GivingTuesday & Ramadan: A Look Into Muslim Charitable Giving
By Chris Blauvelt, CEO & Founder of LaunchGood.com
LaunchGood.com is the world’s largest faith-based crowdfunding platform, and has helped Muslims raise more than $200 million across 100+ countries.
Does Religious Giving Matter?
Before we discuss Muslim giving, I want to zoom out. Does religious giving — of any faith — really matter that much?
Well, the short answer is yes. Quite a bit in fact.
In a well-cited report, it was found that Americans with any religious affiliation made average annual charitable donations of $1,590, versus $695 for those with no religious affiliation.
That’s more than double!
In addition to giving larger amounts, the religious give more frequently — making gifts about twice as often.
“In study after study,” says Karl Zinsmeister, the report’s author, “religious practice is the behavioral variable with the strongest and most consistent association with generous giving.”
Muslim Motivations for Giving
But why do people of faith give more?
Well, every faith has the exhortations to be charitable, and Islam is no exception.
In the Qur’an (the Muslim holy book), there are dozens upon dozens of verses extolling the virtues of charity (sadaqah) and almsgiving (zakat).
“By no means shall you attain righteousness unless you give (freely) of that which you love. And whatever you spend; indeed, God is Knowing of it.” (Al Imraan 3:92)
Likewise, there are countless narrations (hadith) attributed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him & all of God’s messengers) on it as well — and it’s for more than just rewards in the next life. For example:
“Charity is a proof [of true faith].”
“Give charity without delay, for it stands in the way of calamity.”
“God, the Exalted, says, ‘Spend, O son of Adam, and I shall spend on you.’”
Ramadan: Giving on Steroids
The holy month of Ramadan (approximately April this year) is a month of intense spirituality. Muslims spend their day fasting (yes, not even water) and their night in prayer.
Good deeds have their rewards multiplied in this month, so it is no surprise then that Muslims give the most in Ramadan. Here at LaunchGood, the numbers speak for themselves. Last Ramadan, $32 million was raised on LaunchGood, compared to about $2 million in other months!
Of course, our example comes from the Prophet Muhammad. He was described as “the most generous of people, and he was even more generous in Ramadan when the Angel Gabriel would meet him. He would meet him every night of Ramadan to study the Qur’an. Thus, the Prophet (peace be upon him) would be more generous than a nourishing wind.”
Imām al-Nawawī commented on this narration saying, “Our scholars said that being generous and performing favors are highly recommended during Ramadan… This month is honored and good deeds performed in this month are more blessed than they are at any other time.”
Giving While Muslim
As the largest faith-based crowdfunding platform, LaunchGood has the unique opportunity to create digital products that puts our values into action. Knowing how special Ramadan is to the hearts of Muslims, as well as giving charity in this month, we created the Ramadan Challenge in 2015. It was a 30-day giving challenge where we encouraged donors to donate to a different cause for each day of Ramadan by sending out daily emails to our users! That first Ramadan Challenge, we had 500 users.
Today, 6 years later, the Ramadan Challenge has evolved from an email newsletter to a seamless, automated web app with over 30,000 users (and counting!) giving millions upon millions of dollars daily. We also give out millions of dollars in prizes to help boost fundraising efforts, and we keep adding innovative new features like the GivingList. Check out LaunchGood.com/Ramadan for all the details.
Giving Beyond Muslims
Although we primarily serve the Muslim market, we’re not limited to it. We really pride ourselves on working across the aisle with other faiths and groups to launch good across the world!
In fact, most people know LaunchGood for these types of campaigns precisely:
- Muslims rebuilding Black churches burned down in the South
- A national movement to repair desecrated Jewish cemeteries
- Actress Jenna Fischer (Pam from The Office) fundraising for refugees
This Ramadan in fact we are working with multiple charities and individuals of other faiths to support their fundraising efforts. Don’t be shy to reach out if you’re interested too!
Zakat: The Trillion Dollar Market
Earlier I translated Zakat as “almsgiving” — which may be just as foreign a word as Zakat is for some readers. In which case, basically Zakat is the obligatory charity every able Muslim must pay to the poor (more or less), and is calculated as 2.5% of our savings.
What’s interesting is the word for Zakat comes from the Arabic term meaning “purification”. So by giving our Zakat we purify our wealth and ourselves. One analogy I love is Zakat is the metaphorical pruning of our tree; cutting back a little in order for the whole to be better.
2.5% may not sound like a lot, but when you have 2 billion Muslims around the world, it really adds up — more than $1 trillion!
To help Muslims understand Zakat better and bring it into the 21st century (e.g. do you owe Zakat on DogeCoin?) we created Zakat.com this year.
Zakat.com empowers Muslims to fulfil this important pillar of their religion by making it easy to calculate how much Zakat they owe, allow them to ask their Zakat questions to Zakat experts, and pay their Zakat on LaunchGood to Zakat-eligible causes — all in a few clicks!
That’s a lot of Z’s 😴!!!
Thank you GivingTuesday for giving us the chance to share more about Muslim giving and I invite you the reader to browse LaunchGood.com yourself to learn more. And you can find me on Twitter @arblauvelt 👋
