The results of the 2019 research of the “Individual Giving and Philanthropy in Turkey Report”, which has been compiled by the Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TÜSEV) since 2004, on the subject of individual giving in Turkey, was published on Thursday.

The research, which was carried out with the participation of 2 thousand 502 people in 67 provinces of Turkey, provides up-to-date information and data in areas such as direct aid to those in need, donations to non-governmental organizations and participation in activities and donation motivations.

According to TUSEV's report card, the total value of all individual aids and donations made in Turkey during the year is approximately 303 TL per person, which indicates a decrease in real terms over the years.

While the sum of all individual aid and donations made in Turkey in a year is estimated to be 17.6 billion TL, this figure corresponds to 0.5 percent of Turkey's 2018 gross domestic product.

Aid per capita decreased

While 262.7 TL of the total approximate value of all aids and donations made in a year in Turkey is made directly to relatives, neighbors, other people, beggars, fitra and zakat, 40.2 TL is given to non-governmental organizations. The amount in question was 26.7 TL in 2015.

Therefore, aid is preferred in the form of irregular and direct aid, and the lack of trust in organizations and the small amount of aid play an important role in not preferring institutional intermediaries. In general, the amount of aid given to relatives is higher than other groups.

On the other hand, although aid related to religious motives maintains its importance in total aid, there has been a steady decline in such aids since 2004. For example, the rate of those who give fitra on Eid al-Fitr decreased from 79% in 2004 to 58% in 2019.

According to the TÜSEV report , donations made in the last 12 months are predominantly in the form of cash aid. It is followed by donations to donation boxes in stores.

Individuals donate when they have confidence in how their donation will be spent, and 52 percent of respondents donate when NGOs are transparent. Therefore, the concern that prevents people from making donations is that the donation made to organizations will not be used in accordance with its purpose.

While aid to beggars in total aid has maintained its importance since 2004, 4 out of 10 citizens give money to beggars, and this is dominated by religious beliefs and feelings of pity. According to the report, a significant number of citizens do not consider the state or others responsible for the situation of beggars; He attributes this situation to laziness and fate.

While the report notes that helping the poor is seen by the donors as the duty of "all citizens" and "non-governmental organizations", an increasing role is attributed to non-governmental organizations in the fight against poverty.


Founder of two social initiatives, named Adım Adım and Açık Açık, Istanbul Bilgi University faculty member and social entrepreneur Dr. Itır Erhart , on the other hand, notes that while the Adim Adim formation, which he started 12 years ago as a charity run, collected 72,000 TL in the first run, today they have reached a donation figure of approximately 15 million TL from each run with a total of 655,864 donors, and they have collected 70.6 million TL in donations so far.


Erhart expresses the “secret of the business” as follows:

“Being accountable is extremely important. In addition, it is necessary to appeal to individual donors with videos and visuals. You have to be visible. It is not enough to do very good works, it is necessary to convey them to the public.”

Through the Açık Açık platform, founded by Erhart, past donations made by individuals to associations or foundations can be tracked, and information can be obtained about the effects and results of the projects of popular associations and foundations. A very detailed Donor Rights Declaration is among the criteria that institutions wishing to receive donations to meet on the Platform.

Erhart notes that when they first started the fundraising process, there was a general distrust of people, and they wanted to know how much of the donation went to the project and how much to administrative costs:

“We started to think about how we can build trust. We asked the NGOs we will work with to openly share their financial reports on their websites. We established an online platform when the number of NGOs for which donations were collected and individual donors increased considerably over the years.”

The supporters of the Step by Step races usually come from big cities, mainly from Istanbul. One of Erhart's critical criticisms is that this cluster cannot be seen because the whole of Turkey is reflected in the TUSEV report.

“The increase in our donor numbers and volumes in major cities is not reflected in the report,” he says.

Erhart explains that donations are made within the family and in the close circle before the institutions: “When people help their parents, they see it with their own eyes. However, they do not realize that when they give the same amount through civil society, this donation will be used more effectively, that they will support ten people at the same time, and that it will create a multiplier effect. For example, SenDeGel Association, which collects donations for Sub-Saharan Africa, is having difficulties; because people can't identify with Africa's problems and don't care about them.”

The percentage of volunteer workers is very low

On the other hand, according to the data of the Report, 7% of the people interviewed in 2019 became members of an organization based on voluntary participation in the last year, the rate of voluntary employees was 7%, the rate of those who attended the meetings was 6%, and the rate of those who made donations other than dues was 15%. was done.

The reasons for not participating in activities in organizations for voluntary participation are the lack of money to participate in such activities, the concern that these activities are not carried out transparently, and the fact that no one from their close circle participates in such activities.

Betül Selcen Özer, General Manager of Tohum Autism Foundation , notes that as an institution, they have observed an increase in the trend of individual donations since 2014, and this increase is realized both in terms of amount and number of people.


Speaking to euronews Turkish, Özer said, “As NGOs, we need to think on the basis of communication, resource development, transparency and accountability in order to spread this increasing trend in general. In order to raise donations, the institution needs to be more vocal, keep the issue it advocates on the agenda, and the public should become familiar with it.”

While the Tohum Autism Foundation was conducting its first studies in this process, one out of every three people heard about the subject of "autism", and about 8 percent of those who heard had the right information. As a result of intense awareness campaigns, 83 out of 100 people are aware of autism, and one out of every two people is correctly informed about autism.

“The TUSEV research shows that the NGOs that communicate, that make themselves heard more, receive more donations and become more reliable, increase their scores in donation processes and get ahead of others in the trust index,” says Ozer.