President's Letter

We have accomplished many projects since we have started Friends of Anatolia in 2004. As a result, our organization was named as “the Most Active Nonprofit of 2005” and our founding president, Demet Yezgi, has been selected as “the Young Nonprofit Professional of the Year 2005”. We have run most of our – completely volunteer based operations- from our Volunteer Center in Mountain View, California. When we had to close this Center in December 2006 due to logistic problems, our Board had come to a consensus to slow down the pace and reposition the organization until we have a new center and a full-time staff. We call this as the end of Chapter 1.

Since we are committed to build a strong and influential organization, the book continues, and now we have started writing Chapter 2. To read more about and contribute to this transformation, click here.

Transforming Friends of Anatolia through Technology

Dear Friends,

The current direction of the organization is to evaluate the past projects, conduct a needs assessment as well as a feasibility study, then design and implement new strategies and programs with low cost and high impact outcomes, and measure the success of this repositioning. This process may take anywhere from six months to two years. In the meantime, we look forward to stay connected with our supporters and receive their participation for this transformation.

Even though programs and projects may change, the organizational goal is still the same: To build a strong and sustainable institution that is financially stable, is able to hire staff, has a permanent center, is a resource for other community based organizations, and strengthens the community participation through education, volunteerism and philanthropy, and culture.

To be able to bring Friends of Anatolia from here to there, we need to communicate the results of our past work with our stakeholders and enroll them in this transition while we design new programs and projects, build a new infrastructure (more technology based), recruit volunteers, raise funds, and work towards receiving a significant community support. Considering that the organization is at a fragile state and has limited resources, it is important to have a specific written plan to help volunteers focus on the same goal with a clear understanding of what the goal is.

The initial strategy is to use the Internet tools to build a web based platform that connects people, shares projects as well as resources, and inspires people to volunteer and donate. Our objective is to maximize the use of web based tools, minimize the costs, and create an infrastructure that would support local, nationwide, and international access. Professionalism, accountability, and transparency are still the essential principles that would guide our work.

Currently, we use our website to inform people about our work and request their support. For us, the Internet is just a tool, not a project. However, with this fresh perspective, we can turn the Internet into a project or even a program for our organization and achieve our mission. Having services and products that can be utilized through web is not a new idea, but it will be a new approach for our organization.

For example, instead of raising funds through local events and going overseas to execute a school repair project; we can raise funds online, form reliable partnerships with several nonprofit organizations in Turkey whom would execute the education projects and share the results with us, and we would evaluate and support their work. Then we would communicate these results with our donors, volunteers, and supporters. This model is similar to Give2Asiaor United Way.

We can also create different funds to support the great work of Turkish nonprofit organizations and provide our donors with a choice. In that case, we would act as an intermediary organization and a charity watchdog.

Another example would be that instead of going to many different cities and providing volunteer orientations, we can create a video or PowerPoint presentation with audio and put that on our website and even use other web-conferencing tools for live presentations online.

An example of a cultural project would be collecting photos and stories from non-Turkish people who visited Turkey and sharing their memories with others. Instead of organizing cultural tours, we can find the best groups and organizations that provide these tours, and promote their work on our website.

In sum, our website can be seen and evaluated from a whole different perspective. We can not only (1) communicate who we are and what we are trying to accomplish, but also (2) design and implement projects, (3) find, recruit, and manage volunteers, (4) raise funds and cultivate donors, (5) share and evaluate results, (6) connect people with each other, (7) provide know-how and resources, (8) create a platform for social networking, and (9) inspire people to share our work with others or use similar systems.

These strategies could be long term or short term, and they would cut down our costs. At this moment, we shall consider them as short term until we complete the evaluation of our past projects; perform a needs assessment and feasibility study.

We cannot achieve this transformation without your continuous support, so please help Friends of Anatolia achieve its wonderful mission with your donation and volunteer work.

We count on you!

Best Regards,
Demet Yezgi
Founding President