Origin from 1924
The General Directorate of Foundations (Vakiflar Genel Mudurlugu, VGM) is the Turkish state body responsible for administering and auditing vakif, waqf-type charitable foundations under Turkish civil law, founded in 1924. It directly manages foundations left without a living founder or trustee and audits others that retain their own management, overseeing historic mosques, schools and other charitable real estate across the country. For decades it also held a controlling stake in one of Turkey's largest banks, VakifBank, until that stake was transferred to the national treasury at the end of 2019.
Facts
Finances
Institutional Wealth or FinancesThe General Directorate of Foundations held a controlling stake of 58.51 percent in VakifBank, one of Turkey's largest banks by assets, until that holding was transferred by presidential decree to the Ministry of Treasury and Finance on 11 December 2019, according to VakifBank's own ownership records. This was a historical holding rather than a current one; the Directorate does not hold this stake today, and no valuation of its present-day real estate and foundation-oversight assets, as distinct from this former bank stake, is recorded here. 1 Basis of the Wealth Figure Financial Disclosure RegimeThe General Directorate of Foundations publishes yearly budget and financial tables and is separately audited by Turkey's national Court of Accounts, but these are Turkish-language government financial statements rather than a single public headline figure, and no consolidated valuation of the real estate and foundation assets it administers nationwide was found. Its one widely documented monetary figure was a bank shareholding it no longer holds, disclosed through the bank's own investor records rather than through the Directorate's own reporting. 1 Wealth Figure As Of YearThe date the holding was transferred away, per the presidential decree; the date the described state ended rather than a date it began. Origins
Origin Period FounderNo individual founder; established as a Turkish state body under Turkish civil law. 1 FoundedFounded in 1924 as the Turkish state body responsible for administering and auditing vakif, waqf-type charitable foundations under Turkish civil law. 1 Status
Current StatusContinues today to directly manage foundations left without a living founder or trustee and to audit others that retain their own management, overseeing historic mosques, schools and other charitable real estate across Turkey; it held a controlling stake in VakifBank until that stake was transferred to the national treasury at the end of 2019. 1 Learn More
A Century-Old Steward of Turkey's Waqf Foundations
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The General Directorate of Foundations, known in Turkish as Vakiflar Genel Mudurlugu (VGM), was founded in 1924 as the Turkish state body responsible for administering and auditing vakif, waqf-type charitable foundations under Turkish civil law. Its founding sits in the same year the Ottoman caliphate was abolished, placing VGM among the institutions the new Turkish republic built to take over functions religious authorities had previously held.
VGM's mandate splits into two different jobs handled the same way institutions elsewhere split trusteeship from oversight. It directly manages foundations left without a living founder or trustee, stepping in as the operator itself, and separately audits other foundations that retain their own management, checking rather than running them. Across both roles it oversees historic mosques, schools and other charitable real estate spanning the country.
A century after its founding, VGM continues both functions side by side, direct management where a foundation has no one left to run it, and audit oversight where one still does, a division of labour set at the institution's founding that has outlasted the century of Turkish political change around it.
A Bank Stake It No Longer Holds
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
For decades VGM held a controlling stake, 58.51 percent, in VakifBank, one of Turkey's largest banks by assets, a striking holding for a foundations-oversight body to carry alongside its mosque and charitable-property mandate. That stake ended on 11 December 2019, when it was transferred by presidential decree to the Ministry of Treasury and Finance, according to VakifBank's own ownership records.
The 2019 transfer means the bank stake is historical rather than current: VGM does not hold this stake today, and no valuation of its present-day real estate and foundation-oversight assets, as distinct from the former bank holding, is recorded in the public disclosure record available here.
VGM does publish yearly budget and financial tables and is separately audited by Turkey's national Court of Accounts, but these are Turkish-language government financial statements rather than a single public headline figure, and no consolidated valuation of the real estate and foundation assets it administers nationwide was found. The VakifBank stake remains, for now, the one widely documented monetary figure associated with the institution, and it describes a holding VGM no longer has.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names General Directorate of Foundations directly: "bank's ownership history including the General Directorate of Foundations' historical majority stake and the 2019 transfer of that stake to the Ministry of Treasury and Finance."
Sources
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