C@rma is a young social responsibility platform bringing skill based volunteers who do not know how to volunteer or with which NGOs (trust issue) together with NGOs that look for talented probono consultant.
Sandrine Ramboux, the founder and managing director of C@rma decided to stay in Turkey, where she started living in 2007, and ended her 20-year banking career to launch an initiative aiming at having a social impact. Sandrine states that she is working on developing awareness around skill based volunteering in Turkey. She thinks Turkey is a promising society in terms of volunteering despite current low percentage.The growth of C@rma, which she brought to life with her own savings, through projects from corporates is one of Ramboux’s priority expectations.
Why and based on what needs was C@rma established?
I have been in Turkey for eight years. With a professional perspective, I observed that the pro bono culture does not thoroughly exist in Turkey. It is very difficult to create such a giving and helping environment. People are willing to help but those whom they help are usually family members or people that they regularly meet. When it comes to helping an organization, trust issues start to appear.
You are a banker in fact…
A short while after I came to Turkey, I decided to follow a different route about my career. When I talked to people, I noticed that they really wanted to help but they either had trust issues or they did not know whom and how they could help. Someone had to own it and facilitate this for them. I like bringing people together so I started off by taking these into consideration while contemplating on my future plans.
Isn’t it a sort of challenge to take such initiative in a country where people have trust issues?
On the one hand there are people who want to help others and on the other there are NGOs waiting for such assistance. This mutual need gave me the idea and I carried out a market research with a sampling of 150 people. Of course the research results are disputable since the participants were people who had a positive attitude towards the topic. However, the results indicate that the number of people who want to help others is not low at all although the group interested in these matters in Turkey has been squeezed in a small percentage.
How did the NGOs engage in the process?
I visited NGOs and told them the situation and that I was a little unfamiliar with their world. I was welcomed by most of them. NGOs receive support from companies to a large extent but a problem comes out when the support of a company is in question: Budgets may shift from one company to another and the relevant NGO may be left without any budget. Therefore they also need individual donations in order to create diversity. In terms of volunteering, they wish that the number of those supporting them increased. In the light of this information, I have seen that both parties had overlapping needs and tried to find a way to provide the funding to meet those needs.
How did you proceed in terms of costs?
I mainly used my own savings. I prepared the website. At the beginning, we met up with NGOs and developed several projects. TÜSEV wanted to realize a strategic study while TOG wanted to create a form. I had three or four projects. In time other NGOs came along. We generally find a volunteer every three days. Nowadays I spend most of my time in showing people that this project works and how I can finance the business.
Have you considered charging a fee for membership?
At first I thought about charging a membership fee to corporate firms but this would have mean to close the platform to anyone who doesn’t pay, I thought it wouldn’t be a good system. The required awareness level hasn’t been reached yet so I am not ready to open this platform to a specific group and close it to others at this stage. I am trying to create projects for companies and work on demand. Also I have other projects like working with universities. So university students and NGOs can join company employees.
In light of what you learnt from C@rma; which areas in Turkey is there more of a tendency for volunteering?
Nowadays, volunteering in Turkey is more shaped with feeding animals and helping children. Companies prefer to read books to kids and clean beaches; so tasks not based on professional skills are preferred. Tendency is not high for missions requiring talent so this area is new for Turkey. I think lawyers are acquainted with probono consulting for a long time though. This may be something that has existed in Turkey for some time. Institutions like “Oy ve Ötesi” and “Haçiko” are examples where lawyers help the public through volunteering based on skills.
What does the project need to evolve?
“What’s difficult is to make volunteering visible”
I wouldn’t want to live off of donations as a result. C@rma needs companies to support it with the projects they deliver. Thanks to these projects, supporting companies can create volunteering opportunities with their employees and have an impact on NGOs. They will also have the chance to create awareness. This is what’s difficult… Making volunteering visible… There is need for two or three companies that are willing to lead and support C@rma for a couple of years enough to create awareness and attract attention of other companies. There are C@rma’s basic needs. Companies that believe in projects, that find them important and are ready to support us with projects we can work on rather than money.
Isn’t there any need in terms of work force?
A volunteer infographer would be great. Also, I am open to recommendations to find NGOs outside of Istanbul. It’s easy to reach NGOs in Istanbul but they aren’t really my principal target audience as they know how to reach for volunteers. It’s difficult to reach NGOs outside Istanbul and assess them. So recommendations in this respect would be very valuable for me.