Prophet (upon him peace) said: “Many people who fast get nothing from their fast except hunger and thirst, and many people who pray at night get nothing from it except wakefulness.”
With only two months left until Ramadan, we start to think about how we want this month to be different from the ones that came before.
We start preparing for more worship, look forward to connecting with friends and family and even start fasting a few days a month to prepare our bodies. However, one aspect of worship we often overlook is planning how we will give our Ramadan charity.
Ramadan is a month of immense blessings, and giving charity in this month is one of the best ways we can show support for our human family. We want our contributions to have the most impact, and planning ahead is the best way to ensure they do.
Read more to learn about the benefits of planning your Ramadan charity:
It helps you receive the fullest rewards of Ramadan
With Ramadan being a special month in the Islamic calendar year, it’s a time when good deeds receive extra blessings. It’s important for us as Muslims to take advantage of this.
When you plan your Ramadan charity, you determine the amounts, causes and ways of distribution for your contributions, and this helps you get the fullest reward from God.
Taking care to set a pure, strong niyah, or intention, for your Ramadan charity gives meaning to what you plan to give and will also help you decide which causes you feel most strongly about supporting. As we know, God loves to reward sincerity, and this strong act of planning will come back to you in the form of blessings and inner strength.
This coming Ramadan, try to maintain a journal or planner for your Ramadan charity. You can write down your intentions, goals and pacing, and even optimize for the blessings of the last 10 nights of the month.
Our Prophet, upon him peace, constantly spoke of the value of preparation and timeliness. We should adopt this same attitude with our Ramadan charity.
It gives you time to find trusted charity organizations
Part of good Ramadan charity planning involves researching nonprofit organizations carefully to make sure your donation is in trustworthy hands.
Your Ramadan charity is powerful, and being careless could result in your donation not going to those for whom you made your original intention.
Ideally, a good charity resource should:
be transparent about how donations are collected and where donations go
have few administrative expenses
eliminate the need for middle entities when possible
We have served as a trusted and independently audited charity resource for many years and are proud to have earned Charity Navigator’s four-star rating (its highest) for our work.
We invite all who intend to give Ramadan charity to learn more about how their contribution can make a difference with us.
It allows you to spread your Ramadan charity across multiple causes
In addition to donations specific to the month of Ramadan, like your Zakat, you can plan your Ramadan charity to include yearly and emergency causes.
Maybe you want to contribute your Ramadan charity evenly to causes like education or food security, or dedicate your entire contribution toward sponsoring orphans. You can even set up the means for ongoing charity, which will continue after Ramadan and beyond.
Being creative with your Ramadan charity planning ensures your contributions carry the most blessings; it also has the potential to impact hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.