Donor Fatigue? A Prelude
Assalamu Alaikum Dear Reader,
tl;dr It's easy to close our eyes and give fi sabil liLlah, but with the increase of donor fatigue, we should pay closer attention to whom we give our money, and to what cause.
We've heard of the stories: masjid washrooms need to be renovated and they're collecting funds for half a decade. Ramadan donation targets reach a few million, but the masjid is still falling apart with no plans for repairs in sight. Give money to masjids for several years to build a new location, but it's stalled for [insert board-driven excuse here] and the money is [insert generic location here]. This is all to say that donor funds should have more transparency.
This is not necessarily a deliberate mismanagement of funds, and these issues aren't universal to all masajid, however apparent these archetypes may be. There are certainly masajid that are very strict with how they manage funds, and very transparent - Allah bless them. But after going to different Jummah prayers across North America, I'd hear the same thing:
Please donate generously. We operate off of your donations.
It eventually dawned on me that my contributions were primarily keeping the lights on rather than building real sustainable futures. In that sense, many masajid function less like community engines and more like financial black holes. They need more and more money, and the ROI is often very limited. This isn't to negate the Divine command for charity. However, I'd argue giving money to an institution where my money has limited transience is not a good investment - in this life or the next. My money is better suited to something like an Islamic school that enriches the next generation, or a women's shelter protecting vulnerable women from potentially fatal abuse [Check out SacredHand].
وَمَا تُنفِقُوا۟ مِنْ خَيْرٍۢ فَلِأَنفُسِكُمْ ۚ
Whatever you ˹believers˺ spend in charity, it is for your own good. Al-Baqarah (2:272)
I've long since stopped donating directly to masajid, especially those that only run on charity, and even directly to non-profits who have large marketing budgets - this is a longer conversation I'll address in the coming weeks. Charity is a spiritual investment - the Prophet ﷺ assured us it does not decrease our wealth - but we often suspend our critical faculties when our funds go to a non-profit or to an organization that accepts zakat. This issue is magnified by what we can understand as donor fatigue - an issue becoming more and more prevalent as more non-profits ask for more charity for an ever-increasing number of humanitarian crises.
If we are to move to a sustainable future, we should seriously re-evaluate where we spend, and how we spend fi sabil liLLah, and do so with the same rigor as an investment asking for financial reports, audit trails, clear ROIs, the allocation of every dollar spent. Ideally, we move towards the waqf (endowment) system, but that is a discussion for a future issue insha Allah.
With Peace,
Junaid
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