Jazakallah khair for doing this invaluable work and making it known.
I'm in the process of estate planning, and guess which organization I had defaulted to when it came to bequests. That's changed, and I'm far happier with the small but mighty beneficiaries I've named today, Mash Allah.
I once had a shaykh whom I really trusted with my zakat. He would make sure it went to those in need and he kept nothing for himself. Since he died, I've not found an organization nearly as trustworthy. I've looked for those with low overhead and great reputations for giving to good causes.
Jun 2, 2023·edited Jun 2, 2023Liked by Ahmed Shaikh
Jazak Allah khayr brother. It's beautiful to see this coverage of one of the biggest charity organizations for muslims. Hopefully this change is for the better.
I redirected my donations away from IRUSA until they fix what they are doing. They should provide more transparency and stick with a more direct and simple money to the poor model.
It's sad that we see non-muslim organizations like GiveDirectly for example having better finances than IRUSA.
Thanks for writing this article. You are amazing. He was an incompetent CEO who got this position by kissing up to his board members. If I have to summarize just in few words his tenure at Islamic Relief then it would be coward, disaster, indecisive & sycophant
I don’t know him personally though it seems like you have personal knowledge. How are you associated with IRUSA? Is there any more insight you can provide on the organization’s dynamics that would have led to this kind of performance?
I appreciate your thoughtful and articulate insight into the troubles and failures of IRUSA. A few thoughts:
-As someone who has volunteered for IRUSA I can say that employee churn is as much of a challenge there it is with other not-for-profits. In fact a knowledgeable and executive level IRUSA team member told me as much (and privately admitted that they felt pressure to get a job in the private sector to make more money, and pay off grad school loans). I understand that this is a problem that *all* not-for-profits gave: how to do you find and retain talent while balancing your responsibility to stay true to your ethos.
I appreciate your reporting on this because I think it is important, but a simple “do better” message is not very constructive. My suggestion for IRUSA would be to look into the not-for-profit space and find an established (and likely non Islamic) organization that has been doing this sort of work for years. Mimic it or contract a team to help transition to a similar model. The not-for-profit world is pretty small and people would be surprised at how helpful people within that space can be.
Marketing and its accompanying budget: in any sector organizations look to make the biggest impact and reach the largest audience. Dumping money into Google instead of Facebook simply means that someone, somewhere predicted the return on invest would be greater than the amount spent. I wouldn’t call this irresponsible.
2. Check the salaries paid at IRUSA, they actually have many career people paid in the six-figures, some in the multiple six-figures. IRUSA payroll costs have increased.
3. The nonprofit world is not small. It’s a trillion dollar industry. Much of it would not be appropriate to mimic. They have been looking to the wrong role models perhaps.
4. “Dumping” donor funds based on a “prediction”? As the prediction crapped out, maybe gamble responsibly? I am not per se against online advertising. I can’t see how it’s okay to use Zakat funds for this (which is what they say they do). In any event, they made a bad decision on this, “irresponsible” or not (that was again, not my word.
Salaam Ahmed. thank you for your response. It's true that your article didn't use the phrase "do better" however I feel that is the general sentiment perhaps you and many other folks express when it comes to not-for-profit organizations. Not-for-profit organizations face unique challenges that other business do not. As a teenager I worked for an environmental group that canvassed neighborhoods looking for donations. We were paid (at that time) 9$ an hour. Many folks would become furious when they found out we were paid, and I always thought..."Who would do this for free?" It would be impossible to operate or fundraise without paid workers.
Regarding the salaries...how do you identify, hire and retain top talent if you curb salaries? I am not asking this to be obtuse. It is a real question. I have volunteered my time at a number of nonprofits (CCAG, IRC, Prisons Foundations, Journal for Palestinian Studies, Islamic Relief) and all of them suffered from employee churn. Not-for-profits will often entice talent with generous vacation and PTO, flexible work options and relaxed work environments, etc. however sometimes this is not enough. At one org that I volunteered for I saw a "Donor Management" position filled with someone very reputable from the for-profit world (they had worked for the Bill Gates Foundation). I am sure they were paid in the high 6-figures range. My guess is they had metrics built-in to reward them for hitting certain goal$ but I must admit it was a little strange to see someone show up for refugee fund raisers in a Jaguar. That said, I was told that this employee had secured decade-long commitments from wealthy individuals and foundations to support the org.
My question for you, since you write seriously about this, what is the best strategy for organizations like IRUSA to hire and retain top talent without becoming bloated and top heavy with exorbitant salaries? I know you have written about orgs that do it better, but is there a model?
I write for donors and not about nonprofit management and best practices. IRUSA has been paying well even before this disastrous management. Even if a small percentage of money is used for payroll that is millions of dollars. If I were a board member (and obviously I am not)- I would question why there are so many high salaries and what actual value we are getting for the outlay. I don’t know if I would change anything because I don’t know. Budgeting and spending controls go beyond that. At IRUSA over the years I have heard stories of wasteful spending from employees by other employees. I am confident IRUSA can pay people and provide value for donor dollars of they got their act together. That is a non-profit management challenge that can be fixed if they measure the right metrics and try to improve on those. There are many no profits that are more efficient.
I suppose my aim in writing about that stuff is to not get into the minutiae of management. Rather, evaluate what value an organization is providing for donations given from the Muslim community. IRUSA is an objectively wasteful donation. There are better alternatives for donors.
4. Your analysis doesn't prove it was a bad decision I'm afraid. I understand what you are trying to get at, but you are a bit clueless about finances. Just because revenues are flat and ad spend has gone up does not lead to the conclusion that the ad spend is worthless. I appreciate these orgs need advice, you need it too.
I would be interested in that but don't have any plans right now. The organization does not have a zakat policy and financial reports are either nonexistent or outdated at the moment. I do hope to review more organizations as time permits. Thanks for reading.
So is my match correct that overhead spend increased by about $75m during that period (~$19m to ~$95). Of FB and google advertising were only ~$5m, do we know what the rest of that increase was spent on?
Let me explain to you what to do for a more meaningful analysis.
1. Find similar orgs. Some will be muslim zakat collectors. Some will be non-muslim.
2. Do a p&l. Revenues, and then if there is a breakdown of overheads, break that down.
3. Then compare the organisation (e.g. IR) to itself a few years ago, and also to other similarly sized organisations (non-Muslim probably), and similar style organisations (i.e. Muslim).
No offence but you're a lawyer...your analysis has so many gaps so am suggesting this so you can do something more meaningful. Anyone who knows about finance can read your "analysis" and point out so many holes in your schoolboy conclusions.
By the way I have a principle I follow - those who give out verbal abuse to others should be prepared to take it back!
Thank you for explaining how you are here for the verbal abuse. I suppose we all need things to aspire to. I am glad you are using my substack to live your dreams.
Aww! If you want to give abuse you gotta be able to take it. And clearly you cant. You’re just a playground loser bully under the thin veil of doing something for the deen!
I’ve simply pointed out some basic schoolboy errors in your schoolboy “analysis” and you’re straight away giving me verbal abuse!
Why not respond and explain to me where I’m wrong instead? Because because…err…
This is personal for you. I suppose I won’t take any of your advice since (a) you are here in bad faith and (b) I don’t take you seriously since you have not exhibited any knowledge of nonprofits. For example a P&L is not an actual thing in nonprofits (you may not believe what the “p” stands for if I told you). You don’t have anything to contribute beyond name-calling, which is plainly the reason you are here.
Anyway, I hope you find peace and have a great weekend.
Jazakallah khair for doing this invaluable work and making it known.
I'm in the process of estate planning, and guess which organization I had defaulted to when it came to bequests. That's changed, and I'm far happier with the small but mighty beneficiaries I've named today, Mash Allah.
I once had a shaykh whom I really trusted with my zakat. He would make sure it went to those in need and he kept nothing for himself. Since he died, I've not found an organization nearly as trustworthy. I've looked for those with low overhead and great reputations for giving to good causes.
Jazak Allah khayr brother. It's beautiful to see this coverage of one of the biggest charity organizations for muslims. Hopefully this change is for the better.
I redirected my donations away from IRUSA until they fix what they are doing. They should provide more transparency and stick with a more direct and simple money to the poor model.
It's sad that we see non-muslim organizations like GiveDirectly for example having better finances than IRUSA.
Givedirectly is great and it would be nice to have that kind of thing in the Muslim community
Thanks for writing this article. You are amazing. He was an incompetent CEO who got this position by kissing up to his board members. If I have to summarize just in few words his tenure at Islamic Relief then it would be coward, disaster, indecisive & sycophant
I don’t know him personally though it seems like you have personal knowledge. How are you associated with IRUSA? Is there any more insight you can provide on the organization’s dynamics that would have led to this kind of performance?
I appreciate your thoughtful and articulate insight into the troubles and failures of IRUSA. A few thoughts:
-As someone who has volunteered for IRUSA I can say that employee churn is as much of a challenge there it is with other not-for-profits. In fact a knowledgeable and executive level IRUSA team member told me as much (and privately admitted that they felt pressure to get a job in the private sector to make more money, and pay off grad school loans). I understand that this is a problem that *all* not-for-profits gave: how to do you find and retain talent while balancing your responsibility to stay true to your ethos.
I appreciate your reporting on this because I think it is important, but a simple “do better” message is not very constructive. My suggestion for IRUSA would be to look into the not-for-profit space and find an established (and likely non Islamic) organization that has been doing this sort of work for years. Mimic it or contract a team to help transition to a similar model. The not-for-profit world is pretty small and people would be surprised at how helpful people within that space can be.
Marketing and its accompanying budget: in any sector organizations look to make the biggest impact and reach the largest audience. Dumping money into Google instead of Facebook simply means that someone, somewhere predicted the return on invest would be greater than the amount spent. I wouldn’t call this irresponsible.
Thank you for your comment.
1. My article never uses the phrase “do better.”
2. Check the salaries paid at IRUSA, they actually have many career people paid in the six-figures, some in the multiple six-figures. IRUSA payroll costs have increased.
3. The nonprofit world is not small. It’s a trillion dollar industry. Much of it would not be appropriate to mimic. They have been looking to the wrong role models perhaps.
4. “Dumping” donor funds based on a “prediction”? As the prediction crapped out, maybe gamble responsibly? I am not per se against online advertising. I can’t see how it’s okay to use Zakat funds for this (which is what they say they do). In any event, they made a bad decision on this, “irresponsible” or not (that was again, not my word.
Salaam Ahmed. thank you for your response. It's true that your article didn't use the phrase "do better" however I feel that is the general sentiment perhaps you and many other folks express when it comes to not-for-profit organizations. Not-for-profit organizations face unique challenges that other business do not. As a teenager I worked for an environmental group that canvassed neighborhoods looking for donations. We were paid (at that time) 9$ an hour. Many folks would become furious when they found out we were paid, and I always thought..."Who would do this for free?" It would be impossible to operate or fundraise without paid workers.
Regarding the salaries...how do you identify, hire and retain top talent if you curb salaries? I am not asking this to be obtuse. It is a real question. I have volunteered my time at a number of nonprofits (CCAG, IRC, Prisons Foundations, Journal for Palestinian Studies, Islamic Relief) and all of them suffered from employee churn. Not-for-profits will often entice talent with generous vacation and PTO, flexible work options and relaxed work environments, etc. however sometimes this is not enough. At one org that I volunteered for I saw a "Donor Management" position filled with someone very reputable from the for-profit world (they had worked for the Bill Gates Foundation). I am sure they were paid in the high 6-figures range. My guess is they had metrics built-in to reward them for hitting certain goal$ but I must admit it was a little strange to see someone show up for refugee fund raisers in a Jaguar. That said, I was told that this employee had secured decade-long commitments from wealthy individuals and foundations to support the org.
My question for you, since you write seriously about this, what is the best strategy for organizations like IRUSA to hire and retain top talent without becoming bloated and top heavy with exorbitant salaries? I know you have written about orgs that do it better, but is there a model?
I write for donors and not about nonprofit management and best practices. IRUSA has been paying well even before this disastrous management. Even if a small percentage of money is used for payroll that is millions of dollars. If I were a board member (and obviously I am not)- I would question why there are so many high salaries and what actual value we are getting for the outlay. I don’t know if I would change anything because I don’t know. Budgeting and spending controls go beyond that. At IRUSA over the years I have heard stories of wasteful spending from employees by other employees. I am confident IRUSA can pay people and provide value for donor dollars of they got their act together. That is a non-profit management challenge that can be fixed if they measure the right metrics and try to improve on those. There are many no profits that are more efficient.
I suppose my aim in writing about that stuff is to not get into the minutiae of management. Rather, evaluate what value an organization is providing for donations given from the Muslim community. IRUSA is an objectively wasteful donation. There are better alternatives for donors.
4. Your analysis doesn't prove it was a bad decision I'm afraid. I understand what you are trying to get at, but you are a bit clueless about finances. Just because revenues are flat and ad spend has gone up does not lead to the conclusion that the ad spend is worthless. I appreciate these orgs need advice, you need it too.
Yes. You have made your opinion of me abundantly clear several times. Have a great weekend.
Are you planning to review Human concern international (HCI) and HCI USA
I would be interested in that but don't have any plans right now. The organization does not have a zakat policy and financial reports are either nonexistent or outdated at the moment. I do hope to review more organizations as time permits. Thanks for reading.
So is my match correct that overhead spend increased by about $75m during that period (~$19m to ~$95). Of FB and google advertising were only ~$5m, do we know what the rest of that increase was spent on?
I linked to the 990s so feel free to see what they have reported. Money is not always spent. Sometimes it just sits there
Have you done a comparative analysis of different charities of similar sizes and operations, both muslim and non-muslim.
Revenue
Overhead category A
Overhead category B
etc.
Would be interesting
I did some articles comparing overhead of various zakat collecting orgs in Ramadan. Check those out.
Let me explain to you what to do for a more meaningful analysis.
1. Find similar orgs. Some will be muslim zakat collectors. Some will be non-muslim.
2. Do a p&l. Revenues, and then if there is a breakdown of overheads, break that down.
3. Then compare the organisation (e.g. IR) to itself a few years ago, and also to other similarly sized organisations (non-Muslim probably), and similar style organisations (i.e. Muslim).
No offence but you're a lawyer...your analysis has so many gaps so am suggesting this so you can do something more meaningful. Anyone who knows about finance can read your "analysis" and point out so many holes in your schoolboy conclusions.
By the way I have a principle I follow - those who give out verbal abuse to others should be prepared to take it back!
Thank you for explaining how you are here for the verbal abuse. I suppose we all need things to aspire to. I am glad you are using my substack to live your dreams.
Aww! If you want to give abuse you gotta be able to take it. And clearly you cant. You’re just a playground loser bully under the thin veil of doing something for the deen!
I’ve simply pointed out some basic schoolboy errors in your schoolboy “analysis” and you’re straight away giving me verbal abuse!
Why not respond and explain to me where I’m wrong instead? Because because…err…
This is personal for you. I suppose I won’t take any of your advice since (a) you are here in bad faith and (b) I don’t take you seriously since you have not exhibited any knowledge of nonprofits. For example a P&L is not an actual thing in nonprofits (you may not believe what the “p” stands for if I told you). You don’t have anything to contribute beyond name-calling, which is plainly the reason you are here.
Anyway, I hope you find peace and have a great weekend.
Sorry but CharityCFO.com disagrees with you I'm afraid.
https://thecharitycfo.com/statement-of-activities-nonprofit-income-statement/
Your financial analysis is schoolboy rubbish, really it is.
I wish people would stick to talking about things they actually know about. You're a lawyer stick to that.
Have you done one article which does a comparative analysis?