MAF differentiates development from welfare, politics and religion and will avoid applying development funding, whether from government agencies or from the general public, to such non-development activities. MAF extends this requirement to separate non-development activity to its implementing partners.
Donations are used to impact beneficiaries based on need and without distinction on the basis of caste, creed, class, race, gender, religion or political persuasion.
These distinctions have bearing not only in the planning and execution of programming and external stakeholder engagement, but also in communications and advocacy, as well as in selecting and engaging with donors and creating and delivering expense and evaluation reports.
MAF's financial and operating systems allow us to apply donations or funding for development purposes only to those approved activities. This separation of activity allows donors to fund or support MAF activity that interests them.
Definition of Aid and Development Activities
Aid and development refer to the activities undertaken to reduce poverty and address global justice issues via direct engagement through and in support of community projects, emergency management, community education, advocacy, volunteer sending, provision of technical and professional services and resources, environmental protection and restoration, and promotion and protection of human rights.
Definition of Non-aid and Development Activities
Non-aid and development activities refer to those with the intention of engaging in religious activities, political activities, or welfare activities:
Religious activities
MAF ensures that funds are only used for promoting, or engaging in, religious activities where permitted by the donor.
Political activities
MAF adopts a neutral position in respect of political activities and seeks to remain impartial at all times. When using donations received from the public or other donor agency funding, MAF ensures that no funds are used for promoting or engaging in political activities, to convert people from one political persuasion to another or to build up political structures.
Welfare
MAF pursues justice for all people and therefore avoids supporting welfare models where funds are used to maintain individuals in a long-term condition of institutionalised support without a clear purpose or articulated exit-strategy. Such programmes would include care programmes provided by orphanages, child sponsorship, hospital care, hospices, and the maintenance of structures to support them and includes welfare that is implemented independently of other sustainable community development activities with no strategy for integration into a broader community and implemented on a long-term basis with no clear exit strategy.