Nonprofits led via Muslim women folk stay broadly engaged in quite a lot of civic actions, even if 72% say they’ve skilled Islamophobia of their paintings.
That’s one of the crucial primary findings of the learn about that we carried out in combination. It’s the foundation of the carried out analysis challenge – a kind of dissertation – that certainly one of us (Hussain) finished for her skilled doctorate in philanthropic management. It is going to be posted on-line in mid-2026 to Indiana College’s scholarship repository.
We surveyed 292 Muslim women folk who lead nonprofits around the U.S. We hooked up with those organizations thru nationwide networks, together with the Muslim Ladies Management Circle and Islamic Faculties League of The usa. We interviewed individuals who lived in 18 states; the biggest numbers of respondents have been in California, New York, Florida and Texas.
About 19% of the nonprofits those women folk lead center of attention on non secular and cultural programming. Some other 17% are targeted on schooling, whilst 16% center of attention on direct social products and services, similar to circle of relatives reinforce and disaster intervention.
The opposite maximum commonplace problems the nonprofits cope with come with gender, healthcare, psychological well being, civil rights, anti-racism efforts, housing and environmental coverage.
We discovered that 93% of those organizations interact in advocacy actions – movements geared toward influencing executive coverage or selections. The organizations used a mean of three.6 other advocacy approaches.
Their maximum commonplace approaches fascinated with development relationships with executive officers. About 57% mentioned acquiring grants or contracts with the ones officers, whilst 35% labored in making plans or advisory teams. More or less 54% mentioned they often launched analysis experiences to the media, policymakers and the general public, setting up themselves as professionals on problems affecting their communities.
About 34% went past advocacy via attractive in some lobbying for coverage proposals they reinforce, whilst 39% inspired their organizations’ individuals to touch policymakers about problems affecting their communities, together with civil rights protections, immigration reform and healthcare get right of entry to.
Nearly all of those teams had skilled Islamophobia. We heard them describe the ones incidents intimately.
“Staff and volunteers have experienced anxiety, fear and trauma due to verbal harassment, microaggressions and bias incidents,” one of the crucial Muslim women folk who lead nonprofits that we interviewed mentioned.
Organizations additionally mentioned their belongings were broken in acts of suspected vandalism. Some other nonprofit chief mentioned her group had skilled “broken windows, graffiti and damaged signage.”
Muslim women folk take part in a self-defense magnificence in 2016 in New York.
Spencer Platt/Getty Pictures
Why it issues
We carried out this survey from December 2024 thru February 2025, a length when anti-Muslim discrimination surged to report ranges, in line with the Council on American-Islamic Members of the family, a Muslim civil rights team. It compiled an inventory of 8,658 proceedings of anti-Muslim incidents in 2024, probably the most it has ever tracked.
Analysis on civic engagement means that experiencing discrimination leads marginalized teams to turn out to be much less engaged in civic existence.
However those Muslim women folk leaders aren’t ready to be invited into democratic processes. They’re development affect via cultivating relationships, generating analysis and attractive in direct advocacy.
The emphasis those leaders position on development ongoing relationships displays that they needless to say lasting political affect calls for sustained connection. Their paintings – together with the analysis they produce and their lobbying efforts – demonstrates their resilience: They’ve remained civically energetic regardless of systemic discrimination.
What nonetheless isn’t recognized
This survey captured a snapshot of Muslim women folk nonprofit leaders’ civic engagement at one time limit. Long term analysis inspecting those patterns over an extended length may just point out whether or not advocacy methods shift as organizations mature, how leaders reply to converting political climates, and whether or not experiencing discrimination impacts their civic engagement over the long run.
Research overlaying an extended stretch of time may just additionally monitor whether or not the connection between Islamophobia and advocacy process stays constant over the years, or if sure methods turn out to be kind of efficient when prerequisites trade.
The Analysis Temporary is a brief take about attention-grabbing educational paintings.
