Are charitable organizations in the West leveraging Zakat?

Walk through any high-street fundraiser in London or scroll a U.S. appeal page during Ramadan, and you won’t be wrong in concluding that Zakat is a fairly well-known and leveraged option in the West.

The real answer to whether this is surface-level branding or whether mainstream charities in the West have retooled their fundraising, governance, and programs to unlock Zakat at scale is a bit more nuanced.

Even as a growing cohort of major humanitarian organizations has established credible Zakat channels and governance, the broader Western charity sector still under-utilizes this market. Taking the example of Muslims in the UK and the U.S., the result shows that the gap isn’t demand; in fact, Muslim donors are generous and consistent with Jahangir Mohammed, founder and director, Ayaan Institute, pointing out that Muslim donations in the UK for international humanitarian charities stand at £1.5 billion with upto 40% of that amount comprising Zakat donations. 

The problem thus lies on the supply side. 

“When Muslim charities were first established in the United Kingdom, their efforts were largely directed overseas, focusing on humanitarian crises in Asia and Africa. This approach echoed the model of long-standing international NGOs such as Oxfam, and zakat distribution was typically confined to two of the eight categories set out in the Qur’an: the poor (fuqara) and the needy (masakin),” said Conor Murphy, chairman of Convert Muslim Foundation, a UK registered charity.