How to do your due diligence on Islamic charities
Each year it seems there’s another Muslim charity here to tell you they’re the only place you should give your Sadaqah and Zakat. Maybe they promise you zero admin fees or 100% donation policies, or impossibly low prices.
Here’s the secret that nobody will tell you – with charity, there are no shortcuts. If someone’s offering 100% donation – this comes at a cost elsewhere – in expertise, longevity, quality, or simply they have funding for their administration costs.
Even The Waqf Fund does this. We do take funds from your donation to run your projects safely and keep your charity changing lives in the long term but when we don’t need funding, we pause taking an admin fee.
So what should I look for?
The charity you choose to donate to should:
- – Be a registered charity – this keeps them legally accountable and regulated
- – Registered with the Fundraising Regulator – meaning they’re committed to ethical fundraising by following the Code of Fundraising Practice and the Fundraising Promise.
- – Transparent reporting – through annual reports, fundraising reports and publicly acknowledging their admin percentage.
- – No impossible promises. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You can’t buy a well for £10, sponsor all a child’s needs for £20, or change a life with one meal.
Bonus: We’re biased, but we think it’s an added bonus if you choose a charity that works in the long term, not with only one-off handouts.
So what makes The Waqf Fund different?
The Waqf Fund’s model means that your charity is never spent; it’s invested, and only the profit is used to help people. The same way that we save money in our youth for our old age, giving a waqf ensures that you’re investing in charity for your hereafter, allowing your charity to accumulate blessings, and multiply impact, every single year, even after your lifetime. That means even after you pass into the grave, your waqf can continue benefiting you.
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “When a person dies, his deeds come to an end, except for three: ongoing charity (sadaqah jariyah), knowledge that is benefited from, and a righteous child who prays for him.” (Sahih Muslim)
Every single donation to The Waqf Fund is a sadaqah jariyah
So what about 0% admin fees?
At first glance, this might sound ethical. You might think it’s great for all of your donation to go to the people who need help. But without an admin fee, who is checking the expertise and background of the people who deliver your aid? How can a water well be installed safely without a water engineer? How is it ethical to work with children and orphans unless you’re trained to do so?
An admin fee is so essential, it’s even permitted in Zakat Islamically. One of the outlined recipients of Zakat mentioned in the Holy Quran is the person employed to administer it.
We believe that an admin fee is what keeps projects safe, ethical, and protects the people we help.
But we don’t believe in taking more than is needed to fulfil projects – that’s why when our Waqf Support Fund has sufficient funding for our upcoming projects, we halt taking any admin fee from new donations.
The most unique reward
When you donate to our Waqf Support Fund gets a unique reward unlike any other. We actually think it’s one of the neatest ways to support waqf, and many of us within the organisation donate to it already.
Because you don’t receive the reward of one single waqf, but you share in the reward of every single waqf that we administer. A small slice of barakah from every single waqf, year after year.
Invest in your akhirah. Keep donations and the people we help safe by donating to our Waqf Support Fund.
