Zakat and the Quest for World Domination

How to leverage the worship of Muslims for power and influence

As this is the month of charity, expect more articles in this space. I hope these will be beneficial to you and if you have any feedback, please leave a comment.

Built-In Conflict of Interest 

There is a built-in conflict of interest between many nonprofits presently in existence and their donors. This conflict is not always serious, nor is it reason enough to not donate to a nonprofit organization. However, it is something that you should think about when fulfilling your obligation as a Muslim to pay zakat.

Grow, or Die!

If you run a nonprofit organization, you have a mission. You likely have employees, various stakeholders and have developed and revised a strategic plan. People who run nonprofit organizations often style themselves as “social entrepreneurs” (whatever that means) and typically emulate many corporate behaviors, on both individual and organizational levels. They believe that the expenses of a nonprofit organization, including payroll, should resemble those of their for-profit Fortune 500 peers—maybe not today, but someday. Nonprofit leaders feel they need to attract the same kind of “talent” that would otherwise go to technology startups or multibillion-dollar global conglomerates.

Even if you are a small organization, you generally do not want to stay that way. You need to show growth; an organization that doesn’t prioritize growth first is considered an anomaly and perhaps even “unprofessional.” Indeed, your mantra is probably “grow or die”—a phrase borrowed from the business world. You need annual salary increases and bonuses, you need more revenue sources, and you want your events to be bigger and better. You want people to recognize your brand around the world. You will pay handsomely for “donor acquisition” as well as expensive “donor relationship software” designed to hit your target audience with the most hard-charging emotional appeal so that they donate the most money they possibly can.  

In a popular TED Talk about nonprofit overhead, the presenter argues that the goal of keeping the organization’s overhead low is both demoralizing and absurd, all the while arguing about things like talent, careers, growth, and social good that an organization can do. All of this might make sense if one’s goal is to grow a nonprofit and achieve world domination or something like it. In short, the unwritten primary mission of any nonprofit is to look after itself and grow, at all costs. Organizations think that if they don’t do this, they will die a painful death.   Sure, we need good organizations that do good work. But this has nothing to do with zakat.

The Goal of Giving Zakat

You shouldn’t give “zakat” to help a nonprofit corporation fill out its strategic plan. Such funds are not meant to help organizations obtain a government grant, or to lure top-tier talent that might otherwise work for Facebook. You should not care (for purposes of zakat) if the charity you donate to achieves world domination in ten years or shuts down in 20 years. If an organization shuts down, something better may well replace it. You might, I suppose, as a board member or even as a well-wisher care about these things, and donate sadaqah to it if it matters enough. However, this has nothing to do with the purpose of zakat.   Here is what you should care about: 

• There are people in need in this world (maybe in your city). 

• You have wealth.

• Your obligation is an act of worship and a pillar of your faith to give a portion of it to those people qualified to receive it.  

Be wary of institutions who want to repurpose our Zakat for their empire-building project.

O, believers! Indeed, many rabbis and monks consume people’s wealth wrongfully and hinder others from the Way of Allah. Give good news of a painful torment to those who hoard gold and silver and do not spend it in Allah’s cause. -Quran 9:34-35.

Will a nonprofit hinder your worship or facilitate it?  

Through the remaining month of Ramadan and beyond, I plan to write about specific nonprofit organizations in the Muslim community. Many  of them want your zakat dollars, and some pay a lot of money to Google, Facebook and Linkedin and various data mining concerns and advertising agencies to try to get it. Most of them will not deserve it.

Getting Zakat wrong, in a real sense, represents a theft from those entitiled to it. We should stop enabling this theft.

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