Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, beginning on April 2 in 2022. The holy month is a deeply spiritual time for adherents. To mark the first revelation of the holy book of Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad, Muslims across the globe dedicate the month to fasting, worship, and philanthropy.
A Ramadan charity event offers an invaluable opportunity for reflection, service, and community engagement. In this article, we share 7 unique fundraising ideas for Ramadan to help your organization celebrate this important month.
#1: Kindness-A-Thon
One of the purposes of Ramadan is to deepen your connection to God by prioritizing the needs and experiences of others. A wonderful way to encourage considerateness and service is to organize a Kindness-A-Thon fundraiser! It’ll be an especially big hit with kids and will help teach young children how to be generous, thoughtful, and gentle.
Here’s how to pull it off:
- Invite the children in your community to make weekly or monthly calendars of kind acts. A kind act can be as simple as giving someone a compliment, offering to walk the neighbor’s dog, or baking cookies to take to class. Alternatively, you can encourage your child to round up all their used clothing or toys to donate to a clothes or toy drive. There are lots of ways to be kind!
- Help kids or students find sponsors who pledge to support them throughout the holy month. For example, sponsors can pledge $5 per kind act, or $10 per day.
- Sit back and watch the community enjoy a month of kindness and generosity, benefitting your cause!
#2: Start a Crowdfunding Campaign
Crowdfunding is an easy, low-cost method of extending the blessings of Ramadan beyond your immediate spiritual community. With nearly 2 billion practicing Muslims worldwide, you’re sure to find plenty of support for your campaign while maximizing your nonprofit’s reach.
Whether your organization is dedicated to children, healthcare, or disaster relief, a crowdfunding platform lets you tell your unique story with images, videos, and graphics. Your page will track your progress as you and your supporters work toward a specified funding goal, inspiring donors to practice charity throughout the month.
#3: Community Iftar
During the holy month, the daily fast is broken at sunset with the serving of iftar, a light meal. A meaningful way to close the day of fasting and prayer is to include the entire community in the special meal, and turn it into a fundraiser!
Here’s how to make it happen:
- Find a venue that will hold your organization and guests. If it’s not possible to gather at your mosque’s function center, the local community center or gym are great spaces, too. If it’s a nice spring evening, you might even make it an outdoor picnic!
- Advertise the iftar fundraiser on your community bulletin board, fundraising platform, website, and social media channels. Use a clever hashtag, like #communityiftar2022 or #breakingthefast22.
- Charge a small fee for entry (e.g. $10 per person, or $20 per family).
- Share Islamic traditions surrounding Ramadan with curious visitors who may not know interesting details. For example, you might invite participants to eat three dates at the beginning of the meal. That’s a traditional snack to break the fast for the day, since the prophet Muhammad broke his fast with three dates.
#4: Livestream a Sermon
Not all members of your spiritual community are able to attend Friday sermons due to childcare or work obligations. Why not team up with a nearby prayer hall and livestream Friday sermons every week during Ramadan? Supporters can tune in (or watch the recording later) while you boost your revenue by charging a small donation fee. Make the donation optional: the livestreaming is a gift!
#5: Take on Food Insecurity
Part of the purpose of fasting during Ramadan involves is to relate to the daily struggles with hunger and poverty that millions face across the globe. In the spirit of community and open-hearted service, your nonprofit can collaborate with a food distribution service in your area or in regions affected by poverty, hunger, or war. Then create a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign to help feed families in need.
Here are some tips to help you plan:
- Introduce your nonprofit and the charity you’re working with a brief, effective blurb. Check out this campaign for inspo.
- Include a high-quality, attention-grabbing image. If you’re addressing food scarcity, a family or a group of children is an effective way to let donors make a connection with human faces.
- Tell supporters exactly how much food their donation will provide—in some regions in the world, as little as $30 can feed a family for an entire month. This is a sobering thought, and it shows that everyone’s contribution can make a major difference.
- Acknowledge on your page that a small percentage of funds will go to support your organization: specify how the money will be used.
#6: Add a Zakat Calculator to Your Donation Page
“And establish prayer and give zakat, and whatever good you put forward for yourselves—you will find it with Allah.” -2.110, Qur’an
If you don’t have a donation page, it’s time to expand your fundraising horizons! Donation pages are an effective and low-cost solution that educates supporters about your cause, boosts awareness, and enables giving. The best part about donation pages: they’re always there. Like a website, a donation page is a long-term strategy for raising funds that’s always working quietly in the background, even when you have other fundraisers going on at the same time.
Along with fasting during Ramadan, one of the five pillars of Islam is almsgiving, or Zakat. The practice requires Muslims who are financially able to donate at least 2.5% of their assets to those in need. Since the holy month is the perfect time to expand philanthropic activity, it makes sense to add a convenient Zakat calculator to your donation page. It lets community members determine exactly how much they should contribute.
#7: Run a Pre-Ramadan Workshop
As the countdown to Ramadan begins, it’s a good idea to prepare both mentally and physically. After all, abstaining from food and water until sunset for 29-30 days is a major challenge! Shaban, the month before Ramadan, allows Muslims to begin practicing the self-discipline and self-reflection that are obligatory during the holy month. Solution: a pre-Ramadan workshop fundraiser!
A workshop that takes place during Shaban allows your supporters to explore the spiritual and practical aspects of Ramadan while simultaneously practicing charitable giving by supporting your organization with a small registration fee (e.g. $20 per person). There are lots of ways you can structure your workshop that most benefits your religious community, but here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing:
Pre-Ramadan Workshop Ideas For children
Kids are naturally curious, and Ramadan is the perfect time for them to learn the ins and outs of the Islamic faith while engaging in crafty ways that celebrate gratitude.
- Make a gratitude jar. Children can begin learning gratitude early on by creating their own gratitude jar. Every day, they can write down one thing that they’re grateful for and add it to the jar, inviting family members to contribute gratitude notes, too! At the end of the holy month, families will love opening the jar together and remembering all the little things that they’re thankful for. Simply set up a station that has everything children will need: glass jars (with colored tops), glitter, stickers, glue, paper, and markers. Then watch the little ones get to work!
- Plant seeds of gratitude. An easy way to teach kids to think of others is to give them something small to take care of. A little pot full of cheerful flowers will go a long way toward encouraging your child to be responsible and considerate. Set up a station with plastic containers, soil, water, small shovels (plastic tablespoons work well). Distribute quick-sprouting flowers seeds to the children¬—marigolds, Cosmos, and Zinnias will sprout in just one week. Best of all, the flowers will blossom during Ramadan!
Pre-Ramadan Workshop Ideas For Adults
Grown-ups need extra motivation and time for reflection during Shaban, too!
- Spiritual Morning Retreat. Invite the women in your community to gather in a venue of your choice for a morning of discussion and light refreshments (think tea, fruit, and pastries). You can begin the workshop with a Qur’an recitation, then lead a discussion of the participants’ goals for this Ramadan. You might address topics like inner reflection, the practice of journaling, and how to stay motivated.
- Pre-Ramadan Webinar. One of the biggest challenges of spiritual practice is the self-discipline it demands. Bring your community together online with a webinar to explore this and other subjects via Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, or other video conferencing platform. Invite scholars of Islam to help you put together a program that addresses how your supporters can best prepare for inner transformation during the month of Qur’an. To get inspired, take a cue from the Miftaah Institute: last year, the organization hosted a 3-hour Till the Moon Rises webinar with speakers, academics, and entertainers addressing spiritual struggles and the importance of goal setting during the holy month.
Gear Up for Ramadan with an Unforgettable Fundraiser
It’s a blessed and meaningful month. We get that. That’s why RallyUp is here with round-the-clock support, so you can create an unforgettable campaign in just six simple steps.
We’ll help your organization plan and promote your fundraising event, create a beautiful donation page, and sell tickets, and it’s all absolutely free. Let’s get into the spirit of Ramadan charity and giving together!
