Author's note: I thank all of the people I interviewed, talked to, or spent time with during this research. I am grateful for their time and patience. I am also very grateful to the editors and reviewers for their comments and suggestions, which improved the paper immensely. Any mistakes are my own.

¹ Names and other information about the individuals have been changed, and some interviews and information have been aggregated, to ensure anonymity. This was necessary because some of the volunteers and employers I talked to were very active and well known in the organizations, so it would have been almost impossible to keep confidentiality otherwise. I met most of my interviewees with the help of the organizations mentioned in the article; once I had initial contact, I was able to meet other donors and volunteers with the help of those I interviewed.

² As part of the process of documenting the legitimacy of potential aid recipients’ need, DF sent volunteers unannounced to their houses to fill out a survey form and gather more data. This was called “the social survey.” The volunteers made note of what the applicant owned and talked to her neighbors and local stores to get more information, which aided the association in deciding the proper aid amount, level, and type. I discuss this process and other technological tools used by DF in Isik, Damla, “The Specter and Reality of Corruption in State and Civil Society: Privatizing and Auditing Poor Relief in Turkey,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 32 (2012): 57–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Amy Singer highlights possible motivations of charitable giving as “a reflection of a donor's wishes, inspired by spiritual, social, economic, or political motives, possibly including self-interest and ambition. Attaining paradise in the afterlife or social standing among the living, seeking economic advantage through tax reduction or protection of property, and consolidating the support of constituencies all constitute possible motives for what may be termed charitable or beneficent acts.” Singer, Amy, “Serving Up Charity: The Ottoman Public Kitchen,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35 (2005): 481–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁷ http://www.ihh.org.tr/en/main/pages/hakkimizda/114.

⁸ A group of civilian ships organized by IHH, which carried 750 humanitarian workers and loads of humanitarian aid, was intercepted and attacked by Israel on international waters in May 2010.

⁹ On different types of vakıfs within the Ottoman Empire, see Singer, Charity in Islamic Societies; and Barnes, John Robert, An Introduction to Religious Foundations in the Ottoman Empire (Leiden: Brill, 1986)Google Scholar. For detailed information on vakıf regulation, registration, and organization structures, see Benthall, Jonathan and Bellion-Jourdan, Jerome, The Charitable Crescent: Politics of Aid in the Muslim World (London: I. B. Tauris, 2003)Google Scholar. The website of the General Directorate of Foundations contains valuable information and data on current vakıf legislation in Turkey: see http://www.vgm.gov.tr/.

¹⁰ Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficience, 165.

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¹³ Throughout Constructing Ottoman Beneficience, Singer documents how vakıf reforms were part of modernization efforts that created centralized institutions and bureaucracies, including governmental ministries that controlled poverty distribution. Benthall and Bellion-Jourdan, in The Charitable Crescent, note how, at the start of the 19th century, between half and two-thirds of all property in the Ottoman Empire was held as waqf. See also Ibrahim, Barbara Lethem and Sherif, Dina H., eds., From Charity to Social Change: Trends in Arabic Philanthropy (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. T.C. Başbakanlık Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü (T.R. Prime Ministry Directorate General of Foundations) and the civil society organization Türkiye Üçüncü Sektör Vakfı (Third Sector Foundation of Turkey) both track contemporary philanthropic endeavors in Turkey. See http://www.vgm.gov.tr/ and http://www.tusev.org.tr/tr.

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¹⁸ Bikmen, Türkiye'de Hayırseverlik, 14.

¹⁹ Kristina Kamp, “Starting Up in Turkey: Turkey's Top NGOs,” Today's Zaman, 18 March 2009, http:/www.todayszaman.com/tz_web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=169902.

²⁰ Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence, 25.

²¹ For the full text of the Waqf Law, Law Number 5737, see http://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/MevzuatMetin/1.5.5737.pdf (accessed 6 January 2014).

²² For Law No. 5253, see http://www.alomaliye.com/5253_sayili_kanun_dernekler_kanunu.htm (accessed 6 January 2014).

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⁵¹ Osman Nuri Topbaş, “Allah'a Verilen Karz-ı Hasen (Güzel Borç–Infak),” http:/www.osmannuritopbas.com/altinoluk-dergisi/allah-a-verilen-karz-i-hasen-guzel-borc-infak.html (accessed 2 August 2010).

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⁵⁶ Please see note 2.

⁵⁷ Historically, giving to beggars was not considered negative. As Singer (Charity in Islamic Societies, 155) discusses, Muslim texts document the fact that beggars and Sufis were tolerated before the 19th and 20th centuries. With modernization and urbanization, the vagrant poor gained a negative connotation. See also Ener, Managing Egypt's Poor, 26–49; and Foucault, Michel, “Governmentality,” in The Essential Foucault: Selections from the Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, ed. Rose, N. and Rabinow, P. (New York: New Press, 1977), 229–45Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Benthall and Bellion-Jourdan, The Charitable Crescent, 10.

⁵⁹ For a longer discussion on the politics of charitable giving, see ibid.

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⁶⁶ Lemke, “The Birth of Biopolitics,” 201.