IndiaZakat.com, a crowdfunding platform started by the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP) in April 2020 has crossed a milestone of Rs. 2 crores raised through 6500+ donors and thus impacting the lives of more than 700 deserving families.
IndiaZakat.com is India’s first zakat-based crowdfunding platform. Zakat is one of the 5 pillars of Islam and it is a mandatory charity of 2.5% of ones’ expense-free wealth. Since its launch last year at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, the website has helped generous donors contribute their zakat, sadaqat and general donations to a number of causes.
Rs. 30 lakhs were raised for COVID-19 relief, wherein 5,000 families affected adversely in 90+ cities of India were provided rations during the lockdown. The funds were not only raised for COVID-19 pandemic relief. The focus of the platform was to support education, livelihoods, medical and disaster relief anywhere across India.
Take the instance of 19-year-old Kashish Yusuf, from Jaipur, who scored 99.58 percentile in JEE Mains 2020 and was the only Muslim girl in the toppers list from Rajasthan. Her father experienced an extreme setback in his business a few years ago and has not been able to recover until now. Additionally, the COVID-19 lockdown made him temporarily unemployed and it was very difficult to meet even basic house expenses. Among all this depressing situation, the extraordinary success of Kashish was like a great blessing. Her father could not have provided the required funds for IIT/NIT education like admission counselling, college fees, hostel fees, etc. In this bleak scenario, a cause for education was raised on IndiaZakat.com for Kashish. Within six days, with the help of social media and the generosity of donors, the amount of Rs. 2 lakhs was raised. Currently, she is studying Computer Science (CS) at NIT, Jaipur.
Similarly, Md. Dilshad Ahmad (a Patna-based student), who was selected for admission into a master’s degree course in the Public Policy Program at National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore. He had to pay a hefty fee of Rs. 2.77 lakh for the admission within a couple of days. Without having full fees and not knowing what to do, he took to social media and approached Aamir Edresy, President, AMP. Immediately, Edresy arranged for a cause to be raised on IndiaZakat.com, seeking contribution to the extent of a shortfall in fee payment. Generous donors responded with electrifying speed on Social Media and within a matter of 3 hours, an amount of Rs. 1.50 lakh was funded by 55 donors. When we contacted Dilshad Ahmed, he was completely overjoyed and exclaimed, “I would like to thank each and every person who made the contribution for me on the IndiaZakat.com platform and helped in accomplishing my dream.” He added “This is a revolutionary initiative by AMP and it will impact the lives of thousands and lakhs of people in future. One day, inshallah, I will also fulfil someone else’s dream in the future.”
Aamir Edresy, President – AMP, and Chief Architect – IndiaZakat added, “It gives me immense satisfaction seeing a dream come true and helping so many families during their financial difficulties. Going forward we will continue to help more people in distress by using innovative ways.” He added on saying. “Our focus has always been on providing tech-based solutions to the problems of Muslims so that the people can help the deserving and needy from their preferred location, interest, and choice from the comfort of their home. The best thing is that these beneficiaries are reviewed very diligently by doing multiple background checks and the donations made are transparent and traceable connecting directly to the beneficiaries.”
IndiaZakat.com team consists of an Advisory Board, Zakat Council, Technical, Operations, and Marketing team members who look after the day-to-day running of the platform purely on a volunteering basis.
On the back of technology, online crowd-funding platforms like IndiaZakat.com facilitate a transparent exchange of funds between the donor and the beneficiary. Additionally, people are more likely to donate to a cause they are familiar with. Crowdfunding platforms assist the individual seekers and NGOs in taking their causes to a wider audience through marketing and communication channels both online and offline.
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