“I have already donated enough to masajids. I want to help the needy, poor, orphans and widows. Its so hard to find these people here in the west. Back home, it was so easy.” This is the typical problem that many of us face.
So if you are wondering, how and where should I spend my charity, follow these six steps:
Niyah Check: Make sure that you are only doing it for Allah, not to please anyone else or get praised! Remember “The deeds are considered by the intentions, and a person will get the reward according to his intention” [Bhukari and Muslim]
Plan plan and plan: You need to plan how much you are going to spend in charity. How frequent would your contributions be? For example you may decide that you will spend 5% of your income every month. Remember the Prophet(صلي الله عليه وسلم) was asked: “Which deed is most beloved to Allaah?” He said, “The one that is continuous, even if it is little.” [Bukhari]
Where will you spend: Write down the categories of organizations that you want to donate to. For example: masajid, educational institutes, orphans, poor and needy etc.
Plan out the proportion: How much are you going to donate for each category. For example, you might decide that I will donate 20% to masajids, 50% to support poor and needy and the rest 30% to support educational institutes.
Research: Its time to research the organizations. To make it easy, I have compiled a list of various charitable organizations. What’s great about this website is that you can edit the page and contribute more websites to the list (simply click edit button in bottom right)
Automatic Payments: Look into setting up automatic monthly payments. This way you will not have to worry about donations every now and then. A great way to give Shaytan a black eye!