Begging and giving to beggars is forbidden

Another meaningful way to look at this is to relate requirements to the gross income of the individual believer. If every adult believer gave $70.00 in the year to the National Fund, we would make the budget. If two thirds of the adult believers gave $100 we would almost make the budget. The latter figure is cited because it is known that many of the believers on the voting lists are completely out of touch with the Faith or inactive, or aged, ill and with very limited resources. To expect an average response of $100 from two thirds, however, seems not at all unreasonable. If the average income of Baha’is in the U.S. should be $5,000, which is below the national family average of over $6,200 at the present time, the amount requested for the National Fund would be only 2% of gross income. If one assumed that an equal amount would be given to the Local, International and Continental Funds and spent directly on unreimbursed Baha’i activities, the total Baha’i expenditures would be only 4% of gross income, on the average. When one considers that this is the Cause of God, the most important force for good in the world today, the Cause for which thousands of martyrs gave their lives and all their worldly goods, and that the immediate progress of this Faith depends to a great extent upon the financial and personal support of a few thousand Americans, the request that we give an average of 4% of gross income to our beloved Faith seems hardly extreme enough to be deemed sacrificial. If true sacrifice were involved we ought to be able to spare several times that. And it certainly seems reasonable to conclude that the higher one’s gross income, the greater the percentage of that gross income one can afford to give without undue hardship and with miraculously effective results. It is our great bounty to have had the opportunity to be of such great service to this magnificent Cause, if we could but realize it.

https://bahai.works/Bahá’í_News/Inserts/Issue_399/Budget_Message_1964-1965/Text