Creating an organisation
How a charity is set up on WAQAF — who can create one, the new-organisation form, the organisation name, and the web address (slug).
Every charity on WAQAF starts as an organisation — the container that holds your members, your funds, your donors and your finances. This page explains how a new organisation comes into being: who is allowed to create one, the short form you fill in, and the two things you choose at the start — the name and the web address.
In practice this is a one-time, behind-the-scenes step. Most people never see the create-organisation screen at all: they are simply invited into an organisation that already exists, and they begin from their dashboard. Creating the organisation itself is reserved for the WAQAF platform team during setup.
Who can do this. Creating an organisation is a WAQAF platform administrator action — not an ordinary org role like Accountant or Finance Manager. WAQAF does not let members create their own organisations from inside the dashboard; the platform sets each charity up. If you are getting started and don't have an organisation yet, you don't need this screen — ask whoever set up your account, or see Getting started. Once your organisation exists, the day-to-day tasks of running it are spread across the normal roles; see Members & roles.
Where it lives
A new organisation is created from the New organisation screen. Because creation is restricted, this screen only opens for a platform administrator — if your account isn't allowed to create one, WAQAF quietly sends you back to your dashboard instead of showing the form. There is no "Create organisation" button hidden somewhere in your normal settings; this is deliberate.
What you choose at the start
When an organisation is created, you set just one thing by hand — its name. Everything else, including its web address, is worked out for you.
Open the New organisation screen
A platform administrator opens the New organisation page. If the account isn't permitted to create organisations, the page doesn't appear — you're returned to the dashboard. This is the server enforcing the rule, not a glitch.
Enter the organisation name
Type the charity's name into the single Organisation name field. This is the name that will appear at the top of the sidebar, across the dashboard, and on the documents you later print and send.
The name must be between 3 and 32 characters. If it is too short, the form won't let you continue until you lengthen it.
Create the organisation
Select Create organisation. WAQAF saves the new organisation, makes it your active organisation, and takes you straight to its dashboard — ready for you to add members and start setting things up.
The name, in two languages
WAQAF works in both Arabic and English, so an organisation can carry two names — one for each language. At creation time you enter only the first name (in the create form's single field). The English display name is a separate, optional field you fill in afterwards, in your organisation's settings, once the organisation exists.
You don't need to do this on day one. If you only ever set one name, WAQAF simply uses it everywhere. When you're ready to add the second-language name, see Organisation profile & logo, where both the name and the optional English name are edited together.
The optional English name is shown in the browser tab and on your public website when the language is English. It does not change your web address — that was already fixed when the organisation was created (see below).
The web address (slug)
Every organisation gets a short web address, often called a slug — the
identifier that appears in links to your organisation inside WAQAF. You don't type it.
WAQAF builds it automatically from the name you entered: it lowercases the name,
replaces spaces with hyphens, and strips out anything that isn't web-safe. So an
organisation named Al Noor Charity becomes something like al-noor-charity.
If that address is already taken by another organisation, WAQAF adds a short random suffix to keep it unique, so two charities never collide on the same address.
A handful of addresses are reserved by the system (for example admin,
settings, and a few others used by WAQAF itself) and can't be used as an
organisation's slug. If a name would produce a reserved address, WAQAF works around it
automatically — you won't normally notice.
Renaming later changes the address. If you rename the organisation in settings, its web address is regenerated from the new name. Existing links that used the old address may stop working, so rename deliberately rather than casually. The Organisation profile & logo page covers renaming.
After it's created
Once the organisation exists, the rest of setup happens inside it: WAQAF guides you through a short setup wizard, and from there you fill in your profile, upload a logo, and complete your letterhead. The person who manages it from then on does so through the normal roles — finance, site, donors and so on — not through the create-organisation screen, which has done its job.
See also
Your organization
The full picture of setting your charity up on WAQAF.
The setup wizard
The short guided flow that gets you from a fresh organisation to a working dashboard.
Organisation profile & logo
Set your name, add the optional English name, and upload your logo.
Members & roles
Invite colleagues into your new organisation and choose what each can do.