Tekfen Foundation

Tekfen Foundation

The Tekfen Foundation for Education, Health, Culture, Art, and Protection of Natural Resources (Tekfen Foundation) was founded in 1999 to provide a more institutional structure for socially beneficial and cultural activities and to help build a liveable future that is in harmony with nature. 

Inspired by the wisdom and foresight of Tekfen’s founding partners and marks its 25th anniversary in 2024, Tekfen Foundation allocates significant resources for the support both of education (Turkey’s most vital need) and of endeavours in culture and art (among the most important of indicators of any society’s level of development) and has also carried out countless projects in these areas. Tekfen Foundation was officially recognised as a “public service corporation” in 2004.

The Foundation is a founding member of the Impact Investing Advisory Board (EYDK) and a member of the Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TÜSEV).

Education

Tekfen Foundation provides unconditional educational grants to successful but financially needy students studying in Turkey and also to the children of Tekfen personnel who are high school or undergraduate university students in order to help support their education. To date, close to 3,000 students have graduated with the help of Tekfen Foundation. Every year the foundation provides scholarships to 600 students. In order that its scholarship recipients may embark upon their careers with a better-informed awareness of what it is that they want to do, the foundation also arranges mentoring for them at Tekfen Group companies.

By tradition, Tekfen Foundation hosts a “Tekfen Scholarship Recipients Gathering” every year to give students a chance to become better acquainted with Tekfen and to receive guidance on matters of concern to their future.

In 2019, Tekfen Foundation added to its support for classical music with the introduction of a music scholarship programme. The programme, whose aim is to help train talented musicians not just for the Tekfen Philharmonic but also for all orchestras in Turkey, provides students who want to pursue a career as a professional orchestra musician with the opportunity to continue their undergraduate education abroad.

Within the scope of the "Achievement Scholarship" conducted by Istanbul Technical University (ITU), a collaboration was established to provide scholarships to three students, jointly selected by ITU and the Tekfen Foundation, from the 2022-2023 academic year until their graduation.

In addition to its scholarship programs, the Tekfen Foundation also supports education through individual donations to schools. The Foundation covers the annual maintenance and repair needs of the Tekfen Foundation Special Education Application School, which was built for children with autism in Ceyhan Pamukeli and delivered to the Ministry of National Education in 2013. It also assists in providing training, seminars, and publications aimed at the professional development of teachers.

Having joined the Education Reform Initiative (ERG) in 2017 as a corporate sponsor, Tekfen Foundation continued to support the initiative’s activities in 2025. ERG is an independent and not-for-profit organisation whose aim is to come up with common-sense ways to contribute to a systemic transformation of education for the benefit of children and social development through sound evidence, constructive dialogue, and stakeholder engagement.

Tekfen Foundation also supports the Boğaziçi University Scientific Research Fund. A “Tekfen Foundation Academic Research Fund” set up within the Boğaziçi University Foundation is intended to generate earnings that will be used to help finance Boğaziçi University Scientific Research projects which have been identified by the Boğaziçi University Scientific Research Projects Commission.

Tekfen Philharmonic

The Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra is a prominent member of Turkey’s cultural and artistic scene. Originally founded in 1992 as a chamber group whose members came from eleven Black Sea countries, the ensemble has since grown into a symphonic orchestra that now brings together musicians from 23 countries in the Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and Eastern Mediterranean regions. A bespoke repertoire of music that includes instruments that are indigenous to the countries that its artists call home adds unique value to this orchestra as a cultural mosaic.

Under the direction of its Permanent Conductor and Artistic Director Aziz Shokhakimov, the Tekfen Philharmonic served as the Opening Orchestra of the Istanbul Music Festival from 2019 to 2023, and again in 2025.

Also in 2025, the Tekfen Philharmonic appeared as the opening orchestra at the Nuits Romantiques Festival in Aix-les-Bains, France, accompanying Denis Kozhukhin. For its final concert of the year, the orchestra, in collaboration with İş Sanat, gave the opening concert of the İş Sanat Kültür Merkezi’s 2025–2026 season on 4 November at İş Sanat İş Kuleleri.

"O da Tekfen"

The name “O da Tekfen” draws from the Turkish word "oda," which means "chamber" in the context of chamber music. This reflects the project's focus on promoting and performing chamber music. Launched in 2022 in collaboration with Boğaziçi University, “O da Tekfen” is dedicated to sustaining classical music through intimate, small-ensemble performances.

O da Tekfen continues its concert programme at various venues.

Publications

Tekfen Foundation publishes works which document the historical, cultural, and natural riches of Turkey while also shedding light on important issues associated with them. Ziyaret Tepe: Exploring the Anatolian frontier of the Assyrian Empire, Özgürlük Notaları (the story of Turkey’s national anthem), Flowers of Anatolia (a record and description of Anatolia’s extraordinary biodiversity), and its continuation Birds of Anatolia are the foundation’s publications.

Sustainable Development

In the aftermath of the mining disaster in Soma in 2014, the Tekfen Foundation opened the Soma Microfinance Branch under the Turkey Grameen Microfinance Program with the aim of creating alternative income opportunities for women. In 2017, it expanded its support to include the Microfinance Branch of the Turkish Foundation for Waste Reduction (TİSVA) in Mersin. Following Soma and Mersin, the Tekfen Foundation opened its third Grameen Microfinance Branch in Bartın in 2023. Through this programme, which aims to support low-income entrepreneurial women in starting their own small businesses, the Foundation has so far extended microloans to a total of 3,366 women in Soma, Mersin and Bartın, including 762 in 2025 alone, thereby supporting household finances.

To date, the total amount of loans provided to women entrepreneurs has reached TRY 38,862,797.

The “Women Farmers’ Loan” project, launched by Tekfen Foundation in collaboration with TİSVA and Toros Agri, to support women entrepreneurs aspiring to work in agriculture, continued to expand in 2023 to include the earthquake-affected region around Maraş. With the belief that women’s active participation in business is crucial to the family economy, rural development and ultimately a sustainable society, the project targets low-income women farmers who wish to engage in agriculture but lack the financial means to start their own business. The programme not only encourages women to pursue agricultural entrepreneurship through flexible loan support, but also enables them to continue their efforts in farming more effectively through training provided by agricultural engineers from Toros Agri.

In 2025, Women Farmers’ Loans totaling TRY 2,444,000 were extended to 173 women farmers, bringing the total number of women farmers supported since the launch of the project to 745 and the cumulative loan amount to TRY 10,035,500 by the end of 2025.