This study aims to discover the determinants of zakat donation to charity organizations (COs) among donors of a predominantly Muslim-majority country, Pakistan. To achieve their social objectives, COs need to understand the behavior of zakat donors to design effective strategies for mobilizing contributions from this class. This research, therefore, unearths the underlying factors that motivate Muslims to donate to COs. This research is based on in-depth interviews with 16 participants from both urban and rural areas of Pakistan. The data are analyzed through Quirkos 2.4, a qualitative data analysis software. This study finds that donors exhibit great interest in, and are influenced by, the organizations� disbursement mechanism. The provision of financial information by, and awareness about, the organization also affects donation decision. The results further reveal that trust is important in donors� behavior toward contributing to COs. Overall, these results support the assertion that trust in COs, fair disbursement of charity funds, disclosure of financial information to the stakeholders and spreading awareness about the COs activities are important considerations for the stakeholders. Based on insights derived from this study, the authors suggest that COs enhance donors� trust, ensure fair disbursement of charity funds, disclose financial information to the stakeholders and create awareness among people about their societal contribution to retain the existing donors and attract new ones. Besides its relevance to the charity sector, this study has managerial implications. COs and particularly zakat organizations are increasingly confronted with challenges, including competitive environments and publicized scandals, undermining donors� confidence in this sector. Innovative approaches are required to counter these challenges and retain public support in zakat organizations. Measures that can be helpful in this connection include sufficient financial disclosure, enhancing the fund disbursement mechanism and providing information about the achievements of COs to the general public to create awareness and dispel misperceptions. This study explores the psychological factors affecting donation behavior of the Muslims in Pakistan, an area where research is generally limited to the Western context. The findings can help the management and nonprofit marketers in fundraising and attracting donors toward COs. The study also enriches the knowledge of donors� behavior toward charity under a centralized zakat system.

This study employed a novel methodological perspective to evaluate the impact of zakat on one of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), i.e., education. The study has employed macrolevel data on zakat spending collected from the zakat department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, and microlevel data from a renowned national survey, the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM). Based on the data set used for empirical analysis, a multilevel model was used to control the effect of intraclass correlation. The findings of this study confirmed that zakat spending by the public sector reduces deprivation in education. Hence, the households benefiting from zakat allocations are less likely to face barriers in accessing education. Furthermore, the study shows that educated and female-headed households are less likely to experience deprivation, emphasizing the importance of empowering such households as a strategy to reduce educational inequality. However, the mechanism of zakat disbursement should be refined and made transparent to pursue SDGs by empowering individuals through quality education, vocational training, and enhancing technical skills, which may ultimately reduce poverty in the country. In addition, the method ology adopted in the study opens doors for further research to decompose the results and design policies accordingly.