Religious giving represents one of the largest sources of funding for development. Across the world’s two largest religious communities, Christianity and Islam, estimates suggest that faith-based giving exceeds USD 1 trillion annually[1]. In Christianity, believers are asked to give one-tenth of their income through tithing, and in 2025, Christian-affiliated global giving was estimated at USD ~1.4 trillion.[2] Zakat, one of the five core pillars of Islam, requires those above a wealth threshold to donate 2.5% of their qualifying wealth annually, generating an excess of USD 300 billion each year to support the poor and the indebted.[3] Unlike many forms of charitable giving, faith-based contributions also tend to remain stable even during periods of economic pressure. Survey data shows that most individual religious donors give the same or more year-on-year, with overall giving levels holding steady despite financial strain.[4]

Despite its scale and resilience, faith-based capital remains underrepresented in mainstream development funding and finance conversations. Historically, development actors have perceived religious giving as structurally oriented toward short-term, decentralized uses rather than coordinated, long-term investment.

For one, faith-based giving remains largely absent from formal development finance discussions. Development financing debates focus on government aid budgets, multilateral development banks, or private investment, while religious giving is often treated as separate from these systems rather than as a potential component of them. As a result, faith actors are inconsistently represented in formal decision-making spaces in the development ecosystem, and when engaged, are often treated as peripheral participants rather than as core partners in shaping financing strategies.[5]

Second, the way faith-based giving is structured shapes how it is used. While faith-based giving does mobilize significant resources, much of this is designed to address immediate needs rather than long-term investment. In many traditions, giving mechanisms prioritize direct support to individuals or communities. In Islam, for example, zakat funds must typically be distributed within one year and directed toward specific eligible groups, including the poor, the indebted, or travelers (including refugees).[6]^,[7]

Third, historical allocation patterns further shape how this funding is used. In Christianity, a large share of giving flows through churches and is primarily allocated to internal institutional uses, such as facilities and salaries. Estimates suggest over 70% of Christian giving is directed toward these purposes with a much smaller share going to social or development programs.[8] While these uses are central to the functioning of religious institutions, this means that only a small proportion of total Christian giving is directed toward external and measurable development outcomes.

Finally, even where there is appetite to move toward established investment models, financial structures can pose additional constraints. In Islamic finance, core principles prohibit riba (interest), gharar (excessive uncertainty), and maysir (speculation), while requiring transactions to be asset-backed and structured around risk-sharing. These constraints limit the use of many conventional development finance instruments, such as interest-bearing bonds or highly structured derivatives.

Taken together, these factors illustrate the traditional divide between religious giving and the type of funding development actors need. Faith-based giving is effective at mobilizing large volumes of decentralized, trust-based contributions, but is not designed for aggregation, pooling, or long-term deployment, leaving it largely outside the core architecture of and conversations around development funding and development finance.

However, this framing is simplistic and incomplete. Treating faith-based capital as fixed and purely charitable overlooks the ways in which religious giving systems have already adapted, and the potential for further evolution through new financial structures and institutional models. For example:

In Christianity, tithing has evolved alongside technological change and shifting donor preferences. Younger and more tech-savvy generations increasingly favor cashless giving. Churches that once relied solely on collection plates increasingly use digital giving platforms, mobile apps, and automated donations to make contributions easier and more consistent.[9] One study indicates that digital gifts make up 60% of congregations’ total annual contributions, and 98% of places of worship offer at least one digital giving option.[10] In some cases, congregations are even experimenting with QR-code donations and cryptocurrency contributions to broaden participation.[11] This can allow for a more systematic aggregation of donations than in past.

In Islam, there are several giving and investment mechanisms, including zakat (mandatory annual giving of a portion of one’s wealth), waqf (charitable endowments that fund social goods), and sukuk (sharia-compliant financial instruments similar to bonds that provide ownership of an asset instead of a debt obligation).[12] Waqf endowments have long served as vehicles through which assets are permanently dedicated to public benefit, while the income generated supports social services such as schools, hospitals, and community infrastructure.[13] More recently, new financial structures (e.g., sukuk-waqf hybrids) have begun to combine these traditional instruments with modern capital markets. Sukuk–waqf hybrid models seek to merge the perpetual, mission-driven capital of waqf with sukuk bonds that mobilize private investors seeking returns. In these hybrid models, assets generated or purchased through sukuk proceeds are endowed as waqf, and the income from those assets finances educational, social, or health-related projects.[14] Creative structures such as these sukuk-waqf hybrids allow for Muslims to invest their money through sharia-compliant means and for social causes, becoming increasingly important as vehicles for development funding flows.

These examples show that faith-based capital is not static nor incongruent with development needs. Across multiple contexts, religious giving has adapted to new technologies, financial structures, and individual donor preferences, demonstrating an ability to move beyond purely individual, charitable giving to mobilizing large sums in pursuit of broader development outcomes. What this points to is not a lack of capital, but a gap in how it is perceived, structured, and connected to development finance systems. This raises a practical question: what could this capital achieve if even a small share were redirected or deployed differently?

First, even small reallocations of existing faith-based giving could address critical short-term funding gaps. In 2025, global health development financing declined by around USD 11.2 billion following cuts from major donors.[15] Redirecting just 1% of the estimated USD 2 trillion generated annually through Christian and Islamic giving would unlock approximately USD 20 billion, more than sufficient to offset the shortfall. A similar dynamic is visible in humanitarian response. As of September 2025, UNICEF faced a USD 41.2 million funding gap in its appeal for flood-affected populations in Pakistan, while annual zakat contributions in the country were estimated at over USD 2.3 billion.[16],[17] Redirecting just 2% of these flows would fully fund the appeal. In both cases, the opportunity lies in better directing existing faith-based giving, rather than increasing total funding.

Second, faith-based capital could play a catalytic role in financing large-scale investments if it were aggregated and deployed differently. In Pakistan, for example, annual zakat contributions are largely distributed in fragmented, short-cycle transfers. If a small share of these flows were pooled into structured development vehicles, they could serve as early-stage capital to attract additional investment. Applied to a project such as the Bara Dam, estimated to cost USD 311 million, this pooled capital could be used to crowd in additional financing.[18][19] At a 1 to 3 leverage ratio, USD 115 million in catalytic capital could mobilize an additional USD 345 million, generating total financing of around USD 460 million. In this case, faith-based capital does not simply fill a gap, it is catalytic and enables other investments that would not otherwise be viable on their own at scale.

If faith-based capital is to be effectively leveraged for development outcomes, the task is not simply to engage religious actors but to build the systems, incentives, and financial vehicles to channel this capital in a way that is easier to pool, direct, and deploy. Specifically:

Development funders and investors must recognize that faith-based capital is not one pool of money but a set of distinct funding flows with different requirements. Short-cycle giving such as zakat requires vehicles that preserve speed, eligibility, and trust. Longer-term instruments such as waqf and sukuk can support institution-building and investment. The practical task is to design a portfolio of faith-aligned investment vehicles with these different characteristics, rather than forcing all capital into a single model. Emerging approaches such as Indonesia’s cash waqf-linked sukuk illustrate how charitable capital can be pooled and deployed through structured, scalable instruments.[20]

For governments, the priority is to formalize and develop structures for religious giving that already exists. Digital collection systems, payroll deductions, and tax incentives can shift religious giving from fragmented and informal channels into more visible and coordinated development funding flows. This is already visible in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, where zakat is integrated into formal tax systems.[21] Strong structural enablers of this kind in other countries could expand participation and materially increase the volume of capital that can be aligned with national development priorities.

For individuals, the constraint is often not willingness to give, but the absence of known, credible pathways to direct that giving toward collective outcomes. This requires trusted parties in different countries to develop and market easy-to-use platforms for individuals to donate. This also requires organizations to demonstrate how contributions support development outcomes – whether health systems, humanitarian response, or infrastructure – making it more likely to integrate religious giving into broader development efforts.

In closing, faith-based giving already exists at scale. The question now is whether development systems are ready to build the structures needed to deploy it effectively.

^{[1] Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900–2050, 2025. NZF Worldwide, Potential Global Zakat Pool: Demystifying the Numbers, accessed March 2026}

^{[2] Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Status of Global Christianity, 2025, in the Context of 1900–2050, 2025}

^{[3] NZF Worldwide, Potential Global Zakat Pool: Demystifying the Numbers, accessed March 2026}

^{[4] Givelify and Lake Institute on Faith & Giving, Faith-based giving remains strong despite tough economy, expected to increase in 2024, 2024}

^{[5] Alaa Murabit, Faith Is Indispensable to Global Development, 2025}

^{[6] Other eligible groups include new Muslims, zakat administrators, those in bondage, and those working for the cause of God}

^{[7] Time to Help, Zakat Policy, 2025}

^{[8] Lake Institute on Faith and Giving, The National Study of Congregations’ Economic Practices}

^{[9] BBC, Church of England: Contactless collection payments trialed, 2019}

^{[10] Givelify and Lake Institute on Faith and Giving, Giving in Faith 2024 Report, 2024}

^{[11] Business Insider, Faith meets fintech: How churches are betting on AI and crypto, 2025}

^{[12] World Bank, Leveraging Islamic Fintech to Improve Financial Inclusion, 2020.}

^{Akhilesh Ganti, Understanding Sukuk: Sharia-Compliant Financial Instruments Explained, 2025}

^{[13] Zeidan, Adam.“waqf”. Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed March 2026.}

^{Legal Service India, Waqf: A Corner Stone of Islamic Social and Economic Endowments, 2024}

^{[14] Izzatul Afrina, Islamic Finance for Social Good: Exploring the Synergy Between Sukuk and Waqf, 2024}

^{[15] Angela E Apeagyei et al., Tracking development assistance for health, 1990–2030: historical trends, recent cuts, and outlook, The Lancet, 2025}

^{[16] UNICEF, Humanitarian Situation Report No. 2: Pakistan, 2025}

^{[17] Institute of Development Studies, Zakat Payments in Pakistan Exceed State Social Protection, 2025}

^{[18] The proposed Bara Dam in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is designed to store floodwater and support irrigation and water supply for vulnerable agricultural communities. The project is estimated to cost about USD 311 million and could help irrigate roughly 42,000 acres of farmland once completed.}

^{Mohammad Ali, Bara Dam’s Construction Awaits Go Ahead To Generate 5.8MW Electricity, 2022}

^{[19] Mohammad Ali, Bara Dam’s Construction Awaits Go Ahead To Generate 5.8MW Electricity, 2022}

^{[20] El Barka: Journal of Islamic Economics and Business, Cahyono, Eko & Hidayat, Sutan, Cash Waqf and The Development: A Case Study of Cash Waqf Linked Sukuk in Indonesia, 2022.}

^{[21] Sofyan Halim, et al., Implementation of Zakat as a Tax Incentive in Indonesia: A Comparative Analysis, 2025}

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