Launchgood is a money making enterprise. On their site they claim not to charge platform fees, yet to hold a campaign on their site, they charge initially $10,000 and this amount continues to increase if the charity is interested in "boosting" their presence. The more money you pay, the more pronounced the campaign. An utter and complete scam that the AG of MI should investigate.
Not myself, but an organization that I volunteer for during the month of Ramadan. I was very surprised and could only hope we as Muslims have a site we can trust.
I stumbled upon this article while researching the zakat collecting institutes and given the current situation of donation collection for the earthquake in Syria and Turkey. I love all the due diligence that's done in the other articles that talk about different organizations in the US. I always donated to IRUSA but always thought I should do more research about what they do. It was great to discover that they have tax filing that we can check some facts from.
I love this article about how LaunchGood is actually not vetting their campaigns properly because I always had this doubt when I saw some of their campaigns.
Please continue revisiting these issues around Ramadan time as most of muslims get prepared to donate for zakat especially if you get any new information. It's always great to read your insights and keep these organizations in check.
I’m late to the party. Just happened to stumble upon your articles on Launchgood yesterday. So what do you think about the alternatives like sadaqah.io? What about if someone were to create another platform with more transparency?
From a donor perspective I don't see the point of a 5% platform fee, though I suppose I can be persuaded. I would be open to seeing what is out there. Perhaps is donors subscribed to an information service that verified and investigated organizations. Maybe I don't have a good alternative yet but am open to ideas.
I see a great deal of 'things people think they know' on this post. Launchgood did not charge us $10,000 to start a campaign. From my interactions with the website, i have to assume the person is referencing marketing packages, which gives campaigns visibility on the homepage. However these packages generate a good amount of traffic an donations, and a 1 to 1 ROI is all but promised to be surpassed.
I/we are not an organization, we were family trying to raise funds for a life saving surgery. we raised over 15k, and launchgood's fee was $500, further more they matched contributions during a promotional period so they contributed $600, which negated the fee.
When we started our campaign, we had to submit documentation from hospitals and doctors that proved this was not a scam, we had to submit documentation from the hospitals involved to verify the cause was legit.
I can't speak to what launchgood offers for organizations/companies, but i can tell you as a muslim trying to raise funds for a life saving surgery this platform was incredibly helpful.
On a final note, be wary about finding an excuse to do nothing. Many people see the homeless and tell themselves 'if i give them any cash, they will buy drugs or alcohol' however, you can offer to buy them a water and a sandwich, if they say no they want money you can move on.
What was painful to see during our attempts to raise funds to save a life was how many people used 'everything is a scam' to justify not helping at all.
Thank you for your perspective. You say you cannot speak to what LG offers organizations/companies, but you went ahead and did thay anyway. I don’t care what they offer organizations and companies. What matters is value for donors charitable dollars and that there are adequate disclosures of what is happening. You did not speak to those things at all.
I never suggested they charged you or anyone $10,000 to start a campaign.
Some of the links you shared don't show Zakat Eligible. Have you reached out to them directly and they refused to respond? You don't mention any attempt to allow them to explain (or correct) themselves. Also, could you share the email discussions with Sh Birjas? Would appreciate the same transparency you're critiquing the lack of in this article. JAK.
You are a little under two weeks late to the party, so I assume someone at Launchgood read this before you. On this blessed night, thank you for insinuating that I lied about all this. Of course you had the option of privately giving nasiha about how I write this newsletter (such as its worth would be) but instead decided to cast aspersions in a public comments section.
As to transparency, let’s make a deal: I won’t ask you for zakat and you won’t get my emails.
Are you ok? Why so defensive? I literally asked for some data. You're publicly shaming a platform without showing references that you privately reached out (as you requested from me). You wrote it on a platform that allows comments. I had no idea how to privately reach you. I didn't know the comments were just meant to be an echo chamber.
I did not insinuate you're lying, you're the one who brought that up. Also, you not asking for my Zakat makes no sense. What does that even mean? You made some valid points in the article and I wanted more data. However, this defensiveness out of nothing really makes me skeptical now, good job. Fear Allah, read Surat Al-Hujurat, and make sure you practice what you preach.
You missed that I never accused Launchgood of a lack of transparency, or preached it of them. I got the answers I needed. It does not appear you grasped what I said in the article, but it’s nice you are skeptical about it.
To be clear, I don’t work for you. I don’t owe you anything. If you want to go and retrace my steps feel free to do so. It’s not my life’s mission to convince you of anything.
You are welcome to comment. Thanks for making an effort at reading!
You should really relax and get off of your high horse, brother. You're accusing Launchgood of having a worthless Zakat eligibility criteria and claiming they shouldn't be trusted. I was asking you for information to validate why I should trust you (I definitely don't now). This is a public platform where you are critiquing something, so the least you can do is accept critique without feeling like you're under attack.
If you're operating under the "ehsan" umbrella, then update your article with the most relevant information, as your links are no longer valid. Your article seems to have made some of the impact you're looking for, unless your objective is just to tear down Muslim institutions.
As an Ummah, we do owe each other honesty and constructive criticism to make sure we're better as one body. In that respect, you do owe me something, as I do you. At the very least, we owe one another a respectful discourse, especially in public. I asked a simple question and you respond with this attitude. May Allah forgive us all.
You should have started with respectful discourse if you really believe that. Instead you came with assumptions based on ignorance (including making it clear you had not read the entire article). You came to this comment section in bad faith and made it clear from the start. We don’t have anything to offer each other here. I will need to live with the fact that some random person on the internet did not like my article. Thanks for that.
I've read the article, and I've never come in bad faith. Believe what you want, Allah knows what's in people's heart. If you want to be a child who can't take criticism, then so be it. Enjoy your echo chamber.
We'll have to live with the fact that some random lawyer on the internet is trying to teach us where to spend our money, and never providing any justification when asked for data.
Fear Allah. You will have to answer for every word you type. Salam.
I agree with Mr. Sabeel here, please share atleast some proof of you getting clarifications from the platform as well your email discussion with Sh Birjas
This was a couple of years ago, but that's for reading. Sh Yasir Birjas and Sh. Joe Bradord are not publicly associated with Launchgood and its zakat program anymore. https://www.launchgood.com/zakatpolicy
Launchgood is a money making enterprise. On their site they claim not to charge platform fees, yet to hold a campaign on their site, they charge initially $10,000 and this amount continues to increase if the charity is interested in "boosting" their presence. The more money you pay, the more pronounced the campaign. An utter and complete scam that the AG of MI should investigate.
Did you initiate a campaign on LG and find this?
Not myself, but an organization that I volunteer for during the month of Ramadan. I was very surprised and could only hope we as Muslims have a site we can trust.
Yeah, I did more research after your tip and am aware. Thanks for the heads up.
This is not true. An organization can start a campaign and it doesn’t cost $10,000. In fact, it doesn’t cost anything.
You are not wrong, but there is more to the story here.
I stumbled upon this article while researching the zakat collecting institutes and given the current situation of donation collection for the earthquake in Syria and Turkey. I love all the due diligence that's done in the other articles that talk about different organizations in the US. I always donated to IRUSA but always thought I should do more research about what they do. It was great to discover that they have tax filing that we can check some facts from.
I love this article about how LaunchGood is actually not vetting their campaigns properly because I always had this doubt when I saw some of their campaigns.
Please continue revisiting these issues around Ramadan time as most of muslims get prepared to donate for zakat especially if you get any new information. It's always great to read your insights and keep these organizations in check.
Unfortunately I and skme of my relatives fell trap to this scoundrel.
solid investigative journalism
Great article, confirming what I suspect by default about many sites, unfortunately. Thanks.
Great investigation work! May Allah bless you!
I’m late to the party. Just happened to stumble upon your articles on Launchgood yesterday. So what do you think about the alternatives like sadaqah.io? What about if someone were to create another platform with more transparency?
From a donor perspective I don't see the point of a 5% platform fee, though I suppose I can be persuaded. I would be open to seeing what is out there. Perhaps is donors subscribed to an information service that verified and investigated organizations. Maybe I don't have a good alternative yet but am open to ideas.
I see a great deal of 'things people think they know' on this post. Launchgood did not charge us $10,000 to start a campaign. From my interactions with the website, i have to assume the person is referencing marketing packages, which gives campaigns visibility on the homepage. However these packages generate a good amount of traffic an donations, and a 1 to 1 ROI is all but promised to be surpassed.
I/we are not an organization, we were family trying to raise funds for a life saving surgery. we raised over 15k, and launchgood's fee was $500, further more they matched contributions during a promotional period so they contributed $600, which negated the fee.
When we started our campaign, we had to submit documentation from hospitals and doctors that proved this was not a scam, we had to submit documentation from the hospitals involved to verify the cause was legit.
I can't speak to what launchgood offers for organizations/companies, but i can tell you as a muslim trying to raise funds for a life saving surgery this platform was incredibly helpful.
On a final note, be wary about finding an excuse to do nothing. Many people see the homeless and tell themselves 'if i give them any cash, they will buy drugs or alcohol' however, you can offer to buy them a water and a sandwich, if they say no they want money you can move on.
What was painful to see during our attempts to raise funds to save a life was how many people used 'everything is a scam' to justify not helping at all.
Thank you for your perspective. You say you cannot speak to what LG offers organizations/companies, but you went ahead and did thay anyway. I don’t care what they offer organizations and companies. What matters is value for donors charitable dollars and that there are adequate disclosures of what is happening. You did not speak to those things at all.
I never suggested they charged you or anyone $10,000 to start a campaign.
Overall good work, the only thing I want to mention is that the YouTube channel does not seem to mention Zakat? Did they change that?
Yes, and a few other things.
I always wondered the same - how is any of this verified ?
How is any zakat verified?
It is an..awkward term to use...because it begs the question : By whom ?
Well as their terms of use say they don’t verify anything its an unfortunate marketing term for them.
Some of the links you shared don't show Zakat Eligible. Have you reached out to them directly and they refused to respond? You don't mention any attempt to allow them to explain (or correct) themselves. Also, could you share the email discussions with Sh Birjas? Would appreciate the same transparency you're critiquing the lack of in this article. JAK.
You are a little under two weeks late to the party, so I assume someone at Launchgood read this before you. On this blessed night, thank you for insinuating that I lied about all this. Of course you had the option of privately giving nasiha about how I write this newsletter (such as its worth would be) but instead decided to cast aspersions in a public comments section.
As to transparency, let’s make a deal: I won’t ask you for zakat and you won’t get my emails.
Are you ok? Why so defensive? I literally asked for some data. You're publicly shaming a platform without showing references that you privately reached out (as you requested from me). You wrote it on a platform that allows comments. I had no idea how to privately reach you. I didn't know the comments were just meant to be an echo chamber.
I did not insinuate you're lying, you're the one who brought that up. Also, you not asking for my Zakat makes no sense. What does that even mean? You made some valid points in the article and I wanted more data. However, this defensiveness out of nothing really makes me skeptical now, good job. Fear Allah, read Surat Al-Hujurat, and make sure you practice what you preach.
Alhamdulillah I’m fine.
You missed that I never accused Launchgood of a lack of transparency, or preached it of them. I got the answers I needed. It does not appear you grasped what I said in the article, but it’s nice you are skeptical about it.
To be clear, I don’t work for you. I don’t owe you anything. If you want to go and retrace my steps feel free to do so. It’s not my life’s mission to convince you of anything.
You are welcome to comment. Thanks for making an effort at reading!
You should really relax and get off of your high horse, brother. You're accusing Launchgood of having a worthless Zakat eligibility criteria and claiming they shouldn't be trusted. I was asking you for information to validate why I should trust you (I definitely don't now). This is a public platform where you are critiquing something, so the least you can do is accept critique without feeling like you're under attack.
If you're operating under the "ehsan" umbrella, then update your article with the most relevant information, as your links are no longer valid. Your article seems to have made some of the impact you're looking for, unless your objective is just to tear down Muslim institutions.
As an Ummah, we do owe each other honesty and constructive criticism to make sure we're better as one body. In that respect, you do owe me something, as I do you. At the very least, we owe one another a respectful discourse, especially in public. I asked a simple question and you respond with this attitude. May Allah forgive us all.
You should have started with respectful discourse if you really believe that. Instead you came with assumptions based on ignorance (including making it clear you had not read the entire article). You came to this comment section in bad faith and made it clear from the start. We don’t have anything to offer each other here. I will need to live with the fact that some random person on the internet did not like my article. Thanks for that.
I've read the article, and I've never come in bad faith. Believe what you want, Allah knows what's in people's heart. If you want to be a child who can't take criticism, then so be it. Enjoy your echo chamber.
We'll have to live with the fact that some random lawyer on the internet is trying to teach us where to spend our money, and never providing any justification when asked for data.
Fear Allah. You will have to answer for every word you type. Salam.
I agree with Mr. Sabeel here, please share atleast some proof of you getting clarifications from the platform as well your email discussion with Sh Birjas
This was a couple of years ago, but that's for reading. Sh Yasir Birjas and Sh. Joe Bradord are not publicly associated with Launchgood and its zakat program anymore. https://www.launchgood.com/zakatpolicy