:salam2:
Here's something our local MSA did...
They made a Eid potluck for the females..and one for the males (each on separate days)...with fun activities and such..and asked those attending to kindly donate $3 each...mashallah they raised a decent amount of money for a later event in the year we call "Ramadhan Night"..where a speaker..and breaking of the fast takes place..and everyone is allowed to attend (Muslim or not) by purchasing tickets for a small price (which can pay for yet another event)...
Also you can make a book sale..the revenues from this can fluctuate and have to be timed right..but they bring in good profit...that's in addition to Bake Sales..and Food Carnivals...the MSA makes or participates in...advertising for local Muslim businesses for a fee or a service (i.e. some catering..discounts..free items) helps a lot in making events *bigger*..*better*..and *often*..plus it doesn't hurt to have local Muslim businesses flourish
The point of it all is to one..squeeze the university out for every single grant penny they give out for their student associations (filling out papers and following deadlines is *not* hard if you have the right person doing it)..and...have the members contribute with time..talent..knowledge..and monetary means if necessary (each according to his/her ability)..to the event planning and needs...until the association stands on its feet...last year in our MSA..the members donated to raise $75 for a da'awa event and to kick off a bake sale..and sobhanallah..both came out very successful...and when we planned events we made sure that they all had a huge venue for da'awa..even if it was subtle..we made sure it was *there* because essentially that's the biggest goal of MSA (at least that's we felt)
I know I focused on financial support in my reply..but that's because I know from a 5 year experience in MSA that not much can take place without at least *some funding*..so if you secure this aspect..you will have a lot of leg room for events and da'awah and so on
If anything else comes to my mind..I will make sure to stop by and write it out for you sister!
As salamu 'alaikkum, good stuff there ma shaAllah ^^^ Money is a very big issue when it comes to the islamic society (as how we call it here
) You need the money to oragnise major events, anyways let me go through a few of the things that we mostly go through here in shaAllah.
Sometimes when we are low on money, whoever the khateeb is, he would make the second part of his khutbah based on charity, and then ask for donations after jummah salah for the MSA (or ISOC as we say here), and alhamdulillah that is a very very good way of getting a good amount of money, and this is the main income to be honest. Usually the student union gives us some amount of money as part of the university/college policy too.
Also try to get as many sisters as possible, and the MSA brothers to get as many brothers as possible to get involved. This way the MSA committee has more power by having more people. And in shaAllah this also helps financially and in many other ways.
Some of the events we go through
- Do a talk every wednesdays (since most of the people have only half days on wednesdays). And we bring students of knowledge from outside so as to give talks, and also try to look for those people who don't charge to do a talk lol
-Shakey mondays (every week), the brothers gather in their prayer room, and the sisters gather in their prayer room, we all chip in a bit of money and get loads of food and eat together (or sometimes we chip in money from the MSA account
). In my previous college we used to all go for a massive munch on fridays after college, so I do not know how appropriate that would be for the sisters, as we guys used to stay till late, eating away
.
-Dawah stall. We do it once/twice a week(meant to do 3 days a week, but due to circumstances, the past few weeks been a bit crappy for us), where we stand in the middle of the campus with our little table(and banner) with books and give da'wah to muslims and non muslims.
-Hold islamic awareness week once/twice a year, where we invite very popular speakers and invite the non muslims to join us too.
-Annual dinner, we have one final big day with many speakers and stuff, where we charge the people to attend, usually to raise money for next year's MSA account.
-We also hold a charity week, where we have competitions with other universities to see who raised the most and send it off to the poor countries, 6 universities from the rest will link up with us, and have an aim to raise £120,000 this year in shaAllah for the poor in somalia, pakistan and india, in shaAllah. Posters are already out lol, so feel free to donate...
http://cityisoc.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/charity_week_09_cityisoc.jpg
That is about all I can think of from the last few years and the current year. Also I would like to say to be careful of the fitnah the brothers and sisters fall into in the MSA/ISOC, where in many isocs even here you see free mixing tends to take place, and it gets real bad at a point. So in shaAllah I hope you stay strong, and may Allah make you stronger in your deen, ameen.
Wa salaamu 'alaikkum
