Clarity on Charity

Recently, a number of different Islamic charity organizations put together a few events in NY/NJ area. It is great to have so many international and national charity organizations working to promote care for others. One of the brothers reminded me about the scope of charity work and his experience with a recent barrage of automated phone messages, text messages, emails, and fliers by these same organizations.

The simple question he asked was, "where do you draw the line with charity? Do I have to give to everyone? Should I turn people down and feel ashamed? Should I remind them about ethics that people are intruding my life with automated messages as if I have $ bills on my head?"

Where do you draw the line? It is a big question. But I do agree that aside from meeting the organizational quota for charity, there is no long term planning involved with Muslim community's resources. Some may feel that an absence of community service/social services in the U.S. amongst affluent Muslims and obligation to give zakat has led to many international relief agencies who have minimum interest in long term social work within the US cities and slums. It is a simple program. Fund raise and ship overseas. There is absolutely nothing haram about it.

Except that there is no long term commitment to where you live and what you do with the money.
On a similar note, whatever happened to the concept of Waqf (endowment)? I mean this is truly a revenue generating model that will multiply the donations over and over again. It is true that the entire financial structure of higher education institutions in the West stands on the Waqf model.
Could a similar waqf model can be put together for community education and social services? Perhaps that would be a good model for long-term planning.