Family of Turkish Philanthropists Among Winners of Carnegie Medals

The prize: 2009 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, which celebrates donors who embody Andrew Carnegie’s ideals that with wealth comes responsibility and that private wealth should advance the public good.

Winners: The Koçs, a family in Turkey that runs one of Europe’s largest private foundations, and the American philanthropists Michael R. Bloomberg, Gordon and Betty Moore, and Sanford and Joan Weill.

Why the Koçs won: Praised by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for their “strong sense of duty” to their country and its people, the family has supported improvements to Turkey’s health-care system, established a university in Istanbul, sought to preserve the nation’s cultural heritage, and worked to fight environmental degradation. The Vehbi Koç Foundation, created by the family’s patriarch in 1969 with shares in his company Koç Holding, has roughly $800-million in assets. The company has since been run by Vehbi Koç’s son, Rahmi, and now his grandson, Mustafa.

The Koç family’s views on giving: “Our founder Vehbi Koç’s concept of social responsibility extended beyond ‘philanthropy’ to giving direction to society,” wrote Mustafa Koç in an e-mail message to The Chronicle. For example, long before the issues of family planning and deforestation became hot topics, Vehbi Koç recognized the importance of fostering the creation of nonprofit groups to work with government and business leaders on those issues.