On December the 3rd, we invited, with the support of the law firm Baker & McKenzie, 30 corporate firms to Sanayi 313 for a corporate breakfast.
We had representatives from the financial sector (Akbank, Denizbank, Rabobank, RBS, Axa, TEB, EBRD), the retail (Boyner, Edenred, Related), the industry (GE, Engie,), etc.
The goal of the gathering was to sensitive further senior executives of these firms to what is Pro Bono and why it is something good.
Our aim is to gather a maximum of individual professionals but if we can have the support from their managers, it will make their life much easier. Without the possibilitiy to support Civil Organizations during working time, the volunteers have to use their private time but also they will do it at evening and week-end which represents also a challenge for the NGOs, which have a already a long day.
We had very short presentation from Dusler Akademisi (Dream Academy) where Ercan Tutal shared his journey on setting up an NGO, from Liana Varon from Tusev and the strategy project they have done with BMGI and from Dan Matthews, partner at Baker & Mc Kenzie on why it makes sense for Corporate firms to engage in Pro Bono (with the help of C@rma of course!).
We finished with some videos testimonies of Pro Bono consultants (you can find these videos in our video page), most of whom work for the firms invited. Some of the executives were quite surprised to see that somewhere in their firms people were already involved!
Besides the presentations, it was a perfect opportunity to brainstorm and share experience in a relax environment.
We are aiming to host another breakfast around May the 23rd. If you want to join or if you have any suggestions, let us know!