Arzum Meleksoy

Arzum Meleksoy is improving the way money is raised and distributed to the Turkish citizen sector. Through an Internet platform and community network, Arzum enables individuals and businesses to work together in supporting the most innovative social organizations and development programs. Her goal is to harness the growing power of the Internet in building a new citizenry that is informed and takes responsibility for the success of the social sector.

In the underdeveloped and underfunded Turkish citizen sector, Arzum has designed an entirely new mechanism for building interest, awareness, and citizen support for Turkey’s most innovative social projects. Her Internet platform links Internet users and businesses with Turkish citizen organizations (COs) in a way that directs corporate money to projects or organizations of an individual’s choosing. With it, Arzum is establishing a habit of support for the citizen sector that she anticipates will result in increased giving and engagement with the sector through channels other than the web.
In Turkey, since there is neither much citizen or business awareness and support for Turkey’s best COs, the large majority of funding for the sector comes from government. People are often unaware of social projects taking place in their neighborhoods, and do not know what avenues would enable them to contribute even in the smallest ways. Arzum is harnessing the power of the Internet to give people a choice about which citizen groups and projects receive support, and to build an online community of socially committed citizens. Arzum’s website gives users a way to direct corporate money to the organizations of their choice just by regular online activity like e-shopping through Amazon or sending e-greeting cards. In this way, citizens give without having to make an additional financial contributions, and corporate donations go where there is a significant citizen demand for support. 
As the number of Internet users grows in Turkey—especially among the young and educated—the success and scale of Arzum’s website will only increase. Turkish citizens living in the U.S. and Germany are among her more than 1,500 members, along with thousands more that use her e-cards. Arzum would like to reach 15 million users in ten years, and in doing so, help shape a new citizenry in Turkey that feels responsible and engaged in the work of COs.

The citizen sector in Turkey is young and underdeveloped. This is due in large part to the coup d’état in 1980 that dismantled Turkey’s early COs because they were perceived to be tools of leftist political parties, and therefore, direct threats to the state. Any beginnings of a vibrant civil sector were arrested by this multi-year coup, and not until the earthquake in 1999 did Turkey witness the rebirth of the citizen sector.

The earthquake’s devastation and subsequent reconstruction efforts demanded far more resources than the state could provide. Citizens filled these gaps, organizing themselves and proving to be a potent force for change. Still, this not yet decade-old sector remains in the earliest stages of development. In particular, efforts to build an aware and active citizen base of support for local organizations and programs have been slow going. The citizen movement following the earthquake has not carried over in a systematic way. And the absence of broad financial support has put a damper on the ability of citizen groups to act effectively.

Corporate sector support in Turkey is also weak, due in part to industries being unaware of what is happening in civil society. The little corporate money donated is in the form of charity or early corporate social responsibility and is rarely directed at the most innovative organizations. Neither citizens nor corporations have an easy way to direct support towards the issues or organizations that they care about most. At the same time, COs—especially newer and/or smaller ones—have difficulty raising money because they have no way to systematically reach broad bases of support. Even as Internet use grows rapidly in Turkey—including as a way to shop for goods—COs have yet to harness its power for raising awareness, generating activity, and pulling in funds.

Arzum knew the Internet could open up new avenues of support from citizens and businesses to the best and most innovative COs that needed support. She has designed a series of online tools that make it easy for citizens to become informed and engaged with the issues they care most about. These tools not only build a more aware citizenry and socially active business sector, but they also provide financing critical to the sustainability of Turkish COs. What’s more, she is building an online community of citizens, businesses, and COs working together with unprecedented ease towards common goals.

While working as a fundraising manager at UNICEF, Arzum searched for new ways to reach large communities of small donors. She began exploring the possibility of using the Internet as a portal to direct people and funds to the most pressing social issues in Turkey. From these explorations, and with the pro bono support of KocNet, one of Turkey’s leading technology companies, she launched Alibagis.com.

Arzum’s initial strategy was to direct online shoppers through her Internet portal in a way that would donate a small percentage of their shopping bill to an organization of their choice. She contacted large online shopping sites like Amazon in the U.S., Franc in France, and an e-store in Turkey to sign affiliation agreements that allows her to put links to their sites from her website. Each time a user clicks through to a shopping site from Arzum’s site, a percentage of their shopping bill is donated to a CO of their choice from a list of organizations featured on the webpage. In this way, Internet users could contribute without really contributing at all—the money was coming from sponsor companies but it was directed where shoppers wished.

While Arzum’s online shopping strategy met some initial success, the number of shoppers and the money donated from places like Amazon were less than she had hoped. This is when she developed an e-card fundraising strategy. E-cards are like electronic gift cards that can be sent over email much like a thank you or birthday card would be sent through the mail. Arzum worked with free designers and well-known artists to design a variety of cards for various occasions. Then, she approached companies in Turkey to sponsor the e-cards. In exchange for a small logo on the card, each company (for example, BP) would have to donate money to the CO of the e-card sender’s choice. Quota figures were established for exactly how much money was given. For example, if fewer than 10,000 cards were sent, then one amount would be given; if 10,000 to 15,000 were sent, a larger amount would be given.

The e-cards work because of their simplicity and appeal to all parties. Businesses jump at the opportunity to circulate their sponsorship logo widely, and to be perceived as “socially responsible” companies. Internet users now have a way to contribute small amounts of money to organizations they choose—and often to specific projects—all without spending money from their own pockets. The more cards they send the more money will be directed from companies to these organizations. And by counting each click when someone sends or opens an e-card, it is easy to track and measure where people are most eager to direct money. Businesses can also track how many people are viewing cards with their logos.

The e-cards are revolutionary because for the first time they give individuals the opportunity to choose where money will go in the sector. They provide an easy mechanism for individuals and corporations to work together in a win-win way to help support civil society. And they have also been instrumental in building a strong online community. As people send e-cards, they tend to want to know how much they have helped the organization they chose to support. Arzum responded by regularly publishing an e-magazine with news about citizen groups, articles written by prominent journalists, and new ways for people to support a cause important to them. What started with a simple e-card and an email has generated real citizen engagement—with many of Arzum’s members now contributing from their own pockets, or volunteering with one of the many organizations listed on her website.

Since her e-card strategy was launched in 2004, a half-dozen large businesses have agreed to sponsor e-cards, including British Petroleum, Yapi Kredi Bank, and Sodezho. COs in Turkey realize the value of being listed on her site, and have pushed to be included, assuming they fit Arzum’s strict criteria as nonpartisan, non-religious, and transparent. Today, many organizations that have a history of not being cooperative find themselves under the same umbrella on Alibagis.com.

A new kind of e-card has also been launched where corporations design a card, choose which citizen group or project they will support, and then have the cards sent to their databases of employees or clients for special events or holidays. Today both kinds of e-cards generate more than US$50,000 per year for local organizations. As the number of users and business sponsorships grow, Arzum expects this figure could increase ten-fold.

Arzum wants her website to reach 15 million users in ten years. She continues to search for new ways to use the site as both a support mechanism and community-organizing platform. Her focus will be on increasing website traffic and developing new win-win models of corporate support for civil society. She believes her full impact will not be measured in dollars or by the number of members on her site, but rather in shifting the mentality of the Turkish people to feel more responsible to act and contribute regularly to local projects. Her goal is to shape a new citizen sector landscape in Turkey.

Because her Internet tools provide a new mechanism for building awareness and support for the citizen sector, and from their simple design, they can be easily replicated in other countries, especially those still in the early stages of building their social sector.

At university, Arzum received her Bachelors degree in International Relations. She was active in student life and founded an International Relations Club. After graduating, she worked as a credit-marketing officer for a national bank.

Arzum was interested in social issues from an early age and regularly volunteered with several local social projects. She was particularly attracted to children’s issues and to solving problems of project financing and fundraising for COs. Arzum was dismayed with the discrepancy in funds available for businesses compared to critical social programs. She left her position at the bank to work for UNICEF’s National Committee as an officer responsible for fundraising. During this time, she took courses and seminars to hone her fundraising skills and developed her own ideas about how to bring money to the citizen sector in new ways.

Following the earthquake in 1999, Arzum moved from Ankara to Istanbul and continued working with UNICEF as its chief fundraising manager. Along with her husband—who works for the National Development Bank—she founded Alibagis.com as a limited company and has gradually spent more and more of her time developing its features and capabilities.