It has been now close to 3 months we are live...I can't prevent old corporate reflex and think we reached the "famous" 100 days so time to take a step back and see if we are on the right track..
“It is never good enough”…Looking forward, we have always something which needs to be done and is not yet done..a newsletter, poster to attract students, call back that corporate, follow up that NGO….but then looking back at what we have done the last 100 days, I think we can be thankful to all of you for what we have reached already!
We have now close to 20 Civil Organizations trusting us with 5-6 others coming out soon. It is not so easy for these NGOs to “partner” with us…first they need to trust this strange foreigner with her strange ideas and then who is asking them so much information: “who is your auditor, where are your funds coming from, what impact do you want to reach and how did you do these last years (you can find all these info by clicking on their logo)..and this not only in Turkish but also in English. I think these NGOs realize it is worth making the effort and that this is a long term approach…a small pain for a potential large gain. Thank you to all of them.
We published 20 volunteering opportunities (you can find the summary here) and received more than 40 applications! Who said Turkish people were not interested in volunteer?!? The process is not yet perfect. Some volunteers applied just to see what will happen, some NGOs call the volunteer for a totally different volunteering opportunities (or don’t call them..)…we knew when we started that it was going to be slow to build an efficient system but he! If it was easy we will not do it!!
Here again, I need to thank 1.000 times the volunteers and the NGOs! The volunteers because I am asking them all the time if they have been contacted, how many hours they did, if they were happy, if they want to testify….and the NGOs because I am trying to find a system on how to follow up all of this and my way of working might not always be the way of working of an NGO…so patience is a master word and I am learning every day.
Donation? I am not sure….I still think there is something to do but that it will take time. I have the feeling that Turkish people are “afraid/embarrassed” to give a small amount like 5Tl/10 Tl and they don’t have 100/200TL..so this might be a reason. What do you think? Let me know! What about a corporate campaign with “if 20% of our staff gives 5TL, we could give a 4y scholarship”. Would that work? This would be for after summer.
In the meanwhile, our first donation project (TOG- see here) is reaching the end of the audit process. Mazars Dengue checked all the documents (and I can tell you there were plenty of them) and asked plenty of questions. This is a kind of red tape for the NGOs but on the other side, if trust is an issue, we will have to go through that.
So 100 days of heavy working but so much satisfaction looking at the website (thank you Lemberg), looking at the nice emails received by the volunteers and by the NGOs and seeing all the indicators going in the right directions.
What’s next? We have a couple of very exciting projects (and also an improved blog template!)..but it is too soon to mention them..just cross fingers with me that they will realize….and other wise…Summer!!….Does a (social) entrepreneur has the right to take holidays ro should he/she really work 7/24 to be taken serious? Whatever your idea, mine is taken..I need that time with my family and friends to rest and come back full of energy!
Sandrine