Amplifying Muslim American Generosity Through Storytelling

This article was originally published by Inside Philanthropy on January 16, 2025 and is re-posted here with permission. 

Through her NCFP fellowship Dilnaz Waraich sought to explore Muslim American giving through storytelling. In the process of developing an exhibit—Inspired Generosity— to showcase those stories, Dilnaz and the WF Fund engaged a wide range of people. Here, Dilnaz and Tamela Spicer discuss misconceptions about Muslim Americans and how the process of curating the Inspired Generosity exhibit changed the perspectives of those involved.  

What’s your favorite movie or book?

As you read that question, you were likely flooded with a wide variety of emotions. Your body may have even responded with a quick smile or a sudden tear in your eyes as you recalled a favorite movie or story. That’s the power of stories. Without conscious thought, our brains respond to stories by encouraging memories to form, creating meaning, encouraging social action, and even building connections.

It’s these connections that Inspired Generosity (IG) seeks to build. Launched by the WF Fund, the storytelling showcase amplifies Muslim American stories of generosity to help change the narrative of this historically marginalized community, one that is often misunderstood and misrepresented.

According to Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are four common misconceptions about Islam that negatively impact Muslims:

• The idea that Islam promotes violence and terrorism, when the fact is that Islam prohibits terrorism and killing an innocent person is one of the greatest crimes for a Muslim.
• The false understanding that Islam oppresses women, a myth that stems from practices in some Muslim countries that are cultural rather than stemming from Islamic law.
• The idea that wearing the hijab is forced on women when the reality is that expressions of modesty are an individual choice for Muslim women, choices that are impacted by cultural differences, not unlike in other religious communities.
• The misinterpretation that Allah is the unique deity of Islam when it’s simply the Arabic word for God, and Islam traces its roots to Abraham, just like the Jewish and Christian faiths.

While this often misunderstood community represents just 1% of the U.S. population according to the Pew Research Center, that number is expected to double by 2040. Given that this population is primarily concentrated in larger, metropolitan cities, many Americans have never met a Muslim personally, leaving their perceptions to be shaped by stories in the media, which often feed into the stereotypes noted above. This was true for many of those involved in planning and executing the IG showcase.

Our values of religious pluralism and collaboration drove the WF Fund to engage a wide range of lived experiences in bringing IG to life. A national Nasiha (advisory) committee, featuring a variety of religious traditions, was formed to guide the project, and a diverse selection committee reviewed nearly 200 submissions to determine which stories would be included in the showcase exhibition.

As Yuki Numata Resnick, director of arts and culture at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo and member of the selection committee, noted, “Because I’m not deeply entrenched in a Muslim community here in Buffalo, I did have some worries as I began reviewing.” Yuki wondered if perhaps she would misconstrue the Muslims’ stories that were outside of her lived experience, and she suspected that her “colleagues in philanthropy might have some of the same trepidation.”

Alison Christensen, who served as the curator for IG, also found herself facing similar worries. After questioning her own biases, Alison found herself leading with love as she engaged with the stories and the storytellers who had very different lived experiences from her own. As the project came to a close, Alison reflected on how IG gave her “the opportunity to gain perspective,” and expand her worldview.

As the IG team engaged in the project, something exciting happened: They began to see themselves in these stories of generosity. As Yuki noted after serving on the selection committee, although the experience challenged her in some ways, it also “took away some of the mystery and perhaps even fear of the unknown.” Yuki went on to say that these potential blind spots “might not only be in funding Muslim-led or Muslim-serving organizations, but… in the case of community foundations in particular, the blind spot is likely [around] Muslim philanthropists themselves.”

Hopefully, stories in the IG showcase can break through these blind spots to reveal the realities evident in the growing body of research from the Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. The initiative’s research shows that the Muslim community is not only the most ethnically diverse religious population in the United States, but also one of the most generous. This highly diverse and quickly growing minority contributed an estimated $4.3 billion in total donations to mostly nonreligious causes over the course of a year. The 2021 Muslim American Giving Report found that “compared to the general population, Muslims have a more positive image of the charitable sector” and are motivated more by compassion than by tax benefits.

By elevating the stories of Muslim Americans’ compassion and generosity, IG has the power to shift the often negative narratives surrounding this community. As this project brings together Muslims, Christians, Jewish believers and nonreligious individuals, it breaks down barriers and reminds us that our differences aren’t always what we expect.

Bob Eichinger, senior philanthropic advisor at the Chicago Community Trust and member of the IG Nasiha committee, reminds us that “the world is enriched when we celebrate our differences that make us such a unique, beautiful and diverse community. Progress and peace are possible when we acknowledge and appreciate the common values we share, in our faith practices and our civic engagement. We change the world when we recognize that we are meant to be, and are, better together.”

Dilnaz Waraich is President of the WF Fund.
Tamela A. Spicer, M.A. is Director of Strategic Philanthropy at the WF Fund.