I wrote about charities in Muslim Matters recently. Many of them are poorly run and structured to make corruption easy. This description includes charities we support and whose leaders we love and respect. Historically there is one crucial sign things can go seriously wrong, and you don’t need to read a single financial statement. We saw this with the arrest of an American Muslim politician who was arrested by Pennsylvania authorities because of how she ran her charity, called “MECA.”
I go into how regulation of charities works in the United States, which has a long history of nonprofit corruption, especially with religious organizations. The spectacular failure of the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County (and other examples) can happen again and again in the Muslim community the way things are going. The only real thing stopping this from happening is if you start to give in charity with excellence. Part of this is being an educated donor. Please do check out my article and let me know what you think.
