I have been living in a small town in Canada for the past 9 years and recently many Muslim families have started to move in. This has resulted in both Sunnis and Shias wanting to start up their own respective mosques, which is wonderful =) The shia community (which I belong to) is obviously much more smaller compared to the sunnis and though we have managed to find a place for worship and we are doing well mashallah. We need different fundraising ideas to keep it going other then the generous donations we have been receiving during this muharram.
I am an 18 year old girl with tons of free time since I have taken a gap year and would love if anyone had any good ideas ! and i’m sorry if I have posted this in the wrong place, I didn’t know where else to post it!
I recently became part of our masjid committee and I am thinking of the same on how to raise funds for our masjid. Yesterday I asked our imam to tell us if we can invest masjid funds into halal business so we can use the profit to fund our expenses. he is going to look into it and let me know. Another thing that I will propose and implement is sponsorship programs. We will identify the monthly expenses that we cant do without (utilities, property tax, house keeping, repair etc) and ask families to come forward and sponsor that one expense. f we can have 3-4 families sponsor each expense, we can cover our must-have expenses.
my sister and i had set up a mehndi for charity business in the toronto area. the mehndi we did on people (for weddings, parties, eid, etc), all the funds we generated were given to the masjid for their new masjid project.
find something your good at and turn it into a charity business. people loved the fact (muslims and non muslims) that all our profits were given to charity. :)
How many families and individuals do you have in your congregation ?
I can think of some ideas based on the size of congregation.
1. Yard sale -people donate their stuff , electronics , furniture , silverware , toys , clothes etc and you sell them via Craigs list sort of thing for your neighborhood , or in the Masjid yard etc.
2. Hold car wash events in summer.
3. Cook food and sell it after Friday prayer.
4. Sell books and cds of Islamic nature.
6. Craft sale
7. Bake sale
When it comes to fund raising ideas , sky is the limit. At our Masjid hey used to sell gift card for local grocery store belonging to a big chain.
Invite a speaker/scholar and run a market with stalls where people who set up stall pay for their pitches ...
Run a book shop
Start up an after school Islamic club and charge for that
Get membership scheme up - distribute regular newsletters and strike a deal with local Muslim outlets that they give a discount to members and in return the traffic will be directed to them as a result of the membership.