Pros
Great camaraderie between some colleagues. You feel the warmth amongst some of the colleagues. At face value it appears there are some fantastic projects. Next door to East London Mosque. 3 days off for Eid Ul Fitr.
Cons
Misuse of charitable funds. Lack of transparency with donors as to how their funds are being spent. A lack of feedback to donors. The CEO along with his Senior Management Team have treated the organisation like their personal club and have manufactured positions. These have been filled with people from their immediate circle. There is a lack of transparency in how these positions have been created and also how these people have been recruited. The majority of these new individuals that have joined have been placed on high salaries with many existing staff being told that they could not offer them a pay rise. If you are not part of the immediate circle that has been referred to above, you will find it increasingly difficult to progress. There are individuals within the Senior Management structure who I would not classify as, “fit and proper” for their role. If you look in detail at their experience, you will note that some have no background in the roles that they find themselves in. Hence; there is a lack of competency. There have also been instances of unethical generation of funds with projects failing to be implemented. For a charity that proclaims to follow the teachings of Islam; I find this both questionable and deplorable. There was an instance where by funds raised remained dormant in an account for a significant period of time with no project implementation, yet when another crisis struck in the same region; management pushed for more funds to be generated. The fraternity at Muslim Aid are all about generating noise. To this end, if you carry out searches on the internet, you will see that they have gone about this objective by seeking media attention. There is an agenda to propel certain individuals at the Charity in the media. Conduct your own searches and you will see it’s the same faces. As mentioned it’s about being in front of the camera and for these individuals to tell a story and simultaneously generate interest in Muslim Aid. The idea is to depict the notion that Muslim Aid is responding/doing work, in most cases there is a lack of substance. As mentioned above this view is further enhanced by the fact that they do not report back to their donors. Their donors only ever receive vague feedback in the lead up to campaign times. Furthermore, the website does not provide you with enough information about what they are doing/ what they have done with funds/ implementation of projects. This in my view reduces any credibility the Charity has. There is also a lack of competency within the HR department with extremely poor record keeping being prevalent. A word of advice to any potential candidate(s) seeking employment with Muslim Aid, if you are using the opportunity of employment as a stepping stone in your career then it is worth it. If you are looking to develop a career long term within Muslim Aid, you would be hard pushed to find opportunities here. It is a highly unprofessional environment with underhand tactics deployed by management. I witnessed first hand how a number of ex-colleagues were managed out which I found extremely distasteful. They proclaim to serve humanity, but they have little to no compassion for staff members.