Mar 28, 2023·edited Mar 29, 2023Liked by Ahmed Shaikh
I think its important to look at the bigger picture and not just Launchgood in a vacuum. Launchgood is a big contributor to what seems to be Muslim charity space thrives on a lack of transparency and seems to be circulating substantial % of donor funds amongst itself.
I share several examples below to illustrate this.
For all the examples below, lets assume that we are dealing with Sadaqah funds, not zakat (which would make things even more problematic). Therefore funds are fully fungible between admin and programmatic, and between campaigns.
Lets take Brother Abdullah's example below (and thank you very much for your detailed response):
He states:
"I paid $3,000 and raised $19,000 - my fees for marketing was $3,000 and my fees for the bank was $570 - so total $3,570. Not 50% at all." So, launchgood fees were about 19%.
Then, below he says:
"We have an admin percentage of 15%. So we would take that $2,850 top it up and then buy another package."
So, taking into account both launchgood fees and his own organization's admin fees, 34% of the donation does not go to the end user, or what was advertised to donors in the campaign. About 68%, of $12,540 (at the absolute maximum, I would imagine), goes to the end user.
Do the donors know this? Do they know if they donate $100, only about $68 at the maximum goes to the intended campaign?
My intention is not to pick on Brother Abdullah or his organization here; what he is illustrating is just standard practice for the Muslim charity space. And his organization is likely doing far better than others.
We can see this with another typical example of Islamic charity space:
Lets say I have a multimillion dollar international organization. I pay $45,000 in fees to Launchgood, and $5,000 in bank fees for an orphan sponsorship campaign. So, total costs of the campaign in Launchgood is 50%, or $50,000. In return, I make $100,000 in donations.
My organization's admin fees are 35%. So, that leaves %15 left, or $15,000.
Then, I grant this $15,000 to a local country organization that actually does the work They take another %10 in admin fees. That takes away $1,500, leaving $13,500 that actually goes to orphans, who the original advertising campaign aimed for.
So, of the original $100,000, about 86.5% is eaten away by Launchgood fees and various organizational admin costs, leaving $13.5% or $13,500 going to the intended end-users, the orphans.
If someone donates $100 in sadqah to my campaign for supporting an orphan, only $13.5 goes towards the orphan. The donor certainly does not know this, and I can only imagine would not be okay with it.
Why should any average Muslim, whose is required to pay zakat and is highly encouraged to pay sadaqah to support the poor (especially orphans) be okay with such a situation?
Ahmed Shaikh is the Voice of Reason that this Ummah so desperately needs . I am proud that our community produced such a champion . Bravo! The Golden Age of Truth Tellers Returns
My dear you have no clue what you are talking about!! I am a legacy with launchgood! And sadly during 2017 when they had only 6k campaigns and 38k donors, I had campaigns then I also had a campaign once where (not too long ago they charged me $3000 ongoing for example I raised 9k from that 3k marketing then they took another 3k following month!! It was a weekly or monthly charges! Following month I raised 7k then they took another 3k these are not bank fees counting yet plus Omg lol do you know even from what the DONOR donates, LG still stole money from it as I saw how much they paid and how much I received! Do the math that’s 16k minus 9k of marketing fees wow that’s over 50% well over that like 75% or more isn’t it!
and btw advertising was extra oh $1500 for extra newsletter and oh to be on our site for a week was additional $500 weekly I chose sometimes that too!
As someone who has donated to different campaigns on launchgood over the years, im shocked to read this. Yes, Launchgood needs to make money, but my concern here is the lack of transparency.
Up to $50k to be featured in an email on the last odd nights of Ramadan? What?
I think charitable giving should be personal and not a gamification exercise. What do you care about and who is doing good work in that area, and how do you know? If they are local, you should know or you can find out easily.
You should learn about charities from people you trust who have independently researched them. I don’t think people with a profit motive are going to be good at that. I do hope to learn more about organizations in the Muslim charitable space but I know there will be others insha Allah. The mere fact I or anyone else is critical of a charity or its practices does not mean it is not worthwhile donate to it.
If people knew the history, Chris Blauvelt (Launchgood founder) was not too shy to grift with CVE, participating in the UAE’s Forum for Promoting Peace’s “Haqqathon” (and even getting first prize.) He even got a glam piece in New Yorker where he supposedly almost got “radicalized” and was “taking the internet back from ISIS” by making a picture uploading app.
I think Abdallah here is raising a very important point - and there are some very good questions that need to be explored here in relation to the early days of this platform and to what extent the US state dept had involvement (directly or indirectly). Esp in a surveillance economy and with CVE. We do remember ISNA's awful track record with financial details of Muslims during the Bush administration, right? This really does insist on many questions around LG's origin and rise.
I also want to add that though they claim to be a faith-based startup, they in fact operate as a capitalistic startup, manipulating a language of faith - if they were clear about this distinction then hey, we would all know who we're getting into bed with.
We have to be sharply critical of white male leadership in Muslim orgs and spaces - all leadership in general is held to the same accountability standards, but there is an added level of critique with white men in our current contexts. Thanks for this article Ahmed, good to see others asking good questions.
Thanks Ahmed for starting this debate. As someone who's been using this for years, I'm shocked to learn about this. I plan to speak to Chris about this. I think this is becoming a lot more commercial than what was portrayed to the public.
If you were to steel man their business model, you could say that their "marketing" and "new-age" practices may actually increase the total $ of donations. We may not have a double blind study on this but seeing major charities consistently using it is some form of evidence.
One thing you could look into is the cost of LG campaigns vs using google adwords / social media / other marketing spend. This could make or break your argument, save for the transparency/ misleading practices which I agree with 100%.
Is LG contributing to the bloating of the charity sector? absolutely. If we had a choice of this vs a small lean team of <30 people funded by separate campaigns while the LG platform remained 100% fee-free, we would all choose the latter. However, if the founders did not have this in mind its fair to them. Maybe its time for a competitor to enter the ring.
The last point I wish for you to address is on the verification. I assume there is negligence in some cases but I wouldn't portray it as a free for all. You're going to need some solid evidence to make this claim. I have tried to launch a campaign and was rejected time and again because the paperwork was not enough for them to validate the efforts (majority of labor was paid in cash and the team in the Philippines was not trained on bookkeeping).
By the platform’s nature its a marketplace for attention. There are over 7000 campaigns on the platform who want it. Does Bond e shams advertising on the platform create a bigger pie? Does it drown out other perhaps more deserving campaigns unwilling to fork over six figures to LG? If anyone claims advertising in this marketplace creates a bigger pie for everyone, I would love to see the evidence for that.
I don’t know if LG is cheaper or more expensive than adwords matters much. Adwords is an auction market but does not advertise based on roi (effectively setting a commissions). Yes, organizations hire SEMs and advertise based on ROI metrics, but Google or Bing make no promises on that front. They are not charity solicitors like LG plainly is. You get an agency to select keywords and place youtube ads or whatever. Those platforms are not as easy to use or as specific to the purpose of Muslim charitable marketing as LG is, even if LG is more expensive compared to a facebook or bing if you use the right agency, it’s maybe more worth it for the charity. The best value proposition for LG is that you can advertise while pretending it’s not an advertisement with all that religious manipulation going on.
I have written about the use of zakat funds for online advertising previously and I personally don’t believe it is an acceptable use of Zakat, indeed Islamic Relief Worldwide’s zakat policy, as well as the Islamic Council of Europe explicitly prohibit it (sadaqa yes I suppose). The advertising tends to rely on sharp elbows in a competition for territory (booth space, auctions for digital advertising and such)- it is common for Muslim charities to buy adwords for their competitors names. Organizations clearly want market share dominance and are not trying to get people who were not inclined to pay zakat to pay it.
If LG disclosed all the advertising it would perhaps diminish the user experience (since several pages would be dominated by advertising) and undermine LG’s brand as do-gooders working for tips.
1. I am a Muslim and I have a Muslim Lead campaign on GOFUNDME AND they did not REMOVE. LAUNCHHOOD on the other hand did.
2. I don’t know what your problem with LGBT is but not all lgbtq people are by choice LGBTQ I am born intersex and trans by birth I’m both male and female, in Islam I am considered able to be with a woman, which thankfully I’m only attracted to a woman.
No man alhamdulilah. But launchgood does not respect that and have double standard. They allowed CAAIR and other random members of community to openly fundraiser for lgbtqia people and victims of lgbtqia discrimination
But they (LG) REJECTED my campaign where I stated that I will house and feed INTERSEX and transgender Muslims. Did not mention gay or lesbian yet wow they are this.
Blind. But for media to show them off and look good they allowed the masses to advertise and fundraise for lgbtq people non Muslims even!
Where as I want to build a shelter for all minorities but a separate home for Muslim trans and intersex. Born people like me.
Because currently legally I would be told to go to a woman’s shelter if I was homeless and at one point I did end up at many of them.
Sadly life was so hard and it’s a sin for me to be there but on the other hand had they allowed me at a man’s shelter or man’s jail I as a very marginalized Muslim community member being intersex by birth would easily be killed and or Raped.
This is why I’m Raising awareness on the importance of building a shelter for people in the middle like me! I’m a Muslim and want to help other Muslims like me..
sadly only GOFUNDME allows me. But I still have a campaign that’s separate from this it’s showing woman with hijab it’s a program for women Muslim women’s domestic violence shelter and go fund me has not removed it for months now!
So please brother before you mention something like that just know they don’t remove ALL Muslim campaigns just like launchgood doesn’t deny all lgbtq supporting campaigns but they pick the ones they feel they will make more money from…
I will share with you my life and how Islam and homosexuality impacted my life
I was born in Muslim family that was not practicing.
I used to do lot of wrong stuff as a child but I would regret it afterwards I felt regret for my bad actions.
I hated this feeling of regret that came over after I did something wrong
I wished I could reverse time that way I would know what I'm about to do is wrong and I would not do it.
I wished there was some guidance available that told me what is right and wrong.
every time my parents reprimanded me for my wrongdoings they would always say this one sentence "son what you have done is a sin in islam."
to them this may have been a casual sentence but this sentence caused me to ponder to think what is a sin in Islam
as I studied Islam I found out all the wrong things I did were sins in Islam and Islam forbade us from doing those things and that for me was shocking.
I wished I'd learn about Islam before I commited all the sins then I would have less regrets in my life.
I slowly started to practice Islam praying 5 times a day, fasting, giving charity, etc.
moving on when I was around 10 or 11 years of age I realised I am attracted to boys but homosexuality is a sin in Islam.
I had an honest inner dialogue with myself about my feelings.
remember I have understood this fact that if I do something which Allah has prohibited I'm going to regret it.
trust me that feeling of regret I hated it to my very core.
Allah gave humans natural sexual desire for opposite sex and we can only fulfil that desire with our spouse after marriage in Islam.
Allah will not give me homosexual feelings and then punish me for acting upon them.
at that young age I realised these feelings are not from Allah as Allah is just.
inner dialogue: this is my conviction this is my belief that nobody is born gay. I have submitted my will to the will of my creator and homosexuality is a sin in my religion. I will not be a homosexual I am a Muslim. I will not follow desires but I will obey Allah and his messanger Muhammad pbuh. I have chosen my path and my path is Islam.
after this inner dialogue with myself I asked Allah sincerely about my situation and asked Allah to help me resolve these feelings.
I prayed tahajjud asked Allah sincerely that Allah Is ar rahman ar raheem I don't know what went wrong how did I get these feelings ya Allah remove these homosexual feelings from me. ameen
I prayed 5 times a day held tightly onto Qur'an.
I did few things subconsciously Subhan allah when I look back I realise they were very beneficial
Allah would not give me homsexual feelings and then punish me for acting on them.
I innately knew nobody is born gay I knew Allah is just and Allah created me to worship him alone.
I put my Complete trust and tawakul in Allah.
100% of my being believed that I was not born gay and these feelings are not natural.
I stayed away from all homosexual content on news social media cartoons anywhere I saw it I actively blocked it.
I held tightly onto Qur'an and sunnah and slowly these homsexual feelings disappeared alhamdulilah.
nobody is born gay this is one of biggest lies of this era.
and your Lord treats no one with injustice al-Kahf 18:49
Nay, Allaah never commands Fahshaa (evil deeds, unlawful sexual intercourse). Do you say of Allaah what you know not? al-Araaf 7:28
Have you seen he who has taken as his god his [own] desire, and Allah has sent him astray due to knowledge and has set a seal upon his hearing and his heart and put over his vision a veil? So who will guide him after Allah ? Then will you not be reminded
I did. I will list what happened for us all. Please do take a read. We should speak to charities to understand what and how launchgood operates. I am one of those and those I speak with have similar feedback as me. Its a good business determined to support the muslim community.
1. I paid $3,000 and raised $19,000 - my fees for marketing was $3,000 and my fees for the bank was $570 - so total $3,570. Not 50% at all.
2. I was made to pay upfront - the marketing package was not allowed to come from my donations raised, they were very strict on that. They also rejected my first campaign saying its not good for donor variety and that I should present a campaign donors would want to donate
3. They offered me guidance and training to raise funds for free. No pressure to buy a marketing package. In fact, we raised a whole lot for our project using their community pages to raise funds as a team - they did not charge at all for this - muslim consultants charge $$$ for this advice.
4. I wanted to invest in marketing, just like we invest in Facebook, TikTok and Google - the model was simple, pay whatever you can afford and get more exposure when you can afford more. Not new to the sector.
5. The fees were standard - but it went to the bank processors, not launchgood, althought launchgood wants people to leave tips (makes sense, same as justgiving and gofundme). No-one has ever complained about their 15% default fee. So I accept their tip model. I'm not sure how many people leave tips. I dont get to see that,
6. In ramadan - I saw their marketing but I was rejected as they did not feel their donors would respond to my campaign as I had run it before. But below is the deal and how I saw it:
Could purchase a $10,000 package. With a no loss gurantee. Their team mentioned that this meant if the campaign raised less, they would refund my money. They expected a 2-4x. I'm not sure how many they sold but lets say they sold 100 of these - they would make about 1-2million from packages. Now, lets say they got back charities 2-4 million - thats no different to facebook (where there is no loss gurantee)
So yes it seems LaunchGood does make money. I don't think thats a bad thing. Muslim businesses should make money. Especially when they are benefitting the community. We have no issue with non muslim platforms milking our communities 15% as a default tip and then using the same funds to target our community. But we have a huge issue with a platform serving the community making millions.
Again, yes launchgood does make millions. But lets just say they made 2 million from marketing. But was able to help Muslims raise 4 million and then give them free coaching to raise another 20 million. Is that a bad thing?
I think the bigger issue is that we the consumers don't know these campaigns are advertised. The lack of transparency is concerning. There is nothing wrong with non-profits spending on marketing and launchgood has every right to make money as they please but most people were under the impression that they are fully funded by generous tips.
I don't see paid campaign tags on their website - i don't have their emails so I can't speak to that.
It doesn't matter what charities want it to say - this is for the benefit and protection of the consumers/donators. It's the reason why FTC mandates creators communicate clearly when they are being sponsored to make a video.
I agree. Emails do state they have paid campaigns. The website is a different story. I pointed this out in the article in the example of Bond e shams, where there was no such disclosure
Agreed - they can add sponsored to homepage on their site. I don't think thats too hard to do. But 1) feels like an easy ask for the public to do and 2) was it even in their pipeline? Maybe it was, maybe it was not.
1. Charity - i work for a large one so wont disclose as I probably should not be commenting for them officially.
2. Yes as it was a newsletter and it did say paid campaign
Also I am seeing your comment about charities using donation funds to pay for another package. Im not clear on what you are saying. Are you saying that charities dont use raised sadaqah funds to pay for marketing? Because damn right they do! 99% of charities take an admin percentage and then use that same percentage to pay for marketing
So where I said I raised $19,000. We have an admin percentage of 15%. So we would take that $2,850 top it up and then buy another package.
Are you saying launchgood should be held accountable for the way charities make decisions about their admin spend? That is on us as charities no?
I mean think about ads right now - did you know there are adveritisng agencies in the muslim sector that charge from the donations directly. Raise x amount and we take 10% from your donations < that is what they do.
I dont think we can hold launchgood to account for how charities decide where they pay for marketing packages. BUT lets just say we wanted them to be accountable - what would they do, ask charities to confirm these funds were not from the previous fundraiser? Audit their books?
That was about a comment someone made that was the money for campaigns came from somewhere else mysterious or as if launchgood has some special money that is not fungible. Its not really about why I wrote the article. He was reaching and I was just pointing out a flaw in his claim.
If you read this newsletter you would know that it’s animated by zakat issues. LG is essentially a commission-based (effectively though not formally) charitable solicitor but it has a zakat policy it uses for marketing and profit to make people think they have standards when they don’t, at least not when it comes to it’s profiting from zakat. I would not expect them to be a charity regulator obviously. If they did not market zakat in particular its unlikely the company would have come on my radar. If they make claims about zakat, especially how it can be used or restricted, then act in ways that undermine those policies (what I noted this year and last), it deserves notice.
What marketing agencies do you refer to and are those registered with any state AGs that you have seen?
Look, if they follow the rules and play fair with donors they can have whatever business model they want and I may not write about it. If they transparently charge high prices that’s more a problem for the charity then the agency or charitable solicitor (assuming they are not pretending to be something while being something else).
LYING please I am one of the first campaigners and LG will not only be sued by me soon, I’m speaking with my attorney in few hours. I have not slept all night after seeing how they treated me and my charity and I have evidence of all of this.
Everything brother Ahmed said is 100% accurate in fact he’s too kind about it…. These people took advantage of me when I was just a “homeless girl needs justice to them!!
They took over 75% of my donations and I slept on the street! Now I’m a nonprofit charity and due to health issues caused by LG from during the days I had to sleep in my car while LG looted my campaigns!
By taking 3k plus even if I only made 7k they would say your campaign doesn’t look great but yet sadly they had no problem taking 2-3k every 2 weeks from me for over a year!!
So please do not ever defend such monsters. I am about to take them down for minority discrimination and CAAIR attorneys will either help me on this or get sued for not taking a case just because they want to continue making money off of LG. So hopefully CAAIR is smart about this.
My media outlet connections my Celebrity PR lady will really expose LG and this is no longer about finances nor lawsuit for money, this is about saving the Muslim ummah from them! Just watch and return here as I continue to update..
In fact, he is spot on. They make millions. Check it out on your own. Do you research. This is a money making enterprise off the backs of unsuspecting, pious and generous, Muslims.
I do not agree with this at all! You have no idea how it’s works internally and how the team Intention is. It is the month of Ramadan and Allah is watching you spread false information. Please spend time with yourself and your consciousness
Okay. Please tell us how it works internally, and if that is different from what we can see, like the marketing program. If there is false information please point it out, I will be happy to correct it, with apologies?
Sensationalist title for views, we need to be better than this as Muslims. I've used LaunchGood for fundraising for my charity and they never take donations from a campaign to pay for the marketing package so this notion of 'up to half your donation is going to LaunchGood' is completely false. Charities pay for their marketing package separately from their admin pot (this could've been raised from various streams, both offline and online fundraising and on any platform) and NOT from the donations their marketing package campaign raises on LaunchGood. You can do better than this.
What charity have you been fundraising for? Please share.
As a Muslim that is apparently better than other Muslims you disclosed you were advertising to donors right?
I actually walked readers through how LG charges and hopefully they understood it fine. You agree that if an ROI of $10,000 is 2x then x = $5,000? The cost of raising that money was $5,000? I hope we agree on the basic numbers here?
Now the money to pay for this was from was from other streams you say? There is some sort of Chinese Wall between streams of donations that makes this all ethical? Please educate us about this because that is fascinating.
LG never takes donations from a marketing package as a fee? So if a charity got $10,000 from an LG campaign and wanted to give $5000 of it to LG to do another campaign, LG would refuse? Can you cite chapter and verse from the TOS because I cannot seem to find it. Is money from an LG campaign less fungible than the rest of the money supply?
I only donate to Dawateislami. No performance marketing. It’s a 100% organic and trusted multinational non-profit, non-political Islamic organization. Look, I am literally one of their ‘word of mouth’ marketers, simply because of how transparent and Islamic they are.
I only donate to Dawateislami. No performance marketing. It’s a 100% organic and trusted multinational non-profit, non-political Islamic organization. Look, I am literally one of their ‘word of mouth’ marketers, simply because of how transparent and Islamic they are.
There’s a big influencer who has a history of fundraising and then money mismanagement. They have, to date, raised $1.4 M for Gaza through launchgood.
The influencer keeps saying 100% of what is raised is going to Gaza and calling people who suggest otherwise liars, and to sue if they are not being truthful.
But based on what you have written, it seems like simply by using launchgood there is a very low chance all of the funds they have raised will end up in Gaza - is that right? As well as - I heard if people have personalized links for a nonprofit they are either given an upfront fee, commission based fee, or both.
Based on your knowledge of launchgood and the info in this newsletter- Is there any way to estimate how much of what this influencer has raised will actually end up in Gaza? I just want people to be aware before they choose this influencer’s campaign over another one.
Assalamualaikum, been following your posts for a while and found your articles to be helpful. Looked into Bondh E Shams (founded by a young professional who works in Goldman Sachs, seems like it won against other non Muslim startup charity ideas in an internal Goldman Sachs competition), and while there were possibly fair criticisms, it seems there was a harsher picture painted for them. Now that it's 2024, I'm able to access all past 3 years of forms. When I looked at their 2020 990, they mentioned being impeded by COVID and mostly doing research. It's also fair to note that those running this organization are professionals instead of full-time non profit workers. While their structure is more similar to a Muslim startup being philanthropic as opposed to a charity org (I appreciate the criticisms you've brought up in relation to this), this past year they do seem to have done work with the money they've earned. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this - is there space for nuance and benefit of doubt for people who are doing the work they are in the context they're coming from?
I think its important to look at the bigger picture and not just Launchgood in a vacuum. Launchgood is a big contributor to what seems to be Muslim charity space thrives on a lack of transparency and seems to be circulating substantial % of donor funds amongst itself.
I share several examples below to illustrate this.
For all the examples below, lets assume that we are dealing with Sadaqah funds, not zakat (which would make things even more problematic). Therefore funds are fully fungible between admin and programmatic, and between campaigns.
Lets take Brother Abdullah's example below (and thank you very much for your detailed response):
He states:
"I paid $3,000 and raised $19,000 - my fees for marketing was $3,000 and my fees for the bank was $570 - so total $3,570. Not 50% at all." So, launchgood fees were about 19%.
Then, below he says:
"We have an admin percentage of 15%. So we would take that $2,850 top it up and then buy another package."
So, taking into account both launchgood fees and his own organization's admin fees, 34% of the donation does not go to the end user, or what was advertised to donors in the campaign. About 68%, of $12,540 (at the absolute maximum, I would imagine), goes to the end user.
Do the donors know this? Do they know if they donate $100, only about $68 at the maximum goes to the intended campaign?
My intention is not to pick on Brother Abdullah or his organization here; what he is illustrating is just standard practice for the Muslim charity space. And his organization is likely doing far better than others.
We can see this with another typical example of Islamic charity space:
Lets say I have a multimillion dollar international organization. I pay $45,000 in fees to Launchgood, and $5,000 in bank fees for an orphan sponsorship campaign. So, total costs of the campaign in Launchgood is 50%, or $50,000. In return, I make $100,000 in donations.
My organization's admin fees are 35%. So, that leaves %15 left, or $15,000.
Then, I grant this $15,000 to a local country organization that actually does the work They take another %10 in admin fees. That takes away $1,500, leaving $13,500 that actually goes to orphans, who the original advertising campaign aimed for.
So, of the original $100,000, about 86.5% is eaten away by Launchgood fees and various organizational admin costs, leaving $13.5% or $13,500 going to the intended end-users, the orphans.
If someone donates $100 in sadqah to my campaign for supporting an orphan, only $13.5 goes towards the orphan. The donor certainly does not know this, and I can only imagine would not be okay with it.
Why should any average Muslim, whose is required to pay zakat and is highly encouraged to pay sadaqah to support the poor (especially orphans) be okay with such a situation?
Ahmed Shaikh is the Voice of Reason that this Ummah so desperately needs . I am proud that our community produced such a champion . Bravo! The Golden Age of Truth Tellers Returns
My dear you have no clue what you are talking about!! I am a legacy with launchgood! And sadly during 2017 when they had only 6k campaigns and 38k donors, I had campaigns then I also had a campaign once where (not too long ago they charged me $3000 ongoing for example I raised 9k from that 3k marketing then they took another 3k following month!! It was a weekly or monthly charges! Following month I raised 7k then they took another 3k these are not bank fees counting yet plus Omg lol do you know even from what the DONOR donates, LG still stole money from it as I saw how much they paid and how much I received! Do the math that’s 16k minus 9k of marketing fees wow that’s over 50% well over that like 75% or more isn’t it!
and btw advertising was extra oh $1500 for extra newsletter and oh to be on our site for a week was additional $500 weekly I chose sometimes that too!
As someone who has donated to different campaigns on launchgood over the years, im shocked to read this. Yes, Launchgood needs to make money, but my concern here is the lack of transparency.
Up to $50k to be featured in an email on the last odd nights of Ramadan? What?
Thank you always for these information brother Ahmed.
Loved this! Thank you for writing this and raising awareness. May Allah bless you akhi.
How would you suggest Muslims go about "discovering" charities?
I think charitable giving should be personal and not a gamification exercise. What do you care about and who is doing good work in that area, and how do you know? If they are local, you should know or you can find out easily.
You should learn about charities from people you trust who have independently researched them. I don’t think people with a profit motive are going to be good at that. I do hope to learn more about organizations in the Muslim charitable space but I know there will be others insha Allah. The mere fact I or anyone else is critical of a charity or its practices does not mean it is not worthwhile donate to it.
Thanks for the article as usual brother Ahmed.
If people knew the history, Chris Blauvelt (Launchgood founder) was not too shy to grift with CVE, participating in the UAE’s Forum for Promoting Peace’s “Haqqathon” (and even getting first prize.) He even got a glam piece in New Yorker where he supposedly almost got “radicalized” and was “taking the internet back from ISIS” by making a picture uploading app.
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/how-to-take-the-internet-back-from-isis
Not surprised to see him graduating to up-charging $100,000 for the odd nights of Ramadan.
May Allah remove dangerous opportunists like these from relevance.
That was also an unfortunate episode.
I think Abdallah here is raising a very important point - and there are some very good questions that need to be explored here in relation to the early days of this platform and to what extent the US state dept had involvement (directly or indirectly). Esp in a surveillance economy and with CVE. We do remember ISNA's awful track record with financial details of Muslims during the Bush administration, right? This really does insist on many questions around LG's origin and rise.
I also want to add that though they claim to be a faith-based startup, they in fact operate as a capitalistic startup, manipulating a language of faith - if they were clear about this distinction then hey, we would all know who we're getting into bed with.
We have to be sharply critical of white male leadership in Muslim orgs and spaces - all leadership in general is held to the same accountability standards, but there is an added level of critique with white men in our current contexts. Thanks for this article Ahmed, good to see others asking good questions.
"We do remember ISNA's awful track record with financial details of Muslims during the Bush administration, right?"
Yikes! I must have missed that! Would you point me to where i can get more information about this? Jazak Allahu Khayran!
Thanks Ahmed for starting this debate. As someone who's been using this for years, I'm shocked to learn about this. I plan to speak to Chris about this. I think this is becoming a lot more commercial than what was portrayed to the public.
If you were to steel man their business model, you could say that their "marketing" and "new-age" practices may actually increase the total $ of donations. We may not have a double blind study on this but seeing major charities consistently using it is some form of evidence.
One thing you could look into is the cost of LG campaigns vs using google adwords / social media / other marketing spend. This could make or break your argument, save for the transparency/ misleading practices which I agree with 100%.
Is LG contributing to the bloating of the charity sector? absolutely. If we had a choice of this vs a small lean team of <30 people funded by separate campaigns while the LG platform remained 100% fee-free, we would all choose the latter. However, if the founders did not have this in mind its fair to them. Maybe its time for a competitor to enter the ring.
The last point I wish for you to address is on the verification. I assume there is negligence in some cases but I wouldn't portray it as a free for all. You're going to need some solid evidence to make this claim. I have tried to launch a campaign and was rejected time and again because the paperwork was not enough for them to validate the efforts (majority of labor was paid in cash and the team in the Philippines was not trained on bookkeeping).
Thank you for your thoughtful comment Zakaria.
By the platform’s nature its a marketplace for attention. There are over 7000 campaigns on the platform who want it. Does Bond e shams advertising on the platform create a bigger pie? Does it drown out other perhaps more deserving campaigns unwilling to fork over six figures to LG? If anyone claims advertising in this marketplace creates a bigger pie for everyone, I would love to see the evidence for that.
I don’t know if LG is cheaper or more expensive than adwords matters much. Adwords is an auction market but does not advertise based on roi (effectively setting a commissions). Yes, organizations hire SEMs and advertise based on ROI metrics, but Google or Bing make no promises on that front. They are not charity solicitors like LG plainly is. You get an agency to select keywords and place youtube ads or whatever. Those platforms are not as easy to use or as specific to the purpose of Muslim charitable marketing as LG is, even if LG is more expensive compared to a facebook or bing if you use the right agency, it’s maybe more worth it for the charity. The best value proposition for LG is that you can advertise while pretending it’s not an advertisement with all that religious manipulation going on.
I have written about the use of zakat funds for online advertising previously and I personally don’t believe it is an acceptable use of Zakat, indeed Islamic Relief Worldwide’s zakat policy, as well as the Islamic Council of Europe explicitly prohibit it (sadaqa yes I suppose). The advertising tends to rely on sharp elbows in a competition for territory (booth space, auctions for digital advertising and such)- it is common for Muslim charities to buy adwords for their competitors names. Organizations clearly want market share dominance and are not trying to get people who were not inclined to pay zakat to pay it.
If LG disclosed all the advertising it would perhaps diminish the user experience (since several pages would be dominated by advertising) and undermine LG’s brand as do-gooders working for tips.
LG is strictly a commercial enterprise. There is absolutely nothing altruistic about them.
We have many competitors in the sector. Justgiving, gofundme, mytennights, givebrite - whats the difference between these and launchgood
Justgiving - charges more as default tips, non muslim run, no support for charities, stakeholders fund drones
gofundme - support lgbtq openly, close down muslim campaigns
mytennights - 100k per charity for ramadan
givebrite - marketing packages for ramadan, no fees for platform same as launchgood
Where is information on givebright’s marketing program?
1. I am a Muslim and I have a Muslim Lead campaign on GOFUNDME AND they did not REMOVE. LAUNCHHOOD on the other hand did.
2. I don’t know what your problem with LGBT is but not all lgbtq people are by choice LGBTQ I am born intersex and trans by birth I’m both male and female, in Islam I am considered able to be with a woman, which thankfully I’m only attracted to a woman.
No man alhamdulilah. But launchgood does not respect that and have double standard. They allowed CAAIR and other random members of community to openly fundraiser for lgbtqia people and victims of lgbtqia discrimination
But they (LG) REJECTED my campaign where I stated that I will house and feed INTERSEX and transgender Muslims. Did not mention gay or lesbian yet wow they are this.
Blind. But for media to show them off and look good they allowed the masses to advertise and fundraise for lgbtq people non Muslims even!
Where as I want to build a shelter for all minorities but a separate home for Muslim trans and intersex. Born people like me.
Because currently legally I would be told to go to a woman’s shelter if I was homeless and at one point I did end up at many of them.
Sadly life was so hard and it’s a sin for me to be there but on the other hand had they allowed me at a man’s shelter or man’s jail I as a very marginalized Muslim community member being intersex by birth would easily be killed and or Raped.
This is why I’m Raising awareness on the importance of building a shelter for people in the middle like me! I’m a Muslim and want to help other Muslims like me..
sadly only GOFUNDME allows me. But I still have a campaign that’s separate from this it’s showing woman with hijab it’s a program for women Muslim women’s domestic violence shelter and go fund me has not removed it for months now!
So please brother before you mention something like that just know they don’t remove ALL Muslim campaigns just like launchgood doesn’t deny all lgbtq supporting campaigns but they pick the ones they feel they will make more money from…
This is my life story
"man was created free and mandated"
I will share with you my life and how Islam and homosexuality impacted my life
I was born in Muslim family that was not practicing.
I used to do lot of wrong stuff as a child but I would regret it afterwards I felt regret for my bad actions.
I hated this feeling of regret that came over after I did something wrong
I wished I could reverse time that way I would know what I'm about to do is wrong and I would not do it.
I wished there was some guidance available that told me what is right and wrong.
every time my parents reprimanded me for my wrongdoings they would always say this one sentence "son what you have done is a sin in islam."
to them this may have been a casual sentence but this sentence caused me to ponder to think what is a sin in Islam
as I studied Islam I found out all the wrong things I did were sins in Islam and Islam forbade us from doing those things and that for me was shocking.
I wished I'd learn about Islam before I commited all the sins then I would have less regrets in my life.
I slowly started to practice Islam praying 5 times a day, fasting, giving charity, etc.
moving on when I was around 10 or 11 years of age I realised I am attracted to boys but homosexuality is a sin in Islam.
I had an honest inner dialogue with myself about my feelings.
remember I have understood this fact that if I do something which Allah has prohibited I'm going to regret it.
trust me that feeling of regret I hated it to my very core.
Allah gave humans natural sexual desire for opposite sex and we can only fulfil that desire with our spouse after marriage in Islam.
Allah will not give me homosexual feelings and then punish me for acting upon them.
at that young age I realised these feelings are not from Allah as Allah is just.
inner dialogue: this is my conviction this is my belief that nobody is born gay. I have submitted my will to the will of my creator and homosexuality is a sin in my religion. I will not be a homosexual I am a Muslim. I will not follow desires but I will obey Allah and his messanger Muhammad pbuh. I have chosen my path and my path is Islam.
after this inner dialogue with myself I asked Allah sincerely about my situation and asked Allah to help me resolve these feelings.
I prayed tahajjud asked Allah sincerely that Allah Is ar rahman ar raheem I don't know what went wrong how did I get these feelings ya Allah remove these homosexual feelings from me. ameen
I prayed 5 times a day held tightly onto Qur'an.
I did few things subconsciously Subhan allah when I look back I realise they were very beneficial
Allah would not give me homsexual feelings and then punish me for acting on them.
I innately knew nobody is born gay I knew Allah is just and Allah created me to worship him alone.
I put my Complete trust and tawakul in Allah.
100% of my being believed that I was not born gay and these feelings are not natural.
I stayed away from all homosexual content on news social media cartoons anywhere I saw it I actively blocked it.
I held tightly onto Qur'an and sunnah and slowly these homsexual feelings disappeared alhamdulilah.
nobody is born gay this is one of biggest lies of this era.
and your Lord treats no one with injustice al-Kahf 18:49
Nay, Allaah never commands Fahshaa (evil deeds, unlawful sexual intercourse). Do you say of Allaah what you know not? al-Araaf 7:28
Have you seen he who has taken as his god his [own] desire, and Allah has sent him astray due to knowledge and has set a seal upon his hearing and his heart and put over his vision a veil? So who will guide him after Allah ? Then will you not be reminded
Qur'an 45:23
remember man was created free and mandated.
and allah knows best.
Compilation of all related research. I loved the part that we have to be generous not naive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oMb-YsQqCJhVtys3b2NprR2fckMHObCT5Q1TR_VXWsI/edit
Youtube playlist - https://www.youtube.com/@CoachZubair/playlists?view=50&sort=dd&shelf_id=5
#SmartGiving
I did. I will list what happened for us all. Please do take a read. We should speak to charities to understand what and how launchgood operates. I am one of those and those I speak with have similar feedback as me. Its a good business determined to support the muslim community.
1. I paid $3,000 and raised $19,000 - my fees for marketing was $3,000 and my fees for the bank was $570 - so total $3,570. Not 50% at all.
2. I was made to pay upfront - the marketing package was not allowed to come from my donations raised, they were very strict on that. They also rejected my first campaign saying its not good for donor variety and that I should present a campaign donors would want to donate
3. They offered me guidance and training to raise funds for free. No pressure to buy a marketing package. In fact, we raised a whole lot for our project using their community pages to raise funds as a team - they did not charge at all for this - muslim consultants charge $$$ for this advice.
4. I wanted to invest in marketing, just like we invest in Facebook, TikTok and Google - the model was simple, pay whatever you can afford and get more exposure when you can afford more. Not new to the sector.
5. The fees were standard - but it went to the bank processors, not launchgood, althought launchgood wants people to leave tips (makes sense, same as justgiving and gofundme). No-one has ever complained about their 15% default fee. So I accept their tip model. I'm not sure how many people leave tips. I dont get to see that,
6. In ramadan - I saw their marketing but I was rejected as they did not feel their donors would respond to my campaign as I had run it before. But below is the deal and how I saw it:
Could purchase a $10,000 package. With a no loss gurantee. Their team mentioned that this meant if the campaign raised less, they would refund my money. They expected a 2-4x. I'm not sure how many they sold but lets say they sold 100 of these - they would make about 1-2million from packages. Now, lets say they got back charities 2-4 million - thats no different to facebook (where there is no loss gurantee)
So yes it seems LaunchGood does make money. I don't think thats a bad thing. Muslim businesses should make money. Especially when they are benefitting the community. We have no issue with non muslim platforms milking our communities 15% as a default tip and then using the same funds to target our community. But we have a huge issue with a platform serving the community making millions.
Again, yes launchgood does make millions. But lets just say they made 2 million from marketing. But was able to help Muslims raise 4 million and then give them free coaching to raise another 20 million. Is that a bad thing?
When was this? What organization? Was the advertising disclosed to donors in that case? I also think businesses should make money.
I think the bigger issue is that we the consumers don't know these campaigns are advertised. The lack of transparency is concerning. There is nothing wrong with non-profits spending on marketing and launchgood has every right to make money as they please but most people were under the impression that they are fully funded by generous tips.
I saw their emails they write 'this is a paid campaign' - this is what was on our email anyway.
If we asked charities - do you want it to say sponsored - would charities even want it?
I don't see paid campaign tags on their website - i don't have their emails so I can't speak to that.
It doesn't matter what charities want it to say - this is for the benefit and protection of the consumers/donators. It's the reason why FTC mandates creators communicate clearly when they are being sponsored to make a video.
I agree. Emails do state they have paid campaigns. The website is a different story. I pointed this out in the article in the example of Bond e shams, where there was no such disclosure
Agreed - they can add sponsored to homepage on their site. I don't think thats too hard to do. But 1) feels like an easy ask for the public to do and 2) was it even in their pipeline? Maybe it was, maybe it was not.
1. Charity - i work for a large one so wont disclose as I probably should not be commenting for them officially.
2. Yes as it was a newsletter and it did say paid campaign
Also I am seeing your comment about charities using donation funds to pay for another package. Im not clear on what you are saying. Are you saying that charities dont use raised sadaqah funds to pay for marketing? Because damn right they do! 99% of charities take an admin percentage and then use that same percentage to pay for marketing
So where I said I raised $19,000. We have an admin percentage of 15%. So we would take that $2,850 top it up and then buy another package.
Are you saying launchgood should be held accountable for the way charities make decisions about their admin spend? That is on us as charities no?
I mean think about ads right now - did you know there are adveritisng agencies in the muslim sector that charge from the donations directly. Raise x amount and we take 10% from your donations < that is what they do.
I dont think we can hold launchgood to account for how charities decide where they pay for marketing packages. BUT lets just say we wanted them to be accountable - what would they do, ask charities to confirm these funds were not from the previous fundraiser? Audit their books?
That was about a comment someone made that was the money for campaigns came from somewhere else mysterious or as if launchgood has some special money that is not fungible. Its not really about why I wrote the article. He was reaching and I was just pointing out a flaw in his claim.
If you read this newsletter you would know that it’s animated by zakat issues. LG is essentially a commission-based (effectively though not formally) charitable solicitor but it has a zakat policy it uses for marketing and profit to make people think they have standards when they don’t, at least not when it comes to it’s profiting from zakat. I would not expect them to be a charity regulator obviously. If they did not market zakat in particular its unlikely the company would have come on my radar. If they make claims about zakat, especially how it can be used or restricted, then act in ways that undermine those policies (what I noted this year and last), it deserves notice.
What marketing agencies do you refer to and are those registered with any state AGs that you have seen?
Look, if they follow the rules and play fair with donors they can have whatever business model they want and I may not write about it. If they transparently charge high prices that’s more a problem for the charity then the agency or charitable solicitor (assuming they are not pretending to be something while being something else).
STOP
LYING please I am one of the first campaigners and LG will not only be sued by me soon, I’m speaking with my attorney in few hours. I have not slept all night after seeing how they treated me and my charity and I have evidence of all of this.
Everything brother Ahmed said is 100% accurate in fact he’s too kind about it…. These people took advantage of me when I was just a “homeless girl needs justice to them!!
They took over 75% of my donations and I slept on the street! Now I’m a nonprofit charity and due to health issues caused by LG from during the days I had to sleep in my car while LG looted my campaigns!
By taking 3k plus even if I only made 7k they would say your campaign doesn’t look great but yet sadly they had no problem taking 2-3k every 2 weeks from me for over a year!!
So please do not ever defend such monsters. I am about to take them down for minority discrimination and CAAIR attorneys will either help me on this or get sued for not taking a case just because they want to continue making money off of LG. So hopefully CAAIR is smart about this.
My media outlet connections my Celebrity PR lady will really expose LG and this is no longer about finances nor lawsuit for money, this is about saving the Muslim ummah from them! Just watch and return here as I continue to update..
Jazak Allahu Khayran for your detailed response.
This is not researched well. I have raised funds with launchgood and this is not accurate.
Thanks for your feedback Abdullah. Did you participate in the marketing program? What did you raise money for and how much did you raise?
In fact, he is spot on. They make millions. Check it out on your own. Do you research. This is a money making enterprise off the backs of unsuspecting, pious and generous, Muslims.
As Salamu Alaikum Abdullah, I would love to hear your side of the story.
The author has backed up his claims with sources including screen shots, which I personally find quite compelling. Would you do so as well?
Wasalam, Sithara
I do not agree with this at all! You have no idea how it’s works internally and how the team Intention is. It is the month of Ramadan and Allah is watching you spread false information. Please spend time with yourself and your consciousness
Okay. Please tell us how it works internally, and if that is different from what we can see, like the marketing program. If there is false information please point it out, I will be happy to correct it, with apologies?
Sensationalist title for views, we need to be better than this as Muslims. I've used LaunchGood for fundraising for my charity and they never take donations from a campaign to pay for the marketing package so this notion of 'up to half your donation is going to LaunchGood' is completely false. Charities pay for their marketing package separately from their admin pot (this could've been raised from various streams, both offline and online fundraising and on any platform) and NOT from the donations their marketing package campaign raises on LaunchGood. You can do better than this.
Thanks for your comment.
What charity have you been fundraising for? Please share.
As a Muslim that is apparently better than other Muslims you disclosed you were advertising to donors right?
I actually walked readers through how LG charges and hopefully they understood it fine. You agree that if an ROI of $10,000 is 2x then x = $5,000? The cost of raising that money was $5,000? I hope we agree on the basic numbers here?
Now the money to pay for this was from was from other streams you say? There is some sort of Chinese Wall between streams of donations that makes this all ethical? Please educate us about this because that is fascinating.
LG never takes donations from a marketing package as a fee? So if a charity got $10,000 from an LG campaign and wanted to give $5000 of it to LG to do another campaign, LG would refuse? Can you cite chapter and verse from the TOS because I cannot seem to find it. Is money from an LG campaign less fungible than the rest of the money supply?
I only donate to Dawateislami. No performance marketing. It’s a 100% organic and trusted multinational non-profit, non-political Islamic organization. Look, I am literally one of their ‘word of mouth’ marketers, simply because of how transparent and Islamic they are.
I only donate to Dawateislami. No performance marketing. It’s a 100% organic and trusted multinational non-profit, non-political Islamic organization. Look, I am literally one of their ‘word of mouth’ marketers, simply because of how transparent and Islamic they are.
There’s a big influencer who has a history of fundraising and then money mismanagement. They have, to date, raised $1.4 M for Gaza through launchgood.
The influencer keeps saying 100% of what is raised is going to Gaza and calling people who suggest otherwise liars, and to sue if they are not being truthful.
But based on what you have written, it seems like simply by using launchgood there is a very low chance all of the funds they have raised will end up in Gaza - is that right? As well as - I heard if people have personalized links for a nonprofit they are either given an upfront fee, commission based fee, or both.
Based on your knowledge of launchgood and the info in this newsletter- Is there any way to estimate how much of what this influencer has raised will actually end up in Gaza? I just want people to be aware before they choose this influencer’s campaign over another one.
Thank you.
I'm not 100% sure who you refer to here, but it's easy to see how crowdfunding can attract unethical people.
Assalamualaikum, been following your posts for a while and found your articles to be helpful. Looked into Bondh E Shams (founded by a young professional who works in Goldman Sachs, seems like it won against other non Muslim startup charity ideas in an internal Goldman Sachs competition), and while there were possibly fair criticisms, it seems there was a harsher picture painted for them. Now that it's 2024, I'm able to access all past 3 years of forms. When I looked at their 2020 990, they mentioned being impeded by COVID and mostly doing research. It's also fair to note that those running this organization are professionals instead of full-time non profit workers. While their structure is more similar to a Muslim startup being philanthropic as opposed to a charity org (I appreciate the criticisms you've brought up in relation to this), this past year they do seem to have done work with the money they've earned. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this - is there space for nuance and benefit of doubt for people who are doing the work they are in the context they're coming from?
I would not donate to any charity that advertises of the launchgood platform, which is a magnet for low quality spam charities.