Tom Facchine – Every Mosque In America Should Implement This

Tom Facchine
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AI: Summary ©

The speakers discuss the trend of "endowment" as a financial technology that allows individuals to use their profits to fund projects and communities. This is a popular and unsustainable model, as it requires minimal capital and is undignified. The "endowment" model is seen as a way to avoid unnecessary expenses and empower the Muslim community.

AI: Summary ©

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			One of the things that has to change
		
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			is moving from a fundraising model to a
		
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			waqf or an endowment model.
		
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			So right now the status quo is you've
		
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			got a handful, half dozen to a dozen
		
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			big donors in a community, and they're the
		
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			ones who write the checks every year at
		
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			the Ramadan fundraiser in the middle of Tarawih
		
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			that keep the community going.
		
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			And as long as that's the model, then
		
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			you're essentially captive to their vision of what
		
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			the mosque is going to be.
		
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			That if they decide that you're doing something
		
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			that they don't like, and it might have
		
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			nothing to do with Islam, or it might
		
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			not be valid whatsoever, but they can pull
		
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			the plug at any time, and you don't
		
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			have any ability to push back against that.
		
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			And they're the ones who, like we said,
		
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			there's no double-blind donations.
		
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			Everybody knows that they're the people who are
		
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			writing the checks, and so people are going
		
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			to fall over themselves to satisfy those things,
		
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			even if they're not in the best interest
		
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			of the community.
		
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			So one of the ways to do it,
		
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			we talked about a double-blind donation scheme.
		
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			Another way is moving to an endowment model,
		
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			which a lot of mosques now have learned
		
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			or have learned of that is becoming more
		
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			popular, where your operational expenses are not tied
		
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			up to donations that are happening, that they
		
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			are taken care of through the use of
		
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			fruct or through the profit that is being
		
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			made from some sort of asset that's owned
		
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			by the mosque in collective.
		
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			So that's, I think, a really, really important
		
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			financial technology that, honestly, the Muslim world used
		
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			for over a thousand years, for 1400 years,
		
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			in order to do what governments do today.
		
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			Before there were these sorts of...
		
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			governments didn't use to pave roads, they didn't
		
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			use to fund hospitals, they didn't use to
		
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			take care of the orphans, or the mentally
		
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			ill, or these sorts of things.
		
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			This is all taken care of by the
		
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			endowments in the Muslim lands.
		
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			So much so that when the European colonizers
		
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			came to the Muslim lands, they realized that
		
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			they had to dismantle the system if they
		
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			wanted to conquer the Muslims, and that's exactly
		
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			what they did.
		
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			So we have the ability to resurrect this
		
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			model in the United States, and it's actually
		
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			a key component to getting a little bit
		
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			of a buffer between who's putting in the
		
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			money and who's able to call the shots
		
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			and chart the course for the empowerment and
		
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			the direction of the Muslim community.
		
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			That way, if you have a rental property,
		
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			you're collecting rents, whatever you're...
		
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			you have your profit that you're making off
		
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			of it, you put back into the asset
		
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			what you need to maintain it.
		
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			You're not going to be a slumlord, right?
		
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			But whatever's left over is going to be
		
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			dedicated towards something.
		
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			Now, it could be the imam's salary.
		
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			I know of a lot of imams that
		
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			it's embarrassing.
		
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			I know an imam who had his salary
		
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			written on a whiteboard up in the musalla,
		
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			and that's there for everybody to see.
		
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			When they fundraise, and the imam is supposed
		
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			to fundraise, it's as if he's begging for
		
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			his own salary.
		
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			That's not uncommon.
		
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			So think about what you're doing to your
		
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			religious leader and what messages you're sending and
		
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			how emasculating and infantilizing that sort of is
		
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			and how undignified that is.
		
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			As opposed to, we know that this is
		
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			coming from here, and this is something that
		
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			our operational expenses...
		
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			I think the goal for every mosque is
		
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			that our operational expenses should be covered by
		
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			the endowment.
		
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			So that when you're fundraising, you're funding for
		
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			capital projects.
		
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			We want a new gym.
		
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			We want this.
		
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			We want that.
		
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			People would love to give their money to
		
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			that because they know that the electricity bill
		
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			and the water bill and the normal things
		
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			that are always going to be expenses are
		
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			being handled already.
		
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			Then you can grow as a community.
		
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			As long as every mosque is passing around
		
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			the hat just to keep the lights on
		
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			and pay the imam, and you're not even
		
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			really paying the imam that much, we can't
		
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			really expect to take off like that as
		
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			a community.