CME-US Funding Opportunities
With a contribution of just $10 per month, you can join us as a Friend of the Center and play a meaningful role in shaping the story of Muslim America. Your support helps advance scholarship, share knowledge, transform public understanding, and foster a deeper sense of belonging for Muslims across the United States.
Your generosity during the 2026–2027 academic year will directly support:
| $20,000,000 | The Center |
| $8,000,000 | The Scholars Hub |
| $7,000,000 | The Global Muslim Digital Repository |
| $5,000,000 | The Public Commons |
| $1,000,000 | One of the five Repository Themes or a Distinguished Fellowship |
| $500,000 | Annual Lecture Series, Exhibit, or Student Research Fellowship |
| $100,000 | Single Lecture, Event, or Publication |
To inquire further, please email the CME-US Co-Directors:
Dr. Yasmin Saikia - [email protected] & Dr. Chad Haines - [email protected]
Donate to the CME-US General Fund
The CME-US General Fund supports the operations of the Center.
Projects include:
- Development of a 'Guide to Muslim America'
- Oral History Project on Muslim Americans
- Virtual Museum and Digital Repository
- Annual Lecture
- Undergraduate Research Fellows
- Post-doctoral Research Fellows
- Conferences
- Workshops
- Webinars
The Islamic Principle at the Heart of Our Work
The Qur’an identifies al-mu'allafati qulubuhum—the reconciliation of hearts—as one of the highest purposes of charitable giving. CME's work is building knowledge, relationships, and understanding that brings communities together. Every handbook produced for classroom use, every oral history preserved in the Repository, every documentary shared with audiences, every trained scholar producing knowledge, every community dialogue reconciles hearts.
"When a person dies, their deeds come to an end—except for three: ongoing charity, knowledge that benefits others, or a righteous child who prays for them."
—Prophet Muhammad (PBUH, Sahih Muslim)
For Muslim donors, a gift to CME is more than philanthropy. It is sadaqa jariyah—perpetual charity. It is knowledge that benefits others. And it trains the next generation of scholars to strengthen Muslim life in America. It is, in the fullest sense, a fulfillment of Islam's most enduring calls.
CME-US welcomes a diversity of opportunities for supporting our work. All donations are tax-deductible. For those wanting to give Zakat to support Muslim ASU students who are in need, please contact the co-directors.
*Gifts to support the Center for Muslim Experience at Arizona State University are made through the ASU Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and are tax-deductible.
A Legacy Investment
More than a quarter of the world's population is Muslim. In the United States, 3.5 million Muslim citizens work, raise families, serve in uniform, and contribute to every dimension of civic life. They are also the most persistently misrepresented religious community in American public discourse—reduced, decade after decade, to a security concern or a cultural problem requiring management.
Helping Americans know them—truly know them—is among the most important investments of this generation. CME is doing this work.
Why an Endowment and Why Now at ASU
The misrepresentation of Muslim life in America is not a problem of insufficient information. Scholarship exists. Corrective journalism appears. Community organizations do vital work. What is missing is the institutional infrastructure to make this knowledge permanent, accessible, and protected from the shifting winds of politics and funding cycles.
CME occupies a unique position. The center is rooted at ASU, a world-class research university, committed to public impact, and led by Muslim scholars whose work is not apologetic or defensive, but confident, rigorous, and humanizing. What CME needs is the endowment that makes this position permanent.
Grant funding sustains projects. Endowments sustain institutions. CME's endowment goals are the difference between a center that does important work when conditions allow—and one that does important work regardless of conditions. The value of this work is measured not in single projects but in impact over decades: students trained, narratives shifted, communities connected.
All endowment gifts are held and managed by the ASU Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization with full fiduciary accountability and audited financial statements. Foundation partners and major donors receive annual impact reports and full transparency about the use of endowment income.
Please reach out if you have any questions regarding donations
Gifts to support the Center for Muslim Experience at Arizona State University are made through the ASU Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and are tax-deductible.