How to assess a campaign?

Having the donor perspective in mind, we have included some nifty options to help you find campaigns that best match your preferences. On the left side of the campaign search page, there are filters that allow you to narrow your campaign search with options such as location, mission, time remaining and tax-exempt status.

Once you have narrowed your field of potential campaigns, take a look into the individual campaign page for a more detailed look “under the hood” to best understand that campaign’s operation. If you are reviewing a campaign sponsored by an organization, you can review their organizational documents that include past financials.

For those campaigns seeking funds in excess of 10k USD, MySadaqat does an added verification process which will be posted on the campaign’s page. There, you can see our in-depth review of the campaign and view our notes.

In all cases, you can rest assured that we have done our due diligence on every campaign before it is cleared to accept donations on our site. Nonetheless, MySadaqat also looks to the help of our community to keep MySadaqat secure.

Below are some guidelines that you can use to determine if a campaign is legitimate.

1. Read the campaign page carefully. The campaign page should address all of the following:

• How is the campaign organizer related to the intended recipient of the donations?
• What is the purpose of the fundraising campaign, and how will the donations be used in specific?
• Are the campaign page documents clear and complete?

For example, a campaign promises to provide a hot meal daily to orphans in a given location. In that locality, it might cost $2 per person for the ingredients to that meal. But there are administrative costs that do vary from organization to organization. So, if a certain campaign offers to provide that hot meal daily for $3 per person, then they are taking $1 toward their expenses and $2 for the actual cost of the food. Another campaign might not be able to do it for that cost, and instead offers the same “product” (one hot meal daily) for $4 due to higher logistical or administrative costs. This takes the administrative cost question out of the equation because the donor is no longer worried about how much of their donation will reach the recipient as they know they have secured a “product” purchase.

• If any of the points above are missing, we recommend that you contact the campaign organizer by clicking “Contact” next to their name to ask for more information.

2. Ask yourself these questions

• Does the campaign include vague or factually incorrect information?
• Are funds not being used for the intended purpose AND within a reasonable amount of time (including withholding funds from the beneficiary)? This can often be reviewed in the “campaign updates” section.
• Is the campaign impersonating someone else and/or copying their story?
• Is the campaign violating any of our terms and conditions ?
• If the answer to any of these questions is yes, please click here to learn how to Report a Fundraiser.