42 Comments
Apr 26, 2022Liked by Ahmed Shaikh

I've been forwarding your Zakat pieces around my Muslim groups. Keep up the great, necessary work inshaAllah!

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Apr 6, 2022Liked by Ahmed Shaikh

Very informative especially for non-professionals in the world of philanthropy. Thank you.

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Apr 6, 2022·edited Apr 6, 2022Liked by Ahmed Shaikh

Thanks Ahmed Shaikh for this detail research. Only an irrational person would disagree with you on this in-depth analysis.

Islamic Relief worldwide & Islamic Relief USA are designated as banned organization in several Muslim and middle eastern countries.

They operate in Filisteen 🇵🇸 only through UN agencies such as UNRWA, ANERA, UNHCR, WFP and has been directly funding these UN agencies for the past several years after charging a certain percentage.

They are a banned organization in this region and cannot operate there on its own. They should have been honest with its donors and should have shared all these important facts following the best practices and should have been transparent but unfortunately they have held back this important information and betrayed their own donors trust.

Also in its partnership magazine and annual reports they only show one low amount as its total over head expense. What they hide is the real information related to cash donations and in kind donations. They don’t separate them plus they don’t tell its donors the cut that IRW charges in UK as the implementor of their programs from these donations plus the cut each country office charges. They also do not mention the foreign currency variation for example when the currency is exchanged from dollar $ to pounds £ to dinars D etc their is certain amount of loss.

So what is misleading over here intentionally by Islamic Relief is that a simple hundred dollar donation given by a donor to Islamic Relief in US, later on by the time it reaches the actual beneficiary in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Somalia or Yemen becomes $50 which is 45% to 50% overhead charge or admin cost. This is extremely high as per all standards. This is the actual truth.

Anyone opposing or disagreeing with you on this report is doing so based on emotions or misleading information but NOT based on true merit or facts.

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Apr 5, 2022Liked by Ahmed Shaikh

Salams, I’m an ex IRW worker from programmes side not fundraising but here’s my thoughts on this:

1 - some valid questions raised, IR should be more transparent in the answers and explain better (often explanation is good, but not always)

2 - zakat shouldn’t be conflated with overall funds raised, as the money is dealt with separately (ring fenced) - I.e. when we are told that money is salary funding we are also given criteria on its usage and restrictions. The admin costs of non zakat are higher as the 12.5% cap isn’t there.

3 - admin costs terminology is similar across the sector but not well communicated to the public. Examples of salaries which we won’t consider admins are front line workers such as teachers, health staff in countries etc

4 - Agree on Afghanistan, they should not conflate it.

5 - Agree with the comment that ppl should not see their donation in isolation. The admin isn’t just admin, but it allows for a proper infrastructure to be able to ensure compliance, build a strong team and better support communities. Eg IRW in Afghanistan just signed a $22m contract with UNDP, that is momentous and wouldn’t have happened unless it has the strong team, systems in place which is possible because of ongoing support from IRUSA donors and others

How to improve:

1 - Agree on sharing the zakat policy publicly

2 - Agree on not conflating crisis like Afghanistan

3 - Agree on more general transparency on how money is spent

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Bro, i used to work at Islamic Relief USA. You’re commenting on things you dont understand at ALL.

The problem of over-head cost, for example, is not as simple as a numbers game. If you give me $100, would it be better if i spend that $100 and feed 2 families, or would it better that i spend that on a lunch where i convince 3 member of congress to give an extra $100k to syrian relief efforts? Any sane person would say the latter. But in that scenario, that’s a 100% over-head cost, yet it gets closer to solving the problem. To that point, how do you actually go about solving problems? Is it best to take money A and give it to party B? Or is it better to hire a team of people who are TALENTED, competent, and pros in the field who can actually work to solbe issues long-term? Most of the people that work at IR are pros in the field with college degrees in law, marketing, international relations, development, international aid, etc. and to have a competent staff, you need to pay competent salaries. If you talked to staff at IR, most would say theyre still under-paid and over-worked, and so most leave. We’re talking about talented, competent people, which you need if you actually want to solve issues at scale, not just hand out boxes of food. Your complaint equals to just maintaining the status quo- let’s not actually solve issues of poverty, education, health, lets maintain the status quo because in your eye, efficiency of the donor dollar is the most important thing. While its important, this is a very secular, capitalist, commodified understanding of the world. It’s also a lack of understanding of international finance, the difficulty involved in doing international projects, the changing political and social dynamics, cost of living, etc.

I’ll touch on another point about you comment on the problem of an “afghanistan fund”- the issue is that say, if you give to women in afghanistan, or orphans in afghanistan, and tomorrow suddenly there’s a drought in afghanistan- you can no longer ethically use the funds you have for afghanistan for the drought victims, even if you have funds for afghanistan relief. By allocating the funds to a general field, like the country, it allows the program workers to determine and allocate where its most needed by people who know the situation on the ground- as opposed to fulfilling some wish list request.

These are but two brief comments on a thousand dynamics about the international aid sector which you dont understand. IR has many issues, but the ones you mentioned are really not that important. Most of these issues come from the fact that donors wont donate unless they FEEL an efficient return on investment. Think about that line of thinking- its using a capitalist framework for charity, and thats the whole issue. Everyone knows that for example, the real water projects that make a difference in a region cost $80,000 and last for 10 years. But it’s very hard to fund raise for that, so instead many people want to buy a $2000 well which will last for a little while but people want to have their names on it and pay for a whole well. It’s more about the marketability of programs that actually make a difference. The Orphan program you mentioned is also the same problem. People don’t wanna actually solve the problem of impoverished communities, they wanted to have the feeling of sponsoring a child. The problem is as much the donor base that wants their egotistica sense of saving people as opposed to actually solving issues in the world.

I highly recommend you do more research about these things and understanding the world you’re discussing before posting this kind of stuff which actually will just serve to take money away from poor people

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Almost all of this is speculation. I read this very carefully and very few statements are backed by any factual data. You speculate then build upon that speculation. I wonder if you have a vested interest in a competing organization.

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Stop this nonsense and trying to gain ground for your organization! Shame on you !!!

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While I understand that there is an admin overhead and I try to over calculate my Zakat for some of that , I assume(d) organizations try to use maximum of Zakat money for the actual needy end users and try to cover the expenses from non Zakat funds. If that’s not the case, why do they explicitly ask for identifying a donation as Zakat or no. Is it just marketing?

The way I look at overhead from US organization is that it gives me tax deductions and I put that back in charity.

I can directly reach out to some individuals overseas (local I trust masajid Zakat committee) but that doesn’t give me tax deduction and I have less funds to distribute then.

In other words as long as an organization is transparent, doesn’t have the total-overhead-to-reach-end-user more than my tax rate, it’s fine. So, the key is reduced overhead and transparency and I think that was the point of this article.

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Assalaam Ahmed. Fyi, I contacted a person I know at IRUSA about your article, fairly high up, and they have posted a response on their website. JazakAllah khair

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Apr 11, 2022·edited Apr 11, 2022

JazakAllahu khayran for the in-depth review. If I may ask, do you think that zakat is mandated with the purpose of eradicating poverty and helping communities prosper or is our responsibility simply to move x amount of money from those who have to give zakat to those whom are eligible to receive it? Likewise, with non-zakat charity, should our purpose, as Muslims, be to help individuals attain particular tangible materials (food, water, shelter, etc.), improve the infrastructure of Muslim communities, both or one more than the other? Would like to hear your thoughts as I am seeing that a lot of discussion that happens on where our zakat and non-zakat charity goes revolves around the purpose of our charities.

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Thanks for sharing!

This reinforces the mixed feelings I've had toward donating to IRUSA in part because of their fund-raising tactics that have made me question their operations. A pet peeve I've observed in some of IRUSA's promotional materials is seeing pictures of people in vulnerable positions (impoverished communities, children in desperation etc.) that provoke emotional reactions.

I recall IRUSA calendars having pictures of people in what feels like undignified circumstance. Other US Muslim charities do not seem to use such uncomfortable marketing tactics, which has led me to prioritize them over IRUSA.

I empathize that charity groups do have overheads and need to scale, and that nonprofit staff typically struggle from being over-worked and under-paid; I do feel the "General" category is there to allow for money to be used more with flexibility, rather than what is designated as "Zakat."

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Many thanks. I am interested in learning where or which organizations I can look into where my Zakat dollar can be maximized.

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Very informative thank you!

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Salam brother Ahmed, a bit of topic but related:

Do you know if imams / motivational speakers take a cut / commission from the money raised during a fundraiser? If yes, I think that’s fine but it just needs to be made known what % goes to them during or before the fundraiser. Would you be able to gather credible information on this?

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