The new name of competition is social benefit

Social Entrepreneur Mentor Ismail Hilmi Adiguzel pointed out that many social problems have been experienced and realized during the pandemic process, while solution-oriented social entrepreneurship has gained more momentum. Emphasizing that the competition field of companies has also changed, Adiguzel said, “Now, social benefit competition will become the most important competition of trade and corporate structures will be intertwined with social entrepreneurship.”

We had a pleasant interview with Ismail Hilmi Adiguzel, President of Social Business Global, on social entrepreneurship, which he also mentions in his book, which he interprets as “the 2nd version of capitalism”. At the same time, we did not neglect to get information about the national and international events and initiatives he organized with the mission of implementing social entrepreneurship more in our country.

Social responsibility, social entrepreneurship and social good are often confused. How would you explain the connection or difference between them?
While social responsibility project is about giving for free, social entrepreneurship is about both giving and earning. I can summarize it in this way. We can think of social entrepreneurship as ensuring the sustainability of social responsibility projects by generating income. Social entrepreneurship includes social benefit, two concepts that support each other, in fact, we can think of them as two friends who pursue the same goal in different ways.

+How did your social entrepreneurship story begin ?

– I was born in Bergama, known as the district of firsts in Izmir. Experiencing the pleasure of being able to touch the lives of people I have never met in a positive way led me to step into social entrepreneurship. I work as an agency president and brand consultant at ”Acayip Isler Atolyesi”. First of all, we transformed the website “genchaber.com.tr”, which we established in 2011, into a social enterprise by realizing the problems that students studying at the Faculty of Communication have in terms of internship opportunities, in order to find solutions and to enable them to gain professional experience. We have designed it in a structure where they can create their portfolios by doing long-term internships and we continue our publishing life by adding a second meaning in addition to its feature of being “the only news site specific to young people”.

MANIFESTO CAUSES A RUPTURE

+ In which period did interest in social entrepreneurship gain momentum in general?

– In 2019, while we were organizing the international Social Entrepreneurship Workshop, the Business Roundtable CEO Club in the US published a manifesto with 181 CEOs. They stated that from now on, they will publish their social benefit balance sheets and explain to the society what they are doing in this field. This manifesto they signed had a huge impact. In this way, all large companies have now stepped into the social benefit competition under the title of “sustainability report”. The reports published every year have actually contributed to this; in a sense, they have enabled the society to directly confront and unite on social problems.

+ What impact has the pandemic had ?

– The society, which was caught in the harsh wind of capitalism, slowed down a bit with the pandemic and had the chance to experience social problems. It has actually become aware of people who cannot leave the house, societies with problems, animals and nature. For example, just as a person cannot see the nature around him in a vehicle traveling at 180 kilometers, such as advertising signs, but becomes visible when he slows down, we actually saw the problems when we slowed down a little. In this way, we can say that there is a lot of interest in social entrepreneurship, social benefit competition and social responsibility projects.

COMPETITION FOR SOCIAL BENEFITS

+ In your book, you interpret social entrepreneurship as “the 2nd version of capitalism” ?

– With the industrial revolution, only the producer was winning. Afterwards, competitive environments increased rapidly and varied. Competition for after-sales service, competition for accessibility, and now with Industry 4.0, many of these competitive environments have actually come to an end and a new competitive environment is emerging. I think that competition for social benefits will become the most important competition of trade and that corporate structures will be intertwined with social entrepreneurship. I interpret this situation as a softening and revision of capitalism, which we define as harsh and ruthless. Since social entrepreneurship is a type of business that both provides social benefits and generates income at this point, it actually destroys the harsh attitude of the previous version, the image that you cannot provide social benefits, you just have to work. In the first version, as you know, non-governmental organizations could do social good but could not make money, and companies could make profit but could not do social good. In the second version, civil society organizations and profit-oriented companies are actually merging and emerging as companies that provide social benefits.

CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS ARE ALSO TRANSFORMING

+ In this process, civil society organizations are also transforming, right ?

– Of course, while companies are undergoing such a major transformation, civil society organizations have to adapt to the second version. They have already started to transform slowly. NGOs that used to collect donations through SMS messages are now looking for a way to generate regular income through souvenir shops or direct sales of products and services. Examples include LOSEV, AKUT and Kizilay. They are trying to expand this market through branding and launching. Non-governmental organizations working in the international arena also generate regular income by selling certain products. In other words, in the coming period, we will see NGOs generating income from non-governmental organizations in order to provide more social benefits.

TURKEY IS A SEA OF OPPORTUNITIES

+Turkey is always touted as a land of opportunities for entrepreneurs.Can we say the same for social entrepreneurship ?

– I think developing countries like Turkey actually have great opportunities for social entrepreneurship. Finland is considered to be the most developed country that has achieved equal opportunity in education, you cannot work on this issue there, for example. But when you come to Turkey, there are many fields you can work in, you can choose the one that suits you best and put forward an initiative. You can actually continue this development in many countries around the world. Because the basis and the most important pillar of entrepreneurship is to solve the existing problem. For this reason, we can say that regions with problems are a sea of opportunities for us. Social entrepreneurship is progressing very fast in Turkey. For example, while there are 800 social entrepreneurs in Italy despite the social entrepreneurship law, an international survey conducted in Turkey shows that there are 900 social entrepreneurs. We can say that the train has not run away in social entrepreneurship yet, and that it is progressing fast and with good projects. However, there is a need for successful projects in the international arena.

DONATING A BOOK

+ The publishing house “Iki Kitap”, which prepared your book for publication, is also an example of social entrepreneurship. Can you briefly tell us about it ?

– I founded Iki Kitap Publishing House in order to ensure equal opportunities in education. We sell two copies of each book printed in the publishing house with the strategy of “You read one of them and we donate the other one to libraries in regions where equal opportunities in education are not provided on your behalf”. Thus, we are the first publishing house established with the mission of donating books and pioneering the development of libraries. As a social enterprise, we have realized a first in Turkey. The trilogy series “Capitalism v2.0 with the updated version of Social Entrepreneurship”, which was prepared by bringing together the notes I took on behalf of Social Entrepreneurship and the articles I wrote, was also published in our publishing house.

WE DISCUSS INTERNATIONAL EXAMPLES

+ You organize different activities for the development of social entrepreneurship. Can you tell us about your work in line with this mission ?

– We organized the International Social Entrepreneurship Workshop in Istanbul in July 2019, which was organized for the first time in our country with participants from 20 countries, and the International Academic Social Entrepreneurship Workshop online in 2020 with Mersin University. Every year, we regularly examine the stories of social entrepreneurs in participating countries and actually put them on the table. Again in 2019, as the institution that organized the most events within the framework of global entrepreneurship week activities, we led the organization of 13 entrepreneurship events in 7 provinces within the Acayip Isler Workshop and participated in these events as speakers. At the same time, we organize social entrepreneurship conferences and trainings in cooperation with universities, chambers of commerce and municipalities as Social Business Global. We continue to explain social entrepreneurship all over Turkey, from Bursa to Hakkari, and we even carry out similar activities in countries where we have representatives.

Source: https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yazarlar/sibel-bagci-uzun/rekabetin-yeni-adi-sosyal-fayda-41862206