Since its inception in 1993 in Los Angeles, Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA) has grown into a major humanitarian nonprofit with multiple offices in the United States. Aligned with the Islamic teaching that charity begins at home, IRUSA supports American families through food distribution, free health services, and disaster response. The organization also strives to help those in need around the globe. In recent years, it has committed $10 million to health and education programs in Afghanistan, donated more than $5 million to famine prevention interventions in eight African countries, and responded to disasters in Ethiopia and Sudan.
IRUSA’s important charitable work worldwide would not be possible without the help of corporate partners and individual donors. The nonprofit offers a variety of ways for you to donate, and for you to direct your contributions to the causes you’re passionate about.
Support specific campaigns
To ensure your donations go to causes you care about, you can select from one of many IRUSA donor campaigns, including Global Food Aid, Water Aid, Palestine Aid, and Syria Aid. Alternatively, you can contribute to development projects or disaster relief efforts in certain countries or regions. These can be one-time or recurring monthly donations to places like Palestine, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Niger, Mali, or the Middle East.
You can also elect to have your donation go to wherever they are needed most, or toward providing people with basic needs via programs such as Global Education, Global Food Aid, Global Women’s Programs, and Global Orphan and Children Programs. The IRUSA donor campaign page also includes options to sponsor an orphan for $100 a month or $1,200 per year.
IRUSA IRaise
The IRUSA IRaise is another program that allows you to select the causes to which you want to contribute. However, rather than simply donating your own money, you’ll create fundraisers and encourage friends and family members to contribute. The Ramadan Food Boxes is one of the many IRaise campaigns. This campaign, which has a goal of $50,000, had reached nearly $12,000 as of March 19 and is a critical program in IRUSA’s efforts to provide food boxes to more than 720,000 people.
A $125 donation is enough to cover a complete food package, with consideration to local diets and essential nutrients, for an entire family. Provisions generally include rice, lentils, oil, dates, and meat or canned fish. There are country-specific IRaise campaigns in countries throughout Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
Gifts through estate planning
IRUSA also has options for tailoring your charitable gifts through estate planning measures, including charitable trusts, donor advised funds, and bequests made through wills or trusts. By creating a charitable remainder annuity trust, you can not only benefit from avoiding capital gains tax accrued from the sale of appreciated assets, but also receive charitable income tax deductions on the remaining portion of funds directed to IRUSA. Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, and Vanguard Charitable, meanwhile, are among those sponsoring organizations that manage donor advised funds contributing to IRUSA. See irusawaqf.org for more details.
In addition, you can leave legacy gifts to IRUSA in your last will and testament. IRUSA provides access to the ShariaWiz program to help you designate gifts in a Sharia-compliant estate plan.
Stock donations
Stock donations are another way to support IRUSA; these have the added benefit of allowing you to increase the amount of your gift and tax deduction, relative to cash donations. IRUSA has a stock donation form (PDF) on its website that you can use to easily transfer stock by listing the security description, number of shares, firm name, and account number.
Matching gifts
Matching gift donations are an easy way to double your philanthropic impact to IRUSA. Some businesses encourage their employees—and their employees’ partners—to donate to charitable causes by offering a matching gifts incentive. Donors should first check to see if their employer will match their IRUSA donation and then obtain any forms required from their human resources department. Forms and donation receipt copies can be sent to the IRUSA headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.
IBM, Apple, Verizon, and Nike are among the many companies that have matched employee donations to IRUSA in the past. The “matching gifts” page on the IRUSA website has a handy search tool that allows you to check to see if your employer will match gifts to the nonprofit.
Cars4Jannah
You don’t necessarily have to contribute money to support IRUSA. The organization also accepts vehicle donations in partnership with Cars4Jannah, a College Park, Maryland-based nonprofit that contributes to Islamic organizations and Islamic schools in the US. Donors can claim up to $500 in fair market value of the vehicle for taxes or even more if the vehicle garners a higher sale price. Vehicles are usually picked up within 24 hours.
There’s an easy-to-use car donation form on the IRUSA website. Prospective donors simply select the make, model, mileage, and year of the car they wish to donate.
Zakat
IRUSA is also able to handle Zakat, Sadaqah, and Fidya/Kaffara donations—in fact, Zakat is the most-supported fund by donors to IRUSA. On the organization’s website, you’ll find a handy Zakat calculator that will allow you to estimate how much to give. IRUSA collects and distributes Zakat to those most in need, in accordance with Islamic guidelines. An independent Zakat Advisory Board comprising leading scholars has been assembled to develop, review, and uphold the organization’s Zakat policy.
So many ways to help people in need
This is just a summary of the many ways to donate to IRUSA and support its lifesaving humanitarian work. To learn more about specific campaigns and other donation options.