About
"We have made you a just community so that you may bear witness to all of humanity."
(Qur’an 2:143)
Building Shared Futures is an accelerator and fellowship for recent graduates and young professionals focused on creating a community-centric approach to our passions by incubating innovative projects that are impactful, just, and equitable. Projects are aimed to be flexible and scalable, catering to local, regional, or national Muslim communities.
For any questions, please email bsf@marifaprograms.com
About
Selected fellows will partake in a 10-month long fellowship that will occur in three phases: Ideation, Pitch Summit, and Execution.
Ideation: Selected fellows will form teams and follow an ideation curriculum, where they each will conduct a needs assessment, create deliverables, and develop a “prototype” for a community project within a chosen Focus Area. Throughout this phase, fellows will be matched with an expert advisor and participate in various professional and team development workshops to guide their projects.
Summit: After robust project creation, fellows will convene in-person in January 2025 to pitch their project, budget, and plan of execution to a panel of judges from various backgrounds and communities. A $20,000 innovation fund will be disbursed among teams based on the judges' discretion and the teams’ projected budget.
Execution: Based on judges' feedback and funding, teams will begin implementing their community project for the remainder of the fellowship until July 2025. During this time, Ma’rifa will support teams in connecting with community partners, potential donors, and project advisors. After a successful pilot, project implementation can continue independently and scale afterwards, if desired.
