Nilüfer is a district of the metropolitan city of Bursa and is divided into 64 neighbourhoods. Here, social entrepreneurship has become increasingly important thanks to its capacity to generate social benefit for a sustainable society, and to contribute significantly to the welfare of the country.
In Nilüfer Municipality, social entrepreneurs agreed on the main requirements needed to produce solutions to social problems and be able to lead social entrepreneurship in the municipality. Hence, they started to support the work of the Nilüfer Municipality Innovation Centre.
As a result of this collaboration, the Social Entrepreneurship Centre (SEC) platform was established. In this context, Nilüfer Municipality and social entrepreneur actors, who implemented social business models, could cooperate and ensure that social projects reach all segments of the society. Sharing know-how and experiences with these partners on social entrepreneurship has ensured the development of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Nilüfer district. Therefore, the SEC platform increased the Municipality’s capacity on social entrepreneurship and brought more effective solutions to the social problems of the society.
The Nilüfer SEC is the first Turkish social entrepreneurship centre in local government. It aims to make social impact in sectors such as economics, environment, climate change, innovation and agriculture, and this is possible by working with the social entrepreneurs’ supports and producing permanent solutions to problems related to the Sustainable Development Goals.
The specific objectives of the project were to:
- establish an umbrella organisation to empower the social entrepreneurship ecosystem of Bursa city and to increase its capacity in this area;
- develop and support social business ideas that will create social impact by increasing the capacity of potential social entrepreneurs in Bursa;
- develop an exemplary model and applicable operating mechanism for local governments on social entrepreneurship;
- raise awareness about the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship.
As a result of SEC’s actions, potential social entrepreneur candidates could see their capacity increased thanks to the training and activities offered. The centre provides training and activity space, a prototyping area, shared office space for social entrepreneurs, socialising space and administrative offices within a 500 m2 area.