FAQs

For Zakat, yes — and we will be precise about what that means. Your Zakat is held in a segregated fund and goes in full to eligible recipients. No administrative cost is deducted from it. That is possible because our essential delivery and growth costs are met from Gift Aid and unrestricted donations instead.

For giving generally, we do not make a blanket 100% claim, because we do not think the phrase survives contact with reality. Running a charity costs money — audit, safeguarding, due diligence on partners, the systems that get funds where they are going. A charity claiming none of your donation touches those costs is either funding them from somewhere else or not being straight with you. We fund them from somewhere else where we can, and we tell you when we cannot.

Because it is the number most likely to mislead you, and we would rather explain than hide behind it.

A single admin figure treats an external audit — which protects you — exactly the same as an awards dinner, which does not. It ignores Gift Aid and unrestricted income that legitimately pay for operations. It punishes a charity for investing in monitoring, verification and Zakat segregation, and rewards one that quietly reclassifies its overheads as project costs. And it tells you nothing at all about whether your Zakat was handled responsibly.

So instead of one number we publish four: direct delivery, essential delivery, growth, and discretionary. That is harder to print on a poster and considerably more useful.

We publish it annually as a "for every £1" breakdown across those four categories, alongside our accounts, reconciled to the audited figures rather than estimated for marketing purposes. Our full accounts are filed with the Charity Commission under number 1201676 and anyone can read them.

We do not put a fixed percentage on this page, because a figure printed here would be a claim about a year that has not finished yet.

If you want to know about your own donation rather than the aggregate, ask us. That is a question we can answer specifically.

It is a fair suspicion, so here is the test we apply: could the charity lawfully, safely and responsibly deliver the work without this cost? If it could, the cost is not essential and it does not go in that category.

On that test, an external audit is essential. Sanctions screening before money moves to a partner is essential. Safeguarding training for people working with children is essential. Tracking Zakat separately from everything else is essential — it is the mechanism that makes the Zakat promise above true rather than rhetorical. A prestige office is not essential. Neither is a gala dinner.

We would rather be a charity that spends money on verifying where your donation went than one that saves the money and asks you to take it on trust.

Because the alternative is a charity that helps the same number of people forever, and then fewer.

The honest version is that growth spending has to earn its place. We hold fundraising to a measurable return: it has to bring in materially more than it costs, with the reasoning written down. Where a growth cost cannot demonstrate that, we do not quietly leave it in the growth column — it gets reclassified as discretionary and disclosed as such. That rule is part of the framework we report against, not a promise we invented for this page.

It is the option to spread one donation across several kinds of work rather than putting it all into one.

The thinking is straightforward. Emergency relief keeps people alive this week. Income generation, education and water change what their situation looks like in five years. Most donors want both, and most donation forms make you pick one. Diversify Your Donation spreads your gift across our funds so you are doing both at once.

If you would rather choose a single fund, you can. Nothing about this is compulsory.

Across our active funds, weighted by where the need is greatest at the time you give. We do not publish a fixed percentage breakdown, because the split moves with what is happening on the ground — an escalation in Gaza or a winter in northern Syria changes the answer, and a table on a web page would be out of date within weeks.

If you want to know how your specific donation was divided, ask us and we will tell you.

Yes. Give to a specific fund — Emergency, Orphans, Families, Education or Water — or to a live appeal, and that is where it goes.

One honest caveat, and it is in our terms as well. If a purpose is already fully funded, or conditions on the ground mean the work genuinely cannot proceed, we will apply your donation to the most closely related work rather than sit on it. That is our duty as trustees of charitable funds. We will tell you when it happens, wherever we hold contact details for you. We do not move money between appeals for convenience.

It happens. Access closes, a partner does not perform, a supplier disappears, a currency moves. When a project cannot go ahead as planned, the funds stay restricted to the purpose you gave them for and are redirected to the nearest equivalent work — not absorbed into general funds.

If we have your details, we will write and tell you what changed. We would rather send an awkward email than a silent one.

Gift Aid is a reclaim from HMRC, not a deduction from your donation, and it costs you nothing. We use it primarily to cover essential delivery and growth costs that would otherwise have to come out of donations. That is precisely the mechanism that keeps Zakat free of any administrative deduction.

Adding Gift Aid is optional and you should never be blocked from giving because you are not a UK taxpayer. If you are one, ticking the box is the single cheapest way to increase what your donation does.

At the moment, we do. Every card donation carries a processing fee charged by the payment provider, and Rethink absorbs it rather than taking it out of your gift. On Zakat that matters especially: nothing is deducted from your Zakat, fees included.

We are moving towards giving you the option to cover the fee yourself at checkout, because many scholars believe the zakat payer to be responsible. It will be exactly that — an option, ticked by you, never a default and never a deduction. Until that is live, the cost sits with us.

Yes, and it is more useful than it sounds. A donation to our operating costs pays for the audit, the safeguarding, the sanctions screening and the Zakat tracking that protect every other donation we receive. Every pound given this way frees a pound of restricted giving to reach a beneficiary.

These donations are not Zakat-eligible, and we would never accept Zakat for them. Ask us and we will point you to the right route. Donating for the running of a charity is a great Sadiqah Jaariya (ongoing charity), you facilitate all the funds donated to the charity. 

Yes, and not just as a bookkeeping label. Zakat is ringfenced the moment it arrives, held in a segregated fund, tracked through its own ledger, and reported on separately. It is never pooled with Sadaqah or general donations.

No administrative cost is deducted from it. The audit, the safeguarding, the screening and the tracking that sit around your Zakat are all paid for from Gift Aid and unrestricted donations, which is what allows the whole of your Zakat to reach eligible recipients.

Zakat is restricted to the eight categories named in Surah At-Tawbah (9:60). In practice the overwhelming majority of ours reaches al-fuqara’ (the poor) and al-masakin (the needy), with a portion to al-‘amilin ‘alayha — those employed to administer the Zakat itself, which the verse expressly permits.

"Zakah expenditures are only for the poor and for the needy and for those employed to collect it..." — Surah At-Tawbah 9:60

Zakat has to be given to people, with ownership transferred to the recipient — tamleek. That rules out a whole category of things we do fund from other giving:

• Schools, masjids and clinics as buildings
• Wells, water towers and infrastructure
• General services that are not transferred into someone’s ownership
• Our overheads, rent, systems or general salaries

All of that is funded from Sadaqah, Lillah or unrestricted donations. If you want to fund a school, give Sadaqah. If you want to give Zakat, it reaches a person.

In two narrow cases, both of which the Qur’an provides for, and neither of which is a general salary subsidy.

• A staff member employed specifically to administer Zakat can be paid from it, under the ‘amilin category in 9:60.
• A staff member who is personally Zakat-eligible can receive Zakat — as a grant to them as a person in need, not as wages.

We do not use Zakat to top up general salaries or to fund roles unrelated to Zakat work.

Where it should be, yes. Cash Zakat is distributed as cash. Zakat given in kind — grain, gold — is distributed in kind where that is possible and appropriate (we don’t get many grain donations).

Where we distribute in a different form from the one it was given in, we say so on the relevant appeal, and ownership is transferred to the beneficiary either way. We do not leave that to be assumed.

No. Rethink absorbs the payment processing fee on Zakat donations; it is not deducted from the Zakat itself and it is not passed to the recipient as a smaller amount. The whole of what you give as Zakat is what is available to distribute.

We disclose this deliberately, because a fee quietly taken from Zakat reduces what reaches an eligible recipient and donors are entitled to know which of the three possible arrangements a charity uses. Ours is that we cover it. If that changes — for instance if we introduce an optional donor-covered fee at checkout — we will say so here before it goes live, not after.

Directly, and usually fast: cash, food or shelter to eligible individuals, distributed through teams and partners already in place. Tamleek (ownership) is fulfilled in every case and distributions are recorded. Emergency conditions change how quickly we can report, not whether we have to.

We have a Sharia Advisory Board, and it is active rather than ornamental. It reviews our Zakat policy, approves Zakat eligible projects, and rules on the complex cases where the answer is not obvious. Where a project sits close to the line, it does not proceed as Zakat until the Board has been through it.

The Board reviews our Zakat treatment as part of our annual transparency disclosure, and the date of that review is published with it. Scholarly oversight that is never dated or never disclosed is not really oversight.

Zakat is due if you are an adult Muslim whose eligible wealth has met or exceeded the Nisab threshold for a full lunar year. Our Zakat calculator will work it out with you, and it is due on the value of your assets as at your Zakat date rather than today’s balance.

The Nisab is the minimum wealth you must hold before Zakat becomes due, set by the value of gold or of silver. Our calculator shows both and applies the silver Nisab by default, as the lower and more cautious threshold — meaning more people qualify to give, and fewer people miss an obligation they actually had.

Zakat Direct gives a family a single, planned annual sum rather than a series of small payments — enough to change their position rather than tide them over. It is structured to meet the requirement that Zakat is transferred into the ownership of an eligible recipient.

Zakat is the obligatory annual charity due on qualifying wealth. Sadaqah is voluntary, any amount, any time. Lillah is a general voluntary donation. Fidya and Kaffarah are specific payments for missed or broken fasts. Each has its own page on this site and its own option at checkout, so your giving is recorded as what you intended it to be.

Ask before you give, not after. Email info@rethinkcharity.org.uk and we will tell you plainly whether a particular fund or appeal takes Zakat. If the answer is no, we will point you to what it does take.

Our current programmes are in Syria, Afghanistan and Gaza, and we run community work in the United Kingdom. Our teams and offices sit close to the communities they serve rather than managing at a distance.

Our Charity Commission entry lists a wider set of countries reflecting work over the charity’s life. The three above are where the work described on this site is happening now.

The field teams live and work in the communities we support, with offices nearby. That is what lets us move quickly and report back in detail, and it is the reason we can say what happened to a specific donation rather than what happens in general.

Through partners who are already inside and already operating, not through untested intermediaries. What that funds at present includes a weekly food kitchen, clean water for families, and the rebuilding of a locally requested infrastructure such as a musallah.

We are not going to claim that access is guaranteed. Nobody working in Gaza can honestly say that. What we can say is that our route has been reliable and that our aid has been getting through. When it does not, we will tell you.

Because a team that already lives somewhere knows things we would take years to learn, and can act this week. Where we work directly, we work directly. Where a local organisation is better placed, we fund and support them and hold them to account for it.

Every partner goes through due diligence before a penny moves, and stays under review afterwards.

Two things, and neither is a slogan.

First, we do not treat emergency relief and long-term development as alternatives. A food parcel and a livelihood are both necessary, and Diversify Your Donation exists so you do not have to choose.

Second, we would rather tell you an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable claim. This page is the evidence of that. We think the sector’s bigger problem is not fraud but vagueness, and vagueness is a choice.

Hot food for displaced families, and hygiene packs for women and girls — an urgent need in displacement settings and one that is routinely overlooked. That is emergency relief and we are not going to dress it up as anything more.

Sudan is the newest country we work in, and our footprint there is deliberately small while we verify local partners and listen to what communities say they need. Emergency relief is where we start, not where we stop. The Sudan page will grow as the work does, and until it carries named projects and real families we would rather it said so.

You should not take our word for it, so here is what you can check without asking us.

• Our accounts and annual reports are filed with the Charity Commission and public. Charity number 1201676.
• We are registered with the Fundraising Regulator and bound by the Code of Fundraising Practice and the Fundraising Promise.
• We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office for how we handle your data.
• Our trustees are named on the public register, with their appointment dates.
• We publish an annual cost and funding disclosure against the Amānah Transparency Standard, reconciled to those audited accounts and approved by our trustees before it goes out.

What you cannot check from a register is what happened to your particular donation. For that, ask us — that is the part we are accountable for directly.

It is a disclosure framework for UK Muslim charities that replaces the single admin percentage with a full breakdown: direct delivery, essential delivery, growth, discretionary — plus specific disclosure of how Zakat is segregated, who approved its treatment and when, and how Gift Aid is used.

You should care because it is checkable. The figures reconcile to our audited accounts under the Charities SORP, our trustees have to approve the disclosure before publication, and our Sharia Advisory Board reviews the Zakat treatment within it. It is a harder standard to report against than a percentage, which is the point.

Feedback on what your donation did, not a generic newsletter. Sponsorship donors — orphan, widow, hafiz — receive regular personalised updates. For other giving you can ask for an update on a specific project at any time and we will get you one.

We would rather send you one honest report than twelve appeals.

Yes. We publish case studies and photographs of named people with their permission, and we do not reuse them outside the purpose they were given for. Where someone is in a position where being identified could put them at risk, we do not name them, however good the story is.

Tell us, and we would rather hear it early. Email info@rethinkcharity.org.uk or write to us at First Floor, 11 Chimney Walk, Stratford, London E15 2TP. Our complaints procedure sets out what happens next and how long it should take.

If you are not satisfied with how we handle it, a complaint about our fundraising can be taken to the Fundraising Regulator, and a complaint about your data to the Information Commissioner’s Office. We will not treat either as a hostile act.

Our new website took considerably longer than it should have, and donors have hit avoidable problems at checkout while we sorted it out. If you tried to give and could not, we are sorry, and we would like to know so we can fix the specific case.

We would rather answer this question than leave it as the one question this page conspicuously avoids.

If you have donated in error, contact us in writing within seven days and we will refund the amount paid in error. Other refunds are at our discretion — talk to us and we will do what is fair. We would rather sort out a mistake than keep money someone did not mean to give.

Yes. We accept international cards and digital wallets. Gift Aid applies only to UK taxpayers, so leave that box unticked — and if you are ever unable to complete a donation from outside the UK, tell us, because we want to know about it.

Yes, and it helps more than a single larger gift usually does, because it lets us commit to work that runs for months rather than weeks. Set it up on any donation form by choosing Monthly, or email office@rethinkcharity.org.uk and we will do it with you.

You can change or stop a regular gift at any time by emailing us. We will not make you argue about it.

Yes, and we will set the page up with you. Tell us what you are planning — a challenge, a school or workplace collection, a dinner, a Ramadan campaign — and email fundraising to us at info@rethinkcharity.org.uk. We will create your appeal page, get it live, and send you the link to share.

While your appeal is running we will keep you updated on what it has raised, and when it closes we will tell you exactly where the money went.

Yes. We work with mosques, community organisations, schools and businesses, on everything from a single campaign to a longer partnership. Get in touch and we will arrange a conversation rather than send you a pack.

Yes, and we are more interested in people who want to change how giving works than in people who want a line on a CV. Get in touch through the contact page and tell us what you can do and how much time you have.

You can, and it is one of the most useful things anyone does for us, because it funds the long work that annual appeals struggle to reach. Speak to us first and we will talk you through it. We would also encourage you to take independent advice — we are not going to be the only voice in that decision.

Good. Ask it. Email info@rethinkcharity.org.uk or call 020 8058 6401. If it is a question other people are likely to have, it will end up on this page.

You should not take our word for it, so here is what you can check without asking us.

• Our accounts and annual reports are filed with the Charity Commission and public. Charity number 1201676.
• We are registered with the Fundraising Regulator and bound by the Code of Fundraising Practice and the Fundraising Promise.
• We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office for how we handle your data.
• Our trustees are named on the public register, with their appointment dates.
• We publish an annual cost and funding disclosure against the Amānah Transparency Standard, reconciled to those audited accounts and approved by our trustees before it goes out.

What you cannot check from a register is what happened to your particular donation. For that, ask us — that is the part we are accountable for directly.

It is a disclosure framework for UK Muslim charities that replaces the single admin percentage with a full breakdown: direct delivery, essential delivery, growth, discretionary — plus specific disclosure of how Zakat is segregated, who approved its treatment and when, and how Gift Aid is used.

You should care because it is checkable. The figures reconcile to our audited accounts under the Charities SORP, our trustees have to approve the disclosure before publication, and our Sharia Advisory Board reviews the Zakat treatment within it. It is a harder standard to report against than a percentage, which is the point.

Feedback on what your donation did, not a generic newsletter. Sponsorship donors — orphan, widow, hafiz — receive regular personalised updates. For other giving you can ask for an update on a specific project at any time and we will get you one.

We would rather send you one honest report than twelve appeals.

Yes. We publish case studies and photographs of named people with their permission, and we do not reuse them outside the purpose they were given for. Where someone is in a position where being identified could put them at risk, we do not name them, however good the story is.

Tell us, and we would rather hear it early. Email info@rethinkcharity.org.uk or write to us at First Floor, 11 Chimney Walk, Stratford, London E15 2TP. Our complaints procedure sets out what happens next and how long it should take.

If you are not satisfied with how we handle it, a complaint about our fundraising can be taken to the Fundraising Regulator, and a complaint about your data to the Information Commissioner’s Office. We will not treat either as a hostile act.

Our new website took considerably longer than it should have, and donors have hit avoidable problems at checkout while we sorted it out. If you tried to give and could not, we are sorry, and we would like to know so we can fix the specific case.

We would rather answer this question than leave it as the one question this page conspicuously avoids.