The "epidemic within the pandemic”: meeting the needs of racially minoritised women experiencing domestic abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic

PurposeIn March 2020, the UK entered its first lockdown responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the same month, the Domestic Abuse Bill had its first reading in Parliament. Charities and non-governmental organisations critiqued the Bill for failing to protect migrants from domestic abuse, and not complying with the Istanbul Convention. Drawing on interviews with staff from Southall Black Sisters, this paper aims to foreground the experiences of practitioners within the women's sector to explore the unique experiences and challenges migrant and racially minoritised women encountered when seeking support from domestic abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic. It highlights how the pandemic-related lockdowns created barriers to accessing support services and housing, creating an epidemic within the pandemic, and how minoritised women and the organisations that supported them had to overcome structural barriers and racism.Design/methodology/approachIn-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff from a leading women's organisation that supports migrant and racially minoritised women. Four participants were asked questions within four themes: domestic abuse before and during the pandemic;accessing support from and reporting domestic abuse;accessibility of resources;and post-pandemic challenges. A phenomenological approach was used to analyse the transcribed interviews.FindingsParticipants consistently highlighted the unique threats and barriers migrant and racially minoritised women faced when seeking support. Barriers included racism, language barriers, cultural constraints, the triple threat of destitution, detention, deportation, and political resistance to protect migrant women from destitution/homelessness.Originality/valueThis paper provides a unique insight into the experiences of staff members within a specialist by and for women's support organisation in England and their perspectives on the barriers racially minoritised and migrant women experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. It offers rare insights into how service users' needs changed during the lockdowns and how the pandemic affected their ability to operate.

Consolidating Ireland's Indigenous Social Enterprise Sector - A Policy Perspective

The National Social Enterprise Policy for Ireland (2019 - 2022) was a watershed moment for social enterprise in Ireland. Ireland has a rich, proud and diverse experience of social economy and social enterprise, yet the policy framework developed comparatively later than in some other EU member states. Since its launch in 2019, the Policy has helped to significantly shape the social enterprise sector in Ireland including through targeted measures and improved coherence across government policy. At the same time, the sector is still in a nascent phase and faces dramatic new challenges associated with the realities of focussing on social impact whilst trading in a competitive market economy traditionally focussed on export-potential, which have been exacerbated by the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. As this foundational Policy comes to the end of its term, the Government, in partnership with the sector, now faces another significant juncture which will determine how successful social enterprise can be in moving from the margins to the mainstream and contributing to Ireland's economic, social and environmental progress. The current article seeks to clarify the features of Ireland's indigenous social enterprise sector, and offers perspectives on some of the prerequisites for an ambitious and impactful successor policy in 2023 to unlock the potential of the sector to grow in scale and impact.

THE ROLES OF SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS ON ONLINE FUNDRAISING IN INDONESIA

[...]this study aims to understand the roles of SMIs in fundraising activities, to identify the influencers' attributes which affect their followers' willingness to donate, and to explore the motivation of the followers to donate. [...]few studies use social media influencers and their attributes as an object. [...]the researchers are interested in using Rachel Vennya, who is an online celebrity, to engage with potential donors through her social media outlet and get them to make donations. [...]the aims of this study are to understand the roles of social media influencers in contributing to fundraising activities, to identify the influencer's attributes that affect the willingness of his/her followers to donate money and to discuss the motivation for the followers' intentions to donate. The influencers are potentially effective because they have some personal factors and content that is commonly preferred by people, proven by their large numbers of followers (Tafesse & Wood, 2021). [...]the researchers aim is to understand the roles of social media influencers in contributing to fundraising activities and to identify the influencers' attributes that affect the willingness of their followers to donate money. 2.

October 2022 to January 2023

In the June to September report, I noted that Boris Johnson had announced his resignation as leader of the Conservative Party on 7 July and had been replaced as Prime Minister by Liz Truss on 6 September. Little did anyone imagine that she, in turn, would be replaced by Rishi Sunak on 25 October after only 50 days in office and a disastrous mini budget presented by her Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, which Sunak's replacement as Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, then repudiated almost in its entirety.

Spontaneous charitable donations in sweden before and after covid: A natural experiment

Did the outbreak of COVID-19 influence spontaneous donation behavior? To investigate this, we conducted a natural experiment on real donation data. We analyzed the absolute amount, and the proportion of total payments, donated by individuals to charitable organizations via Swish-a widely used mobile online payment application through which most Swedes prefer to make their donations to charity-each day of 2019 and 2020. Spontaneous charitable donations were operationalized as Swish-payments to numbers starting with 90, as this number is a nationally acknowledged quality control label that is provided to all fundraising operations that are monitored by the Swedish Fundraising Control. The results show that the Swish-donations fluctuated substantially depending on season (less donations in January-February and during the summer months, and more donations in April-May and during the last months of the year) and specific events (peaks in Swish-donations often coincided with televised charity fundraising galas). Interrupted time-series analyses revealed that spontaneous donations were overall unaffected by the pandemic outbreak. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Women Suffering from Multiple Sources of Oppression in Upper Egypt: A Case Study of Intersectional Targeting and Integrated Development Interventions as the Way Out

Scholars in the field of gender and development are strong advocates of the concept of "intersectionality," first coined by Crenshaw in 1989, as a way of thinking about how marginalized groups may be subjected to oppression from various sources. The main purpose of this research is to make a case for how intersectional targeting, together with integrated development interventions, can be useful in helping vulnerable individuals, specifically women, suffering from multiple sources of poverty and oppression. A case study, coupled with in-depth field interviews, was the method employed for assessing the application of an intersectional lens by a nonprofit development organization (ENID) that targets vulnerable poor, illiterate, and unemployed women living in marginalized rural communities in South Egypt and employs integrated development interventions to get them out of poverty. Working on upgrading basic services, promoting small and micro enterprises, fostering sustainable agricultural development, initiating a program for knowledge dissemination and policy advocacy were some of the features of the integrated development approach utilized by ENID. The research findings indicated that ENID activities may have had a positive impact on reducing poverty and empowering women in the rural villages of South Egypt. Many challenges were faced related to government bureaucracy, restrictive cultural norms, and the COVID-19 pandemic. However, on the positive side, poverty was reported to have declined by 14.5% in absolute terms from 2015-2018 in Qena governorate where ENID works. More investments are being directed to the region, and the women beneficiaries attest to lifechanging experiences, enhanced self-confidence, and empowerment.

The impact of perceived corporate social responsibility on participating in philanthropic road-running events: a moderated mediation model

PurposeThis research aims to develop a moderated mediation model to examine the relationships among participants' motivation, organizational identification and participation loyalty with perceived business practice corporate social responsibility (CSR) in philanthropic road-running events.Design/methodology/approachThe data come from a questionnaire survey that was administered to a sample of 236 participants as runners at philanthropic road-running events. All hypotheses are tested using Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) and structural equation modeling (SEM)–Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) with a bootstrapping technique.FindingsThe results reveal that perceived business practice CSR moderates the relationship between extrinsic motivation and organizational identification and then influences the mediating effect of organizational identification on the relationship between extrinsic motivation and participation loyalty. This highlights the important role of perceived business practice CSR to participants' attitude and behavior when supporting philanthropic road-running events.Originality/valueThis research scrutinizes the role of perceived business practice CSR on philanthropic road-running events through an empirical study and resultant evidence. One recommendation is that when a firm intends to host a philanthropic road-running event, the firm must implement the reality of sound CSR in the firm's business practice.

Parochial Altruism and Political Ideology

Parochial altruism refers to the propensity to direct prosocial behavior toward members of one's own ingroup to a greater extent than toward those outside one's group. Both theory and empirical research suggest that parochialism may be linked to political ideology, with conservatives more likely than liberals to exhibit ingroup bias in altruistic behavior. The present study, conducted in the United States and Italy, tested this relationship in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic, assessing willingness to contribute money to charities at different levels of inclusiveness—local versus national versus international. Results indicated that conservatives contributed less money overall and were more likely to limit their contribution to the local charity while liberals were significantly more likely to contribute to national and international charities, exhibiting less parochialism. Conservatives and liberals also differed in social identification and trust, with conservatives higher in social identity and trust at the local and national levels and liberals higher in global social identity and trust in global others. Differences in global social identity partially accounted for the effects of political ideology on donations.

‘The Biggest Charity You've Never Heard of': Institutional Logics of Charity and the State in Public Fundraising in Scotland's NHS

The boundaries between state and charitable activities within the NHS are set out in regulations but are also enacted, blurred, and contested through local practices. This article reports research on NHS Charities– charitable funds set up within NHS organizations to enhance statutory provision – in Scotland. We analysed financial accounts and conducted qualitative interviews with staff in 12 of the 14 NHS Charities in Scotland, where they are generally known as endowments. Our findings suggest that Scotland's endowments are relatively wealthy in charitable terms, but that this wealth is unevenly distributed when population size and socio-economic deprivation are considered. We also identify two diverging organisational approaches to decisions, including those about appropriate and inappropriate fundraising. We argue that these approaches cohere with contrasting ‘state' and ‘charitable' institutional logics, which in turn imply different attitudes to potential inequalities, and to relationships with local publics.

Senjuti Saha: advocate for equity in global health research

With diagnostic and sequencing capabilities, Saha and her co-workers at CHRF have studied the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on newborns and children and started a longitudinal study of vaccination on outcomes such as re-infection. [...]in 2022 Saha and her colleagues launched a programme at CHRF called Building Scientists for Bangladesh. In 2018, she collaborated with molecular biologist Joseph DeRisi at the University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA, and the non-profit CZ Biohub, with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, for cerebral spinal fluid samples from Bangladeshi children with meningitis to be sequenced.

From the Editor's Desk

Muslim Philanthropy in Canada is a special issue of the Journal of Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society (JMPCS) based on papers given at a symposium hosted in March 2021 (virtual due to the COVID lockdown) by the Centre for Religion and Its Contexts at Emmanuel College, of Victoria University in the University of Toronto. The symposium was jointly funded by JMPCS and Emmanuel College. A special issue and a symposium dedicated to the topic of Muslim philanthropy in Canada is pioneering in two ways. First, Canadian academia has not focused enough on charitable giving, despite it being a significant part of the Islamic tradition. Oral history testifies to its presence and importance in Canadian Muslim communities since the earliest Muslim settlements (Bullock, 2004, 2017;Hogben, 2021). Yet its academic study is negligible. Participants at a 2017 workshop in Ottawa studied a comprehensive bibliography about scholarly work on Muslims in Canada and identified that academia has focused on issues related to identity, integration, law, media, radicalization, and securitization (MUN). Arts, charitable work, business practices, economics, ethics, history, organizational behavior, and leadership are all important features of Muslim life in Canada that are barely studied. We hope the symposium and this special issue lay foundations for a new scholarly field that studies Muslim charitable life in Canada. Second, both the symposium and this issue bring together scholars and practitioners to illuminate the topic of Muslim philanthropy in Canada. Philanthropy is above all a field of action, so including practitioners’ voices is a crucial part of this pioneering issue on Muslim philanthropy in Canada. Mosque sermons remind congregations regularly that charity is part of faith, of the obligation of annual zakat, of the importance of serving the community and trying to alleviate poverty and suffering. Hundreds of Muslims in Canada heed this call and dedicate countless volunteer hours to charitable work, be it through formal associations or informal networks. It is only fitting that their voices be part of the symposium and this special issue. Pioneers have to tell foundational stories, so narrating the story of how we arrived at this special issue is an important part of understanding the topic itself. The account begins in 2017, when I volunteered with a multi-faith group to host a conference on faith and basic income at the University of St Michael’s College, Toronto. Although I had a cursory understanding of basic income, I knew how similar some of its concepts were to the Islamic institution of zakat and practices of the early Caliphs in distributing money from the public treasury to support the poor (Bullock & Daimee, 2021a). And yet, there were less than a handful of Muslims participating in basic income advocacy, and even fewer able to present Islamic perspectives on basic income at that conference. Moreover, as a comment by one of the (non-Muslim) participants demonstrated, there was very little understanding by attendees of the differences between Islamic concepts of charity and justice and that of secularists or other faith groups: she suggested that basic income was about justice, that is addressing the political and economic structures that lead to and support poverty, whereas religious groups tended to focus on charity, which is more about “mercy”—helping the poor—than justice. Even with my then perfunctory knowledge of a few scattered relevant Qur’anic verses and ahadith, I knew this did not describe the Islamic philanthropic tradition. There was the Qur’anic verse describing zakat as a “right” of the poor (70:24–25), and a hadith about the relationship between charity and justice that went like this: “Every joint of a person must perform a charity each day that the sun rises: to judge justly between two people is a charity. To help a man with his mount, lifting him onto it or hoisting up his belongings onto it, is a charity. And the good word is a charity. And every step that you take towards p ayer is a charity and removing a harmful object from the road is a charity” (Bahi, 2002, p.128). In addition to showing that “charity” in Islam goes beyond a standard Western definition of “voluntary donations of money or goods” (Kymlicka, 2001, pp. 87–88;also Goodin, 2017), this hadith relates charity to justice. Indeed, it makes justice a subset of charity. Clearly scholars need to pursue these topics more. With the aid of a volunteer research assistant, whose thorough scan of the literature about charity and justice from the Muslim point of view, or the study of Muslim charity in Canada, revealed next to nothing, we learned that much contemporary Muslim scholarship on zakat is mostly theoretical—how zakat could or should work as a normative tool for distributive justice (Ahmad & Hassan, 2000;Ahmad et al., 2006;Ahmad, 1991;Allheedan, 2016;Baidhawy, 2012;Siddiqui, 1988). Some work from the point of view of jurisprudence, covering the theoretical basics of what is zakat, how it should be calculated, who should pay it, and who should receive it (Dhar, 2013;Al-Qardawi, 1999). Others investigate its application in contemporary Muslim-majority societies (Davis & Robinson, 2006;Retsikas, 2014;Powell, 2009). Retsikas (2014) found that for Indonesia, zakat studies have been undertaken mostly by historians, geographers, and anthropologists (the latter focused mainly on the politics of international Islamic aid organizations) with “very little sustained attention” (p. 341) by ethnographers. Many scholars lament that zakat is currently overlooked as a potential tool for poverty alleviation, so their scholarship also advocates for zakat as a new (revived) policy instrument (Ahmad & Hassan, 2000, p. 169;Ahmad et al., 2006, p. 15;Al-Qardawi, 1999, p. 709;Chapra, 1992, p. 270). A few scholars conclude that where the state does administer zakat it is often marred by mismanagement, corruption, and dissension (Malik, 2016, p. 73;Powell, 2009, pp. 73–79). We also found that zakat in Western countries is understudied, locating only two papers on the topic (May, 2019;Ndiaye, 2007). In 2019 the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, based in the USA, released a pioneering comparative study of Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and non-affiliated Americans’ giving, measured in dollar amounts, investigating why they donate, and who they donate to, with an age, gender, and race breakdown. But they did not break the dollar amounts down into zakat money versus other monies (Mahmood, 2019). Studies of Muslim communities do highlight social service practices, such as soup kitchens or food banks;such analyses mention zakat in passing in a routine way as an aspect of Muslim charity (Azmi, 1997;Bolognani & Statham, 2013;Bramadat & Seljak, 2009;Fridolfsson & Elander, 2012;GhaneaBassiri, 2017;Nadir, 2013;Peucker, 2020;Peucker & Kayikci, 2020;Qasqas & Chowdhury, 2017). These kinds of community-based studies are empirically focused and are mostly descriptive. They might use substitute concepts such as social work, social services, or volunteerism for zakat (Borell & Gerdner, 2011). So we decided to begin this pioneering research ourselves by doing a qualitative study of Muslim charities in Canada. In the absence of secondary literature, we needed to start at the source and ask the people doing zakat work what that means in a Canadian context. This resulted in two papers published by the Yaqeen Institute (Bullock & Daimee, 2021a, 2021b). The Journal of Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society grant opportunity arose during this time. Knowing from our literature review that there was little scholarship on this topic in Canada, I thought a symposium might be able to draw out hitherto unknown scholars working on the topic. An event would also serve as a networking and gathering moment for a fledgling field. Fortunately, Emmanuel College and JMPCS agreed. Yet the symposium itself revealed the innovative nature of studying Muslim charity in Canada: the first call for papers focused solely on zakat in Canada. ven though we knew that there were no scholars who had published on zakat in Canada, we hoped that scholars working in cognate areas might take up the topic, or that we would discover PhD students working on these topics. Titled “Muslim Charity in a Canadian Context,” we invited papers to consider the following questions: ● Why do Muslims give in the Canadian context? What causes do they give to? ● What kind of adaptations are necessary or observed in the fiqh of zakat in Canada? The definition of someone who is zakat eligible? The calculations of zakat-able goods and assets? The distribution, i.e., cash vs goods? Are there distinctions made between Muslims and non-Muslims for zakat distribution? ● What role does the regulatory environment of Canadian charity law play in zakat giving? In the foundation and development of zakat-focused organizations, especially post-9/11? ● What is the relationship between zakat and distributive justice in Canada? ● What role does zakat play in alleviating poverty? ● Do Muslims in Canada make a distinction between charity and justice? What relationships do zakat-focused organizations have with wider social justice and anti-poverty movements? ● The history and evolution of zakat-focused organizations in Canada ● The establishment of waqf institutions in Canada? Resounding silence led us to widen the scope of the symposium. JMPCS works from the expanded Islamic understanding of what counts as charity based on hadith, such as the one cited above. A revamped call for papers for the renamed “Muslim Philanthropy in a Canadian Context” invited submissions on the following topics: ● The history and evolution of charitable organizations in Canada ● Muslim involvement in refugeeresettlement in Canada ● Muslim volunteerism and civic engagement in Canada ● Muslim participation in wider anti-poverty and social justice movements ● Muslim social work and social services in Canada ● Muslim charitable giving in the Canadian context ● The establishment of waqf institutions in Canada ● The impact of the regulatory environment of Canadian charity law on Muslim charities in Canada, especially post-9/11 ● The adaptations in the fiqh of zakat in Canada We accepted papers from a mix of junior and senior scholars, and, recognizing the pioneering nature of the event, included practitioners, based on the understanding, as mentioned, that with regard to charitable work, knowledge is contained and conveyed by people in the field. Senior scholars moderated the sessions. As symposium participant Shaykh Rizvi, current Imam of the Jaffari Community Centre in Thornhill, Ontario, points out in his article, the Qur’an teaches us that “[they] will not attain righteousness till [they] spend in charity of the things [they] love” (3:82). Not only is charity more than justice, not only is it more than donating money or goods, but charity is also an act of worship for Muslims. Zakat is a spiritual practice with a secular element. That is why al-Qardawi (1999) called it a “tax-worship or a worship-tax” (p. 502). Our Yaqeen papers show that for those who work at or volunteer at Muslim charitable organizations, those who donate to them, and those who are clients, charity is a central element of being Muslim in Canada. Zakat, sadaqa, and waqf are all essential characteristics of Muslim communities in Canada. We must draw attention to them. Our Yaqeen studies, the symposium presentations, and this special issue show how traditional Muslim institutions adapt on migration to minority status in Western countries. They draw attention to Muslim civic engagement and integration into the fabric of Western societies. They serve as meeting points for interfaith dialogue on service to the poor and secular commitments to social justice. They take us beyond identity politics and security and radicalization studies. They are a corrective to stereotypes of Muslims as haters of Western society, self-imposed ghettoization, people who take but do not contribute, or Muslim women as oppressed and men s terrorists. They draw attention to the material struggles facing Muslims in these societies. They are an insight into ethical life for Muslims in Canada. Fortunately, the Journal of Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society takes a leadership role by highlighting Muslim philanthropy in its publications. The issue opens with Sanaa Ali-Muhammad and Ruby Latif’s paper that examines where Canadian Muslim’s philanthropic dollars are spent—at least those that are captured through a data analysis of the top 50 Muslim charities. It is the perfect piece to inaugurate this special issue, as it provides an overview of the landscape of Muslim charities in Canada. The paper begins with a demographic profile of Muslim communities in Canada. The authors use Nimer’s (2014) eight-part typology of Muslim communities in North America to search publicly available data on the 50 largest Muslim-serving, Muslim-led, and Muslim-focused charities. They build on Qasqas and Chowdhury’s (2017) analysis of Islamic religious groups in Canada to ask the questions, how much money is being raised, and where is it being spent? They want to do this to assess the efficacy of Canadian Muslims’ charitable dollars. They make recommendations about this in their concluding section. Echoing Ali-Muhammad’s and Latif’s literature review that it is “challenging” to locate scholarly work on Canadian Muslim charities, the next paper by Memona Hossain contributes a pioneering study of the environmental behaviors of Muslims in Canada. She found no work on this topic. Her paper is part of her larger study of environmental activism focused on over 60 Muslim women globally. She used semi-structured interviews to talk to 10 Canadian Muslims, men and women, exploring their environmental activism. Her paper begins with a brief discussion of the meaning of environmental philanthropy and then introduces Islamic perspectives on four key concepts related to environmental philanthropy. A series of recommendations follow her data results. Hossain makes a perceptive insight that Muslim integration and identity is related to their involvement in environmental activism, which is a movement not always inclusive of marginalized communities. Next comes the three practitioner’s reports, which together capture a diverse snapshot of on the ground activism in different Muslim communities. Nuzhat Jafri charts the story of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW). It was founded in 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Jafri recounts the struggles of managing a volunteer-run organization. She discusses their fundraising techniques and strategies. The Canadian Revenue Agency restricts an organization’s activities in order to be eligible for charitable status (which allows the organization to give tax-receipts). Jafri’s discussion of the internal debate among CCMW members as to whether or not go that route is germane to all Muslim nonprofit organizations in Canada. Sheikh Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi’s paper looks at Muslim charitable giving from the perspective of the Shī‘a Ithnā-‘Ashari Muslims in Canada. He outlines the theory of zakāt before turning to case studies of his organization, the Islamic Shi‘a Ithnā-‘Ashari Jamaat of Toronto (ISIJ). Noting Shī‘ī jurisprudential rules of zakāt do not include banknotes, he concludes that the “the scope of zakāt, especially for Shī‘as in the West, is limited.” Rizvi details how the obligation of khums (one-fifth or 20% of the annual profit or savings of a person) is important both to poverty alleviation and to the financial upkeep of their religious institutions, along with other kinds of donations and fundraising. He argues for the importance of charity toward non-Muslims. He discusses various fundraising models, including income generating activities. He details the pioneering social services of the Islamic Shi‘a Ithnā-‘Ashari Jamaat of Toronto. He finishes with a brief survey of notable donations and charitable services by local Shi‘a community members. The final practitioner report widens the lens to an international level. Mohammed Abu Asaker’s paper looks at the founding and development of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees Zakat Fund. Asaker discusses the rationale behind founding the dedicated fund, their activities, and disbursements. He highlights the fatawa received from scholars around the world supporting the fund as zakat eligible. He details the fund’s transparency and governance policies—a crucial aspect of due diligence for those entrusted with zakat distribution. He finishes with a look at Canadian Muslim contributions to the fund, noting that Canada is the ninth largest donor. Abu Asaker’s presentation in March 2021 was before the Ukraine crisis changed the face of worldwide refugees, but Muslims are, unfortunately, still among the top refugee producing countries (UNHCR). We hope readers are inspired to begin their own studies of Muslim philanthropy in Canada.

Commentary on Philanthropy in Indonesia

Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world: estimated in 2018 at about 231 million, or 86.7% of the total (Republic of Indonesia, n.d.). It has also been hailed as the most generous country in the world, in a survey carried out recently by the British-based Charities Aid Foundation (2021). So it is eminently appropriate that this journal should devote space to the traditions and practices of Indonesian philanthropy. In this issue, Hilman Latief, an experienced scholar and administrator, draws attention to the diversity of Islamic authorities in Indonesia, as expressed in the publication of fatwas relating to zakat, issued by Islamic civil society organizations of different complexions that never cite one another’s rulings. Questions addressed by him include whether automatic deduction for zakat from civil servants’ salaries accords with Islamic law and whether zakat funds can be spent on the construction of mosques. From Hilman Latief’s article we learn that, whereas the lack of a central religious authority leaves space for individuals to make their own free choices in charitable giving, “fatwa pluralism” inhibits the adaptation of zakat toward coordinated goals such as sustainable development. In a well-documented article, Indah Pilyanti focuses on two important Indonesian charities to show how the exigencies of the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the impact on the sector of new communications technologies. Badan Amil Zakat Nasional (BAZNAS) was founded by the government in 2001 as a nationwide organization to collect and disburse zakat and sedekah and is bureaucratic in character, tending to follow official policy. Dompet Dhuafa (DD) was launched in 1993 by journalists and as a community-owned organization it is more flexible, able both to tap into the Indonesian diaspora for donations and also to provide services for needy recipients who are far from large centers of population. A class divide has sharpened between cities and rural areas where access to the Internet is limited. My assigned task here is more general: to draw attention briefly to the breadth and depth of Islamic philanthropy in Indonesia, while also taking note of some political dangers that may inhibit its future. An indispensable historical reference is Amelia Fauzia’s (2013) Faith and the State: A History of Islamic Philanthropy in Indonesia (reviewed by Khader, 2013). Written with the encouragement of the late M. C. Ricklefs, the leading historian of Indonesia, its core theme is the shifting relations between the state and civil society, going back to the period under Dutch colonial rule and earlier. Amelia Fauzia has turned her attention to the current challenge of making a reality of “social justice philanthropy” in the Islamic context (Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace, 2013;Fauzia, 2017;Fauzia et al., 2022), whereby long-term development objectives/goals would be set. To indicate the strength of Islamic civil society throughout Indonesia, it is only necessary to record that the Muhammadiyah, founded in 1912 by Kyai Hajji Ahmad Dahlan, is now one of the two largest Muslim social welfare and educational organizations in the world. It celebrated its centenary in 2012 with an international research conference at Malang in east Java devoted to its “search for a renewed identity of Muhammadiyah for its post-centennial era” (Hefner, 2013). The conference was especially notable for a spirit of self-reflexivity and proactive debate. An impressive number of highly qualified Indonesian women had achieved leadership roles. Muhammadiyah was estimated at that time to administer 10,000 schools, 172 institutes of higher education, over 450 hospitals and clinics, and over 11,000 mosques and prayer halls across the archipelago (Hefner, 2013). Its humanitarian activities date back to 1919, when it founded a subsidiary organization to provide emergency services for victims of the eruption of Mount Kelud (Latief, 2012, p. 160). Its disaster relief operations gained prominence after the 2004 tsunami and were brought to ether in 2007 as the Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Centre. As early as 1917, Ahmad Dahlan had founded an affiliated organization for women titled Aisyiyah, named after the Prophet Muhammad’s wife Aishah, which has grown to be a major force for women’s education and economic improvement. Muhammadiyah encouraged women to have access to religious training from the early years of the twentieth century, though at times tensions have arisen between Aisyiyah and its parent organization (Hefner, 2016). Recently Muhammadiyah has extended its international activities, including relief aid for Rohingya refugees and reconciliation projects in Mindanao (Philippines) and southern Thailand (Latief & Nashir, 2020). Muhammadiyah’s even larger sister organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama or “Awakening of the Religious Scholars” (NU), was founded in 1926 and at times in its history (unlike the Muhammadiyah) became a political party, though since 1984 it returned to its original role focused on education, community welfare, and socioeconomic development (Parray, 2014). Muhammadiyah and NU have been called “the stable centre of Indonesian Muslim community” (van Bruinessen, 2004, p. 61). After a history of ideological disagreement between them, they were formally reconciled in the early 1980s in the cause of ukhuwwah islamiyyah, brotherhood within the various currents of Islam (van Bruinessen, 1996, p. 187). In retrospect the two mass organizations seem to have performed an intricate pas de deux, complicated by their internal tensions. The explanatory terms “reformist,” “conservative,” “modernist,” and “traditionalist” are all highly equivocal and to be deployed with due circumspection. The Muhammadiyah was founded partly to provide a counterbalance to Christian missionary activity under Dutch colonial rule (which ended in 1945), but also to purge the worldview and practice of Javanese Muslims from indigenous and Hindu–Buddhist elements. Hence, for example, traditional funerary practices and the use of amulets were condemned as bid`ah (innovation). But the movement has also included a strong modernizing and outward-looking tendency (Nakamura, 1996). There is recent evidence of splits between a conservative backlash, especially with regard to women, and projects for revitalization (Shepard, 2014;Burhani, 2013). As for NU, it has consistently favored what it calls traditionalism, by which is meant a reliance on doctrinal precedent. Originally—while having no problem in accepting accommodation to indigenous customs—NU stated its opposition to the failure of “reformists” to acknowledge the authority of the ulama, which it criticized the reformists for replacing with a complete reliance on individual interpretation of the Qur’an and hadiths (sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad). But van Bruinessen (1996), recalling a famous book published in 1984, The Invention of Tradition (Hobsbawm & Ranger), argued in 1996 that “there is no a priori reason to presume that a self-consciously traditionalist organisation (such as the Nahdlatul Ulama) is less dynamic or less prone to change than a self-proclaimed anti-traditional one” (p. 164). Recent evidence suggests that NU, under the leadership of the chairman of its executive council, Yahya Cholil Staquf, has taken an important step toward building an Indonesia-based “humanitarian Islam” consistent with universal human rights and independent of theological authorities in the Middle East (Dorsey, 2022). This doctrine is adapted for the contemporary world and provides a potentially compelling alternative both to the ostensible reformism of the Saudi and Emirati autocracies and to the various politicized versions of Islam associated with Turkey, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran. As this December issue of the Journal of Muslim Philanthropy and Civil Society went to press, the Indonesian government, over which NU currently has considerable influence, was preparing to hold a two-day interfaith conference in Bali, titled “Religion 20 Forum” (R20), two week before the G20 summit November on 15–16, 2022. A senior NU official who was spokesperson for R20 explained: “The G20 Religion Forum constitutes a natural outcome of NU’s efforts over the past decade to prevent the political weaponisation of identity, curtail the spread of communal hatred, and promote solidarity and respect among the diverse peoples, cultures and nations of the world” (Das, 2022;see also Mulia, 2022). In the effort to understand such a large and pluralistic country asIndonesia, generalizations are hazardous. One phenomenon that has caught the attention of social scientists is the growth of religious entrepreneurship, especially as promoted by popular preachers such as Abdullah Gymnastiar (b. 1962), widely known as Aa (elder brother) Gym. In his spectacular though turbulent career, he has combined a self-help business ethic with injunctions to voluntarism and charitable giving, all framed in an Islamic idiom independent of an orthodox education and with Sufi leanings (Kailani & Slama, 2020;Hoesterey, 2016;Watson, 2005). Another important national figure is Yusuf Mansur (b. 1976), whose popular preaching also emphasizes sedakah. If we accept the analysis by Kailani and Slama (2019), Yusuf Mansur’s injunctions to voluntary giving could be compared to the Prosperity Gospel promoted by some Christian evangelists. Closer ethnographic research would be necessary to evaluate how much the prospect of material recompense for sedakah—as opposed to gaining spiritual merit—has contributed to Indonesians’ reputation for generosity. Studies carried out in other social contexts, such as Bornstein (2012) and Derbal (2022), suggest that the motivations for charitable giving are often elusive and defy overgeneralization. The archipelagois not cut off from foreign influences. For instance, the ESQ (Emotional and Spiritual Quotient) training program, which had some currency in Indonesian management circles in the 2000s, is a descendant from the Human Potential Movement that began in the USA in the 1960s. According to ESQ, the institution of zakat is a divine sanction for “strategic collaboration” and “exercising a win-win approach in both business transactions and relations with co-workers.” Participants in ESQ sessions paired up to perform mutual services such as shoeshining, pay each other for the services, and donate the proceeds as zakat. Disparaged in more orthodox circles as “Islam lite,” this was an eccentric case of adapting the principles of Islamic charity to free market ideology (Rudnyckyj, 2010, pp. 8, 91, 112). Everyday Islamic practices in Indonesia, of the kind well-documented in the Middle East (Atia, 2013;Mittermaier, 2019;Schaeublin, 2020, 2023;Derbal, 2022), also in India (Taylor, 2018) and China (Erie, 2016), have so far had less attention from social scientists. “Charitable giving,” writes Professor C. W. Watson, “is a regular feature of everyday life in Indonesia and takes several forms. Some examples. There is a regular Saturday column in one of the newspapers I read that describes a hardship case and requests help for individuals. In angkot—mini-buses, the cheap way to travel—passengers who don’t have much themselves give to people requesting alms. Whenever there is a misfortune (musibah) in a local context, be it in a neighborhood or in a workplace environment, there will always be a whip-round to collect money for the affected family: two major ones in the last three months in the business school in Bandung with which I am associated. This impulse to give is unrelated to any sense of expectation of a spiritual or material award;the preachers who do suggest there may be a material reward are simply uttering conventional phrases of the kind that it is better to give than receive” (Personal communication, September 3, 2022). Given that much of the attention given to Islamic charities by Western scholars and commentators has been focused on the hyperpoliticized Middle East and North Africa, it is tempting to see Indonesia as a country where the charitabl impulse is articulated with much less contamination by propaganda. This impression has to be qualified by the realization that, like many other former colonized societies, Indonesia has known episodes of extreme political violence. Simmering tensions related to political Islam have an impact on the charitable sector today. In April 2022 a report was published by the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) titled “Extremist Charities and Terrorist Fund-Raising in Indonesia” (IPAC, 2022). At first sight this might seem to be of a piece with the reports on Islamic charities regularly published in the USA and Britain by think tanks that rely on the new profession of counterterrorism experts, who gain credibility more by appearance in law courts as expert witnesses than by joining in the cut and thrust of peer-reviewed academic debate (Benthall, 2017). However, the credentials of IPAC are impeccable, and its report contains no slurs against the Islamic charity sector as a whole: it is a reasoned plea for the Indonesian government to redouble its efforts at regulation and monitoring. The report focuses on a few specific organizations committed to violent extremism, including support for ISIS. Indonesia is the only G20 country that is not yet a full member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the intergovernmental body that sets standards for combating terrorist financing and money laundering: “The country has managed its terrorism threat reasonably well over the last two decade. Improving its management of extremist charities would close one of the remaining loopholes” (IPAC, 2022, p. 27). The cause of Islamic charities worldwide has, in my opinion, been setback by a cloud that has hung over them since the beginning of our century, andthe charges against them of supporting terrorism have been much exaggerated (Benthall, 2016, 2021;ACLU, 2009). They have been vulnerable to attack as “low hanging fruit” (FitzGibbon, 2015). Just as Muslim philanthropy is beginning to break free from this cloud in many countries (though it still hangs heavily over the Gulf States and Israel–Palestine), it would be tragic if the general reputation of Islamic civil society institutions in Indonesia were to be damaged by the misguided behavior of a few (cf. Fauzia et al., 2022, pp. 229–231). The organizations censured in the IPAC report referenced above should be seen as injurious aberrations. The Social Trust Fund, based in Jakarta, has published an ambitious and detailed agenda for the future of Islamic social justice philanthropy: questioning the effectiveness of social services that fail to address causes rather than only symptoms, promoting the concept of sustainable development, and embracing the principle of non-discrimination (Fauzia et al., 2022). This brings Amelia Fauzia and her coauthors to call for revisiting strict interpretations of fiqh that inhibit giving assistance to ethnic and religious minorities—with special reference to the eight categories of zakat beneficiary set out by the Qur’an in Al-Tawbah (9:60). They recall that the Muhammadiyah’s early record during the Dutch colonial period provides a precedent for nondiscrimination and inclusion, anticipating the policy later adopted by aid agencies such as the UK-based Islamic Relief Worldwide. As well as analyzing the rich variety of zakat-based arrangements in the country, Fauzia and her coauthors explore the opportunities for some of the hundreds of thousands of Indonesian land waqfs to be transformed into modern charitable organizations, focused, for instance, on reforestation or adaptation to climate change. They also describe the use of funds raised from large Indonesian commercial companies through corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, though regretting that at present these are mainly targeted to benefit Muslims exclusively and for short-term purposes such as breaking the fast at Ramadan. The richness of Islamic philanthropic traditions in Indonesia deserves to be much better known in the West. Nahdlatul Ulama an Muhammadiyah in particular have acquired patina over a century but have also shown a flexibility to adapt and evolve. Insofar as they are taking steps to internationalize their activities this will add to their visibility worldwide, showing an audience in other countries what can be achieved by civil society institutions under the auspices of Islam, and encouraging further cooperation across national borders toward humanitarian and environmental goals.

Women and Charitable Giving

During the past two years, people have witnessed the devastating impact of COVID-19, the war in Ukraine, and natural disasters like wildfires and Hurricane Ian. Armstrong thinks these events have made them all more aware of the needs of those who are adversely affected by events beyond their control. Rather than being passive observers, she thinks they as planners should be more proactive by bringing up the topic of charitable planning with their clients and showing them different ways they can help those who are less fortunate than themselves. Finally, as a board member of the Foundation for Financial Planning, she would be remiss if she didn't mention their Foundation. This organization's mission is to help the underserved gain control of their financial lives with the assistance of pro bono financial planners.

Charity programme supports practices' mental health services

The article reports that the charity Mind Cymru has urged practice nurses in Wales to refer patients with mild to moderate mental health problems for Great Britain National Health Service (NHS) counseling to a free, guided self-help service. It mentions that the Active Monitoring programme can support practices' mental health service delivery.

A Post-COVID-19 Agenda for Nonprofit and Social Economy Research

This article outlines six areas of research that would help Canada’s social purpose sector recover and move forward from the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the sector needs big picture thinking about its role in a post-pandemic world. Second, it needs research on the needs currently being met—or left unmet—by social purpose organizations. Third, it needs research that helps social purpose organizations measure and communicate their value and impact. Fourth, researchers could examine the sector’s advocacy efforts during the pandemic and the results of these efforts. Fifth, there is a need for research on the larger ecosystem in which social purpose organizations operate. Finally, the pandemic presents an opportunity to study how different organizations responded to a crisis and to learn from their experiences. © 2020, University of Alberta Library. All rights reserved.

February–May 2022

In May, Baroness Hallett published her Terms of Reference Consultation Summary Report on the responses to her consultation on the Government's proposed terms of reference for the UK COVID-19 Inquiry, together with her conclusions.1 A major criticism of the draft terms, particularly but not exclusively from faith communities, had been the total absence of any mention of the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions on the practice of religion. Baroness Hallett noted that the consultation had ‘heard from faith groups about the restrictions applied to places of worship and the impact this had on community support, the marking of life events such as marriages and funerals, and the observation of religious festivals’ and the concerns expressed about the interaction between restrictions on places of worship and Convention rights. In February 2020 the Court of Appeal had upheld the judgment of McBride J at first instance that the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland did not have implied or express power to delegate its functions to staff acting alone.6 The effect was to render unlawful all previous decisions taken by Commission staff where the staff member's authority to take the decision depended on the Commission having delegated a statutory power or duty. The Act amends the Charities Act (Northern Ireland) 2008 with retrospective effect so as to render lawful previous decisions taken by Commission staff in reliance on the unlawful delegation, where to do so is consistent with rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and where the decision to be validated was not unlawful on other grounds.

Calls for halt to funding for industrial agriculture

Speed read Civil society groups say ‘Green Revolution’ programmes have failed Funds awarded by Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa ‘go to western institutions’ Leaders urge governments and donors to redirect support to Africa-led projects Civil society organisations have called on influential donors to stop funding industrial agriculture programmes, which they say harm smallholder farmers and the environment. A spokesperson for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said: “We share AGRA’s view that there are many paths to sustainably increasing smallholder farmers’ productivity and incomes in Sub-Saharan Africa. “The German government fundamentally supports the central tasks of AGRA, including transforming smallholder farming and value chains, and increasing farm productivity to meet the needs of a growing population and improve food security,” she said.

Invest in research to save Africa’s agriculture

Enock Chikava, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation It became clear to me that COVID-19 containment measures such as stay-at-home decrees, slowed down agricultural extension services, reduced household incomes against the rising cost of cultivation, led to unavailability of agricultural input materials and uncertainty about the marketing of the products, among others. Speakers at the event were particularly concerned with how the region can find innovative solutions to increase agricultural production that can address the challenges of shrinking arable land caused by population growth and other shocks such as climate change and COVID-19. Ahead of the UN Food Systems Summit next week, it is critical that African governments and development partners clearly outline the need to address the continent’s food systems challenges with commitments to invest in research and strengthen local research organisations for home-grown innovations that support food systems and increase uptake at the grassroots level.

COLLECTIVE RESILIENCE TO MEET THE CHALLENGE OF THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC OF COVID-19

. Utilizing a Community-Based Participatory Research model, faculty members of a local university school of social work completed a qualitative study of an emerging Bhutanese minority group's subjective view of their living experiences related to Covid-19 while living in Northeast, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Utilizing purposive sampling methodology, fifty samples, such as bilingual (English & Nepali) community leaders and Bhutanese residents participated in individual telephone interviews due to the high surge of Covid-19, from October 2020 to January 2021. The purpose of the study is to understand the subjective views of Bhutanese residents' lived experience during the peak of the global pandemic, COVID-19. The interview incorporated two components: 1. Demographic information and 2) Questionnaires developed by the researchers which were reviewed by two independent researchers in the university before their use. The study found that the Bhutanese community residents identified challenging needs in the areas of language barriers, unemployment, multigenerational living, and strategies to overcome hardship of Covid-19. The study findings point to the benefits of an interprofessional collaborative action with community organizations (faith-based organizations, social institutions, and cultural centers) to close the gap of social and health care disparities among minority populations. Community health care and social service institutions and organizations need to build relationships with leaders of local minority organizations in order to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate information about treatment, care and prevention of Covid-19 in the future.