Success in Philanthropic Corporate Social Responsibility: The Case of Turkey

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is about a firm’s activities in its social, economic and environmental performance—its triple bottom line. CSR has received considerable attention due to changing consumer expectations and failure of governments to solve many social problems. One of the concentrations in CSR is on philanthropic responsibilities, which supports that a company should assist projects that will enhance community’s quality of life (Lantos, 2001). Philanthropy is used as a means of public relations in order to promote company’s image or brand through cause-related marketing or other types of sponsorships. Every philanthropic CSR initiative has to be planned taking into consideration the stakeholders, company, and context. Stakeholder expectations and perceptions vary from culture to culture, from country to country, and current topics of interest or happenings in that specific environment. The aim of this paper is to draw evidence from CSR practices in an emerging market, Turkey, to shed light on some types of local philanthropic CSR activities that have gained acceptance, appreciation, and sometimes criticism of the society; so that, companies willing to initiate philanthropic CSR projects in emerging markets are inspired in the process. Two cases were selected, Sabancı Holding, and Borusan Holding. Both companies are well-known, leading conglomerates of the country, are considered by the public and the business world among the leaders of CSR in Turkey. Sabancı Holding was included in the study to provide a positive example since the holding’s chairwoman, Güler Sabancı, was recently awarded “The Clinton Global Citizen” due to her contributions to the welfare of the women and young girls in Turkey. Borusan Holding, on the other hand, was included in the study since it recently suffered public criticisms due to the “supposedly” discriminatory acts in handling their sponsorship contract (Başörtüsü 2011). While the CSR projects contributed to Sabancı’s image in a positive way, Borusan’s image was negatively affected. In topic selection, Sabancı Holding spared its resources on areas that are more pressing as needs of the general society such as education and welfare of the underprivileged in society. The CSR topics of Sabancı were accepted and embraced more by the masses, and Sabancı and Güler Sabancı got awareness, popularity, liking, and preference of the public for their CSR activities. Borusan Holding, on the other hand, apart from its support for education, focused on projects that attract the attention of the elitist minority in the country such as motorsports and Western classical music. When one small mistake on in one of these niche CSR activities occurred, criticism of the masses, even though they were not part of the target market, was raised in traditional and social media, punishing Borusan for missing out facts related to certain sensitive issues in Turkey. Overall, the results of the study show that the topics that are accepted by the general public are the “safe” way to reach effective CSR solutions. Of course, niche areas should not be neglected. As these niche areas are selected, besides the primary target markets of the brands, the interest and feelings of the general public should also be taken into account. A delicate balance is needed for observing the reflections of every act in the mass market.