better place to live. That's enough.

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