Profit with Purpose: Unlocking Social Entrepreneurship Among Türkiye's Refugee Businesses
A new report commissioned by Building Markets sheds light on the state of social entrepreneurship (SE) among refugee and migrant-owned businesses in Türkiye, revealing significant potential hampered by key challenges, primarily a lack of understanding and a nascent support ecosystem. The study highlights a strong desire among refugee entrepreneurs to create social impact, even amidst misconceptions about the SE concept itself.
Defining Social Entrepreneurship in the Turkish Refugee Context
The report defines social entrepreneurship as creating sustainable social impact through innovative efforts that balance social benefits and generated profits, aligning closely with achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In Türkiye, home to the world's largest refugee population (over 3.6 million), SE offers a vital pathway for refugee integration, job creation, and sustainable solutions to community challenges, benefiting both refugees and host communities.
A Note on Methodology
The report's findings are based on in-depth interviews with 14 experts and entrepreneurs within Türkiye's ecosystem, alongside a survey questionnaire completed by 202 entrepreneurs, 99% of whom were Syrian. This mixed-method approach provides both qualitative insights and quantitative data on the state of refugee social entrepreneurship.
Key Findings: Misconceptions and Untapped Potential
Based on its research, the report identifies several crucial findings:
Widespread Misconception: There's a significant "lack of awareness and deep understanding of the SE concept" among both refugee entrepreneurs and some support institutions. It's often confused with purely humanitarian or non-profit initiatives.
Doubts about Profitability: Many entrepreneurs believe SE is incompatible with profit generation, fearing that focusing on social impact will deter investors and hinder financial success.
Low Application Despite High Interest: While the application of SE principles is low (due to lack of understanding), the study found entrepreneurs show a "strong intrinsic interest in creating social impact" and a sense of responsibility towards their communities.
Premature Ecosystem: The specific entrepreneurial ecosystem supporting refugees is still in its early stages, lacking specialized SE expertise and resources.
Unique Challenges: The refugee community's heterogeneity, instability, origin from conflict zones, integration difficulties, and the immediate priority of basic needs over social impact create specific hurdles for SE development.
Major Challenges Facing Refugee Social Entrepreneurs
The study highlights several key barriers hindering the growth of social entrepreneurship within this community:
Lack of Awareness & Misconceptions: Difficulty reaching potential social entrepreneurs and confusion between SE and charity work. As one expert quoted in the report stated, potentially clarifying a core issue, "The Financial model is the same for both traditional and social entrepreneurship.” – implying this link is often missed.
Funding & Investment Gap: Entrepreneurs fear investors won't back "social" ventures, while investors may lack awareness of SE's profit potential or struggle to find mature social startups. Access to finance remains a major constraint.
Ecosystem Support Deficit: Lack of expertise within support institutions on integrating social impact with business models, assessing impact, and providing specialized SE training/mentorship.
Legal & Integration Hurdles: Difficulties navigating the Turkish legal framework and ongoing challenges with social and economic integration.
Recommendations for Building the Ecosystem
The report strongly recommends collaborative efforts from all stakeholders:
Awareness & Education: Launch comprehensive awareness programs clarifying that SE can be profitable and sustainable. The report suggests utilizing various methods like creating specialized content (written, audio, visual), holding meetings with experts, hosting round table discussions, and showcasing success stories of profitable social ventures. Crucially, this awareness needs to target both entrepreneurs and investors.
Specialized Support: Develop dedicated SE training, incubation, and mentorship programs; qualify trainers/mentors with specific SE expertise.
Investment Entities: Educate investors on SE potential, facilitate meetings with successful social entrepreneurs, create dedicated trust funds, and train entrepreneurs on diverse financing options (crowdfunding, etc.).
Government Institutions: Integrate the refugee ecosystem into the legal framework, provide legal awareness sessions, explore tailored regulations, and potentially prioritize social impact in funded programs. Foster public-private partnerships.
NGOs & International Organizations: NGOs should partner with social startups and exchange best practices. International organizations should direct funding towards specialized SE programs and guide local NGOs.
Looking Ahead
Social entrepreneurship holds immense potential to address challenges faced by refugee communities in Türkiye, fostering integration, creating jobs, and delivering sustainable solutions while contributing to the economy. However, unlocking this potential requires a concerted, collaborative effort to build awareness, provide specialized support, facilitate funding, and create an enabling legal and policy environment. Addressing the misconceptions around profitability and clearly defining partnership models are crucial first steps.
Source: Social Entrepreneurship of Refugee-Owned Businesses in Türkiye Report