Our Vision

The planning process begins with some hard questions about why Islam is not being more effective in the uplift of people. Besides the external pressures for it to adapt to the challenge of modernity, it suffers from challenges of spiritual vision and vitality that must be addressed. Spiritual revitalization, from the leadership to the grassroots can make Islam once again the force it has been in the past. That revitalization will come from renewed leadership from progressive thinkers who are conscious of the deepest questions facing the world today. Revitalization should be brought through a visioning project that draws in the best of the diversity within Islam and also other religions to actualize the ‘inclusive message’ that the Quran enunciated at the earliest.

Leadership The Muslim community must address significant challenges in leadership and culture. Too often the community leadership is egotistic, reactive, rhetorical and with a narrowly defined world view disallowing any dissent or disagreement. There is a dearth of basic leadership management and other skill-set. Ego, turf battling and organizational rivalry limit prospects of unity. Self appropriation of power and leadership by scholars lacking in other dimension of leadership has been a major problem in Islam’s recent history. Sadly the masses uneducated mostly but to some extent the educated also have bought into this paradigm.
A conscious and comprehensive program aimed at reclaiming the Judeo-Christian-Islamic connection and empowering leadership is needed.
Centers for leadership should be established in Washington, New York City and Los Angeles. A new generation of Imams, and leaders especially from among American born and next generation Muslims raised and educated in the United States and also from among women must be recruited.
A strong technical assistance and resource facility to help leaders develop skills ranging from management, to media, to online organizing is critically needed.

Coordination An informed and inspired community should establish effective collaboration mechanisms to ensure that organizational efforts make the maximum collective impact both within and outside the community.
Leader centered or ‘personality driven’ coalition models of coordination should be passed over in favor of ‘open-source’ networks for information sharing and cooperation. A Pluralism Resource Center should be established to encourage and maintain such networks and provide ‘public goods’ to the community such as open-source conference calls, community mapping and a social movement calendar. This model should be replicated within each Muslim community. New interactive technologies should be used to ensure collaboration among grassroots groups and national leadership. Coordination should occur both at the rapid response level, with weekly national conference calls generating collaborative actions within the news cycle and on the longer term with organizations participating in collective strategic planning processes.

Grassroots Organizing The building of genuine grassroots network throughout the country is a necessary and critical task requiring resources, planning and execution. More effort should be made to build bridges between national organizations and community based networks and mosques. A ‘network of networks’ mechanism should be created that seeks to accomplish this goal. Building a network of Imams or mosque leaders, providing sermon seeds, bulletin inserts, legal advice and other forms of support including English speaking and media interaction must be and should be undertaken. The collaboration of all organization should be sought towards a list building project that would help interaction and communication. The full capabilities of the internet should be tapped to build a massive online presence for the community.

Media Strategy A comprehensive media strategy should be pursued composing common message development workshops, weekly distribution of news summaries and talking points, extensive media training for leaders, media monitoring and rapid response and a pro-bono PR firm service for leaders to drive them into the media. The Resource Center should house many of these services. In addition outstanding communicators need to be secured for radio and television outlets. Donors and supporters should be sought and invited to support money-making enterprises that can become self sustaining over time.
A small group of the most visionary and progressive thinkers and speakers as well as leading communication experts should be convened for a 4 day retreat (early next year). The group should produce core messages for the community that capture the essences of vision and direction for the community in the present and the future need.
High quality publication should be marketed and promoted and disseminated by the community groups. Material should be developed from these publications for direct mail promotions.