How it works
What happens between you giving and a family receiving — including the parts that are still imperfect.
Most giving platforms show you a story and a progress bar. That tells you nothing about whether the person is real, or whether the money arrives. This page is what happens between you giving and a family receiving — including the parts that are still imperfect.
From application to payment
A family applies
Almost always on WhatsApp, in Arabic, from a phone. They tell us who is in the household, what has happened, what they need, and how money could reach them. It is free and it always will be.
We check who they are
Identity documents, photographs taken by them rather than found online, and a wallet or account that matches the person we verified. Applications that cannot be verified do not become campaigns.
We screen the transfer
Before any money moves, the recipient is screened against sanctions lists. HEART is a US charity and cannot lawfully send funds to a sanctioned person, entity or jurisdiction — and does not.
A campaign is built
We write it with the family, using their own words and their own photographs. It goes onto a regulated fundraising platform — Chuffed or GoFundMe — which handles the donor payment under its own compliance regime.
You give
Your donation is made to HEART Humanitarian Foundation, which operates as I Gift Aid. It becomes the charity's property on receipt, and we apply it to the cause you gave to.
The money is sent, and recorded
Funds reach the family by the route that actually works where they are — often a digital wallet rather than a bank. Every transfer is recorded against the campaign it came from.
What we take, and why
Two deductions happen to your donation, and we would rather name them separately than quote one number that hides the other.
The payment provider's fee
Taken by Chuffed, GoFundMe, Stripe or PayPal before the money reaches us. Typically around 2.5% plus a fixed amount per donation. We never see it and we cannot waive it.
Between 2.5% and 4%, retained by the charity
Applied to what actually arrives. It covers currency exchange, the cost of moving money into a place where ordinary banking does not work, and running the charity. It is a range because those costs genuinely vary per transfer. It is cost recovery, not profit.
Where we are honest about the limits
We identify and promote the families we raise for, and we verify who they are. We do not claim more than we do. Where a campaign has had a specific check, the campaign says which. Where it has not, it does not pretend otherwise.
Approving an application is not a promise that it will raise anything. Some campaigns fund in days and some never fund. We tell families that before they start, because the alternative is raising hope we cannot deliver.
We can be wrong. If you believe a campaign on this site is not what it says it is, tell us at hello@igiftaid.org. We would rather take something down and apologise than leave it up and hope.