(0)Every pound you donate goes to the people who need it. Not 95%. Not 99%. The full amount.
This page explains how that works, who pays for the running of the charity, and what you can check to be sure.
What 100% means here
When you donate £100 to Sunnah Charity, £100 reaches the cause you chose. We do not deduct administration, marketing, office costs, or transaction fees from your donation.
How is the charity itself funded?
Most charities take a percentage off the top of every donation to cover their running costs. That is normal and lawful. We made a different choice.
Our office, our website, our Charity Commission compliance, and the small unavoidable bills of running a UK charity are paid from a separate pot. One generous supporter helped us get started and still covers a meaningful share of those costs today. The rest comes from a small group of regular donors who give specifically to keep the charity running, plus the Gift Aid we claim on eligible donations.
That arrangement is a form of Sadaqah Jariyah — continuing charity. Here is why it matters.
If you donate £500 to dig one water well, that is wonderful, and the reward keeps coming as long as people drink from it. But if you donate £500 to keep the charity itself running, your money pays for the systems that deliver every well, every Iftar, every orphan sponsorship, every emergency response, for years. One gift powering thousands of projects. The reward keeps coming, every time someone is fed, sheltered, or saved through Sunnah Charity, for as long as the charity exists.
The Prophet ﷺ said: “When a person dies, their deeds end except for three: a continuing charity, knowledge that benefits, or a righteous child who prays for them.” (Sahih Muslim, 1631)
A donation that keeps the charity running is the first of those three. It is a continuing charity, generating reward as long as the charity keeps doing its work.
Leave a legacy that keeps giving
Most charities raise money for projects. Far fewer can raise the boring money — the office, the website, the compliance, the tools that make every project possible. Our regular running-cost supporters fill that gap.
Most of them set up a small monthly direct debit — £5, £10, £20 a month. They are not chasing the rush of one big gift. They are putting something steady behind the work, knowing that every Masjid we help build, every well we sink, every food parcel we hand out in famine and disaster, every orphan and widow we shelter, every student we help educate, every family we help into sustainable work — all of it carries their reward with it.
That is Sadaqah Jariyah in plain English. A continuing charity, working quietly in the background, generating reward every time someone benefits from the work you helped make possible.
So your donation and our running costs never touch. Every pound you give to a project goes to that project. Every pound from our running-cost supporters keeps the engine running.
What about card and bank fees?
When you pay by card or bank transfer, your bank or the payment processor takes a small fee. For a £100 donation, that is usually between £1.70 and £2.70.
At checkout you will see a tick-box that says “Yes, I want to cover the transaction fee.” If you tick it, the small fee is added on top of your donation and your chosen cause still receives the full £100. If you leave it unticked, we cover the fee from our running-costs pot. Either way, the cause gets 100%.
If you can, please tick the box. It is a small thing on your side, but on ours it adds up across thousands of donations and lets us put more of our running-costs pot toward what really matters. And you get the peace of mind that every penny of your donation has gone to the cause you chose, with nothing taken out for fees on the way.
Who pays the bills?
The same separate pot of running-cost donations covers:
- The office and IT
- Bank and card fees on donations where the donor did not cover them
- Auditing, legal, and Charity Commission compliance
- Website hosting, photography on the ground, and reports
It keeps the lights on so that public donations can flow straight to the people we serve.
How do I know it actually works?
Three things you can check.
One. We are registered with the Charity Commission of England and Wales under registration number 1203441. Our annual accounts are published on the public Charity Commission register, including the split between project spend and running costs. Anyone can search the register and read them.
Two. We send a receipt for every donation showing exactly which project the money went to. If you donated to Water, your receipt says Water.
Three. Our field videos show the team out delivering the work — Gaza hot meals, Yemeni and Syrian refugee distributions, water wells in Pakistan, the Afghanistan earthquake response. You can watch the work being done.
What about Gift Aid?
If you are a UK taxpayer and tick the Gift Aid box at checkout, HMRC adds 25p to every £1 you donate at no cost to you. That extra 25% goes 100% to the cause too. You do not need to do anything else. We claim it from HMRC and pass it on. Gift Aid also helps cover our running costs, which is one of the reasons every penny of your direct donation can go to the project.
Frequently asked questions
Is Sunnah Charity legitimate?
Yes. We are a registered charity in England and Wales, registration number 1203441. You can search for us on the Charity Commission register and read our annual accounts there. We also publish a 100% donation policy, send a project-specific receipt for every donation, and post field videos showing the work being delivered.
Is Sunnah Charity registered with the Charity Commission?
Yes. Charity Commission for England and Wales, registration number 1203441. The number appears in our header, in our footer, and in our schema markup. You can search the public register to read our annual accounts, our trustee list, and our spending breakdown.
What percentage of my donation goes to charity?
100% of your donation goes to the cause you chose. Not 95%. Not 99%. The full amount. We do not deduct administration, marketing, office costs, or transaction fees from your donation. Card and bank fees are either covered by you (if you tick the box at checkout) or by us from our running-costs pot. Either way, the project gets the full pound.
How is Sunnah Charity funded?
Two separate pots. Public donations to specific projects (Water, Qurbani, Iftar, Masjid builds, and the rest) flow 100% to those projects. Our running costs — office, compliance, banking fees — are paid from a different pot, made up of one major supporter, a small group of monthly running-cost donors, and the Gift Aid we claim from HMRC. Read the full breakdown in “How is the charity itself funded?” above.
Does 100% include the platform fee Stripe takes?
Stripe and our card processors do take a small fee, usually 1.5% to 2.5% on UK cards. If you tick the cover-fee box at checkout, your donation amount is unaffected. If you do not tick it, we absorb the fee from our running-costs pot. The cause always receives the full amount you chose.
What if I donate by bank transfer?
Bank transfers have lower fees than cards but still cost us a few pence per transaction. Same rule: the cause gets 100%, we cover the small fee.
Do you spend any of my donation on appeals or marketing?
No. Marketing, photography, and appeal videos are all paid for from the running-costs pot, not from project donations.
What if there is leftover money on a specific appeal?
If a project finishes under budget — say we raised £20,000 for a Masjid that ended up costing £18,000 — the surplus stays in the same category and we either expand the build or put it towards the next Masjid we take on.
The Prophet ﷺ said: “Whoever introduces a good practice in Islam will have its reward and the reward of everyone who acts upon it after them, without any reduction in their reward.” (Sahih Muslim, 1017)
A gift toward our running costs is a small good practice that keeps multiplying. Every donor who gives to a project after you, every meal we hand out, every well we sink, comes back to your record too.
Ready to give? Help us maintain our 100% donation policy — be part of the Sadaqah Jariyah that keeps every project running.