 Welcome back to the nonprofit show and happy Monday or I'm going to refer to it as Monday. We are glad that you're here. We are also thrilled to have movie quadra joining us today from Florida. He is the co-founder of the American Muslim Community Foundation. Today, he's brought to us a conversation that we, I don't know if we've ever talked about it or if we don't talk about it enough, but as an insider's leadership view into working with faith and philanthropy. I can't think of anyone better to talk to us about this than Muhy himself. So you know the drill, Muhy, we'll get back to you in just one second. But before we do, we want to remind all of our viewers who we are. Hello to you, Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and happy new year. We are embarking together on, as we move into, I think it's our fourth year, right? And I'm Jared Ransom, your nonprofit nerd. Julia claims me often as her personal nonprofit nerd, but plenty of nerdiness to go around. 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So all of those 900 plus plus plus episodes, that's where you can find them. So, okay, Moohee, you are joining us today with a different title, a different organization, a different topic. And I am so glad to have you here. So again, for all of our viewers and listeners, Moohee Kwaja, MPA CFRE co founder and latest and greatest CDO chief development officer at the American Muslim Community Foundation. Welcome back. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. Yeah. You know, Moohee, we've talked about this life of yours in little bits here and there over the years that we've known you. You know, our viewers and listeners know you as one of the leaders of fundraising academy and all the things that you bring to us. But I think what's interesting about you is you actually work in this space and you have at a founder's level. And so I feel like this is something that you bring to the table that not a lot of people know. They just think, oh, he's a smart guy and he knows how to do this. But really, the path that you've taken is pretty, I think, astonishing. And so talk to us about the American Muslim Community Foundation, how it was started and just that journey. Sure. Thank you so much for the opportunity. And, you know, it all happened quite naturally. As one of the co founders, I had been working in philanthropy and development nonprofit work. And when I had an opportunity for an internship at the University of Michigan, it was called the development summer internship program where four days a week you worked in the university. And on Fridays you had a class in an arbor and you got to learn best practices here from alumni, different major gift officers, directors all throughout the university, how they fundraise. And that to me was the first time I heard of development as a career. And it stuck because with a degree in history and psychology, I had no clue what I wanted to do after graduating. So this was the perfect internship for me. And lo and behold, after getting a job as an associate development officer, I was a one person development team working with an organization called the Institute for social policy and understanding. And they did research on the American Muslim Community. A lot of our supporters were Muslim. I worked there for two years, went back around my master's in public administration from U of M, then I worked out another religious nonprofit, also working in the Muslim community and moved out to California where I was for 10 years. And through those two opportunities, built a good network within the Muslim community. Then I went to the American Red Cross. And when I was at the Red Cross, I started learning about donor advice funds, community foundations, because they were receiving gifts from families. And I thought to myself, how cool would it be to have an entity like this for the Muslim community. So after having hundreds of conversations with people in 2016, narrowed it down to three other people that I wanted to start this initiative with. They were different skill sets than I had. They had different backgrounds. And we launched a community foundation. Wow. So where were, you know, faithful Muslims giving before this structure was set up? You know, directly to the nonprofits that they care about. And, you know, that still is the lion's share of what I would say Muslim philanthropy is. We're guided by our faith to be giving and tithing just as Christians and Jews and other faith families. And we also do that through what is called Zakat and Sabaka. So taking these principles, tying it into a faith based values institution and working with Muslim families that understand their giving priorities and also investment priorities. So a lot of Muslims who want to take advantage of donor advice funds and investing want to make sure that they're investing in ethical, socially responsible organizations that aren't dealing with weapons, trades, alcohol, firearms, tobacco, pornography, so on and so forth. So we provide a compliant, religiously compliant methodology for their investing before they distribute to the charities that they care about as well. That is so fascinating to me. Fascinating. And I appreciate that you helped educate us about that because I think of like Ramadan. I know we've had you on during Ramadan. If you could lightly touch on that because I don't think a lot of folks realize that giving potion for the 30 days, it's 30 days, right? Yeah. So, you know, Muslims can obviously give any time throughout the year, but we think that there are extra blessings and believe that when we do give in Ramadan that the giving blessings are exponentially rewarded back to us. So you will see a lot of Muslim families distributing their Zakat and Sabaqa in Ramadan as well, which is always on a lunar calendar. So this year it's going to fall between about March 10th and April 10th. Fascinating. I'm really curious, Muhi, and not to call you out, but I would say you're probably younger than me. So when you started this organization. Oh no. Not at all. What's the organization though? Like I'm really curious the demographic age specifically within the community foundation. Like what is kind of the makeup of ages if you can share that? Yeah, for sure. That's a great question. So we manage 180 donor advice funds now. Median age I'd say is around 52 to 55. So it's slightly older than you are, Jarrett. It's barely. So there are a lot of people, you know, I'm 38. So people who are young professionals that are dabbing into donor advice funds and taking advantage of appreciated assets that they may have from work or their own investments and distributing those into donor advice funds. So I think that the Muslim community is becoming more savvy with these best practices. There's a lot of education of why should they use donor advice funds. So just like the regular American community, maybe they haven't heard of daft side of the nonprofit community. So once you have a life event where maybe you come into wealth through being a beneficiary or selling of a company and your tax advisor, wealth advisor, financial planner tells you, oh, maybe you should consider this. It's not until those points in which you learn about donor advice funds. So we've been beating the drum since 2016 and a lot of it has been through word of mouth and online presentations and in person seminars to talk about donor advice funds and endowments and why nonprofits and individuals should have them. Yeah, well let's get super nerdy even nerdy or right like let's talk about the data points that connect faith and what you're seeing in this. So, you know, first I want to say there's over 700 community foundations, but American Muslim community foundation is the only one for the Muslim community by the Muslim community, and we focus nationwide. And in addition to that when I was talking about data on the American Muslim community, ISPU the organization that I worked for actually has some great data sets on Muslim philanthropy in general. So I would definitely encourage you to look at ISPU American Muslim philanthropy. They've worked with Indiana University and their Lake Institute on family philanthropy and also just in general promoting what Muslims believe in their charitable giving. So, you know, as we know the 2022 numbers from giving USA say that close to $500 billion has been given to charities but it's hard to put a number on what Muslim influence can be in that, but overall there are a lot of motivations of why Muslims tend to give. And the number one thing that ISPU honed in on was the feeling that those with more should be giving to those with less. So it's an intrinsic altruistic ideology in alignment with wanting to help others. Then comes your religious duty and obligation, and the fact that giving makes you feel good. So you see a lot of similarities with the general American public of why they tend to give as well. Now what's really interesting is when it comes to civil rights, Muslims tend to give more than non Muslim people when it comes to domestic relief, whether that's like a shelter or food bank, people of other faith give more than Muslims. And even when it comes to houses of worship, I found this really interesting that people of other faiths give more than Muslims do to their house of worship. And then international relief, Muslims tend to give more to that for religious research Muslims tend to give more for that. But even for things like youth and family services, people of other faiths give more as well. What about the generational giving it I know that there seems to be like a new push about families like getting together and saying this is what you know through two generations or three generations this is where we're going to go. Yeah, you see that structure or is it more, you know, different between different generations like more independent, I guess. Yeah, you know, I think alignment with being a minority community, you know, focusing on political power registering for voting, looking at how many nonprofits there are you know there's over a million and a half nonprofits in America but less than 10,000 registered as Islamic with the IRS, right. And when it comes to generational giving I think a lot of those trends also follow similarly where people want to know how the funds are being used they want to be involved in the process they want to know before they give. And they want to make sure that they can trust the institution. When they are giving as well. Those are those are some big decisions curious how do you attract individuals outside of the Muslim faith. How is that working and is it I mean do you have some individuals within the DAF system there. So, only up until last year had we acquired a person who wanted to support us and open the DAF with amcf who was not Muslim. But more so in our donor base our donor base is diverse. So people who want to support a voice for Muslims in America people who want to support and give to an institution that is giving back to Muslim led nonprofits and charities, wanting to be helping build this ecosystem. We've seen definite support from the institutional level and also individual level to support amcf from outside of the Muslim community. So let me ask you this question because you know when you think about the Christian faith. There's so many different types of philosophies and theories, and I would say there's even a hierarchy to who's more devout who's more faithful for writer for wrong right. Do you experience that within the contingency of the people that you work with and does that impact how you lead and how you operate. I don't necessarily think of it in that lens but we have a widespread variety of people from different ethnic backgrounds, even different sex between the Islamic faith of Sunni and Shia. So we have families and people who donate through donor advice funds to us. And we really wanted to make it all encompassing to speak for the Muslim community. And that was why we were very specific in calling it American Muslim Community Foundation. You know, it's not just this ethnic background or this social class or anything like that but we wanted to be as inclusive as possible. Are you asked what your personal position your ethnicity and like your your family history when you begin a relationship. It comes up every now and again but more so after the fact. I think you know our board is very diverse from the age spectrum to the ethnic spectrum from the sectarian spectrum. So I think we have a good variety and representation of who it is the American Muslim cosmopolitan experience is and I think we also have data on that that I'd love to share as well. So you maybe not think about this but the majority of Muslims in America are black 28% then you have Asian at 23% you have white at 19% you have Arab at 14% you have Hispanic a growing number at 8% and then a large category of Native American and other. So it is a very diverse population. There are over one and a half million Muslims who are registered voters. There are over 3 million Muslims in America and this number is possibly underrepresented people may say that there are more Muslims are the second largest non Christian group in over 20 states across the country. And they're also 2000 mosques across the country. So it's definitely a growing population. It's a diverse population and there's so much that can be said to talk about the contributions of American Muslims. And that's why we want to focus on the philanthropic identity so that people can see the impact that Muslims are having with their charitable giving. Yeah, well, that is again fascinating. I love the numbers I love you bringings you know the demographic breakdown. Talk to us a little bit more for those that are watching and listening as well as Julia and myself right like how do the donor advice funds at amcf work. What are kind of your priorities I mean what is what does the process look like. I'm right there with you movie like I didn't really know what a daft was until of course I was in the sector doing the work that we do. But still I feel like it's something that I will probably never be a part of because I'm not of that wealth category, but I'm really curious to know kind of like what does that look like because maybe I'm completely off. So starting point. Yeah, you know we don't have any minimums and I think that's one of the great things is you can start a donor advice fund with us. We recommend 2500 and that any gift to a charity is $100 or more. So really get the data when we started and giving USA back in 2016 said that the average American household gives about $2300. So that's why we set that minimum, but other than that like, you know fidelity, you could also go and they don't have any minimums. So it's not uncommon for donor advice funds to be open and accessible. And that was definitely one of the things that we wanted to be was open and accessible. So creating a think about like charitable savings account. That's really what a donor advice fund is all the money in there always has to go to a nonprofit organization. And you need to be thinking about putting your money into your DAF so that you can grow it. You can invest it or you can take it all the way down to zero put it in and dump it out back into the community. But the benefit of that is you get one tax receipt from the charity that's holding onto the DAF. So in this case American Muslim Community Foundation. So for people who don't even itemize their taxes, or they just want to be able to invest the growth. It's a much more flexible ability for you to make an impact with your charitable giving. I love that. I'm going to call it the bar right like 2500. That seems very doable. Not always in my life right but right now I think that seems very doable. I love the the inclusivity and the access to that I really do. Um, Julia, have you seen that 2500 entry? I mean, to me that seems like whoa again like light bulb. No, so I know with fidelity. That's one of their big things. But, you know, when you go across the spectrum for most community foundations, it's, you know, moving now in the range of $10,000 just to open up an account. I know, you know, ours in our community, that's where that is. And that's because these organizations have a lot of employees and they have a lot of structures and and that's just what, you know, where things have gone. I think also too, and it's interesting to know to ask this question, do you want like more DAFs and more clients? Or do you want, you know, to keep that number but grow that amount, that investment amount? Yeah, I mean, we've been able to get our assets under management to about eight and a half million, which I feel great about the 180 DAFs. We definitely would love to get into the thousands, right? Okay, but I think we are very competitive on the market where we are at the same cost level as fidelity and other big charities doing the DAFs. And we like to think about it in the sense of like, you know, Muslims are also giving to their alma mater, their local food kitchen, their local hospitals and other places. So what better way to showcase to those organizations that the Muslim community cares? Because if I'm giving as Muji Hwaja, that's just me giving as Muji Hwaja. But now if my funds are coming from the American Muslim Community Foundation, it's a clear representation that the American Muslim community cares about that charity as well. I love it. I think it's just genius branding, as well as, you know, the administration of the philanthropic investment, but it's really smart. And especially when you come back to the stats that you gave us about how this is a faith that's growing and shifting and not just what we think it is, right? And how diverse the population is. So fascinating stuff. You know, before we let you go and I could spend so much more time talking with you because this is my jam. What is the future of your, you know, American Muslim Community Foundation? Like what do you see going on and how do you, what are you working on to secure that future? Yeah, one of the big projects that we enrolled last year was the National Muslim Planned Giving Council. So we're working with financial advisors, wealth planners, estate lawyers, and everybody in between to talk about this general transition of wealth, you know, from our parents to us to the next generation. How are we going to harness the power of this wealth? So looking at planned giving, bequests, trust, and making sure that we're part of that conversation and that nonprofits that these families love are also part of that conversation. One of the things that we started doing was establishing collaborative funds and giving circles. So with the wildfire, with the wildfires in Maui, we set up Muslims from Maui, which raised over $55,000. And we split that to 10 different charities working in Maui and Hawaii. With the conflict that's happening in Palestine, we set up a collaborative fund for Palestine. And AMCF has been one of the philanthropic voices in the community calling for a ceasefire and writing op-eds. And community from within the Muslim community and outside of the Muslim community have supported that collaborative fund, which is going to support advocacy organizations here in the U.S. And humanitarian organizations that are getting much needed aid into Palestine. Interesting. Yeah, so we see the future of American Muslim Community Foundation as being responsive, as being proactive as well. Building a voice for and representing American Muslim philanthropy through giving USA reports and giving our data, sharing that with research collaborative as well. Bring it back out. What I'm hearing too, Muhi, is that the foundation moves quickly, right? And that's one thing, Julia, you and I really noticed the early pandemic, those organizations that could make quick decisions, move in a direction that they were inspired to move in. And I'm hearing that's really part of the culture of the American Muslim Community Foundation for you to really galvanize that support and say, OK, we're going to do Muslims for Maui. We're going to support a lot of this different work collectively. That to me is like fast thinking and doing. Yeah, we were able to give out $300,000 in 2020 in a COVID-19 response fund. And that is because of the generosity of the community. So we were able to give to over 80 faith-based institutions across the country to help them when congregations weren't allowed to come. Think about mosques and churches where the congregation would be supporting on a weekly basis and that wasn't happening. So we were very in a very fortunate position to lean on the community and give back to the institutions that have given so much to us. Amazing. This has been riveting and I don't want to let you go without having you quickly talk about the 2023 Muslim Philanthropy Awards. We don't have a lot of time left, but to understand what's cooking there. Yeah, so back in November of 2023, we had a fantastic Muslim Philanthropy Awards and it really mimics Association of Fundraising Professionals Philanthropy Day and all the awards that they have. So we had 11 different categories from youth and philanthropy, the outstanding board member, the outstanding nonprofit, and it was just a fantastic celebration. We've done it the last few years and looking forward to doing it again in 2024. Good. Very, very cool. Thank you for sharing your time with us. Again, for all of our viewers and listeners, today you have heard from Muji Kwaja wearing the hat today of the American Muslim Community Foundation where he was integral in creating this foundation as a co-founder. And if you notice his title now, he's gone back to play an even bigger role as Chief Development Officer. So thank you for one, educating me, bringing light to this conversation. And I really just want to encourage all of our viewers and listeners around the globe. If this is something you're interested in, or you think someone might be interested in, please reach out to Muji at amuslimcf.org. He's also very active on LinkedIn. I'll shout that out. I love watching your journey, Muji. I really do. So thank you for sharing your time and expertise with us. It's really appreciated. Thank you so much. Yeah, I love this. I think that, you know, we oftentimes, especially in these days, are so fearful to talk about faith in the ecosystem to which how we live our lives and we try and separate that or keep that private. And that just doesn't work, right? It just makes us more suspicious of one another. And so I really, really appreciate you sharing that part of yourself and helping us to understand how this all works. And so we need to have more of these conversations, which I guess is an open door to those of our viewers and listeners that want to come on and talk about this because it takes a brave person, Muji, to do this. So we really, really appreciate you doing that. Again, just a fascinating conversation. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy, been joined today by Jared R. Ransom, nonprofit nerd herself, CEO of the Raven Group. We have amazing partners that allow us to have these conversations that never put any editorial pressure on this, which is really, really important to talk about that and to honor that. Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, nonprofit thought leaders, staffing boutique, your part-time controller, 180 management group, fundraising academy at National University, JMT consulting, nonprofit nerd, and nonprofit tech talk. These are the folks that come and support us day in and day out as we navigate now finishing up our third year, moving into year four, and on track to 1,000 shows. Wow. It's been so fun. Yeah, it's been great. You know, we always joke and say in the beginning when we started this, it was a labor of love, and now I truly miss it. Like, if there's a day that I miss an episode, which is rare for either of us, but I miss the conversation. But one thing we've done consistently is to sign off with this mantra, and we encourage you, invite you to stay well so you can do well. Thanks, Muhy, and thanks.