If you’ve ever wondered why AMCF talks the way it does about long-term planning — endowments, multi-year giving, $1 at a time and a 20-year plan for every masjid — much of that foundational language traces back to people like Omar Hassan, AMCF’s past Board Treasurer and Board President 2024-2026.
Omar joined AMCF in its earliest years, recruited through a board posting he saw on the Muppies (Muslim Urban Professionals) network. He came to the work from a career he describes plainly: he went into business in college without knowing what he’d do with it, started at PricewaterhouseCoopers in public accounting, fell into hedge funds at a moment when asset management was emerging as a true discipline in the public conversation, and never looked back. By the time AMCF was forming, he was several years into private equity at Cloverlay, a startup PE firm in Philadelphia.
That asset-management lens — discipline, long-term horizon, careful allocation — is what he brought into the room when AMCF was being built.
A different way of thinking about Muslim giving
On the Muslim Philanthropy Podcast, Omar argued that the Muslim community needed to evolve its approach to philanthropy. The grassroots, $1-at-a-time model that built so much of what exists today is precious — and it isn’t enough on its own. Sustainability requires institutional thinking. Endowments. Long-term giving plans. The discipline to put money away for a rainy day and use it smarter.
“It kind of brings home a lot of the principles that you think about as an asset manager,” he said — “long-term vision, putting money away for a rainy day, using it smarter. Just like the way you manage your 401(k), we can also be managing our donations and our donor giving to help organizations sustain.”
That insight — the same discipline that builds personal wealth can build community wealth — is part of what an AMCF donor-advised fund or endowment makes possible. Donors recommend grants over time rather than scrambling at year-end. Organizations plan with horizon and predictability rather than chasing the next banquet.
Why a community foundation matters
Walking into AMCF, Omar said, he didn’t fully understand what a community foundation actually was. The work changed that.
“A foundation is the word foundation for a reason,” he said. “It’s the bridge between what donors want to give to and what organizations need to have. The donor ecosystem can’t exist without it.” Without that bridge, giving still happens — it always has in our community — but it isn’t as organized, not as well thought out. A community foundation makes the five-year, ten-year, and twenty-year plans possible.
For Omar, the appeal of joining the board wasn’t running another beach cleanup or one-off event (important as those are). It was the chance to apply real institutional skills to a growing concept in the Muslim community — to help build something rather than show up to it.
Philanthropy as human DNA
When the host asked Omar what philanthropy means to him, he gave the kind of answer that becomes a value statement: any altruistic act one human can do for another. “It is part of our human DNA. I think we need it to be human. Philanthropy is the collection of those acts — when you put them together and do them in an organized way.”
It’s a definition that captures something AMCF tries to live by: philanthropy isn’t only about large checks from large donors. It’s the patterned, organized expression of something more elemental in all of us.
What’s on his mind
Asked what single issue he’d want solved, Omar pointed to hunger — not because it’s small, but because it strikes him as a fundamentally solvable misallocation of resources. “The amount of people in this world for whom that is their number one problem, and it distracts them from living life — take that problem away from that enormous population, and just think about what other things we could be doing.”
Closer to home, he gravitates toward organizations that focus on specific, deep causes rather than trying to do everything for everybody. He named two in particular at the time of the conversation: a foundation working with incarcerated Muslims (and Muslims re-entering after incarceration), and a domestic violence organization focused on Muslim women. For broader humanitarian work, he highlighted Helping Hand for Relief and Development.
And his favorite story from the Quran? The story of Prophet Yunus (Jonah) — the ultimate story of redemption from rock bottom, and of forgiveness extended to a prophet and his people both. Omar’s second son is named Yunus. “It comes to mind all the time.”
What sustains him
Omar is candid that joining AMCF meant committing to ongoing work in a way nonprofit volunteering hadn’t required of him before. Events end. Building something doesn’t. Sustaining it doesn’t. But the impact, he said, is “long-lasting, because these are decisions you’re making now that are going to impact the future of this organization and what happens to it.”
That’s the kind of stewardship a community foundation needs at the treasurer’s seat — and AMCF is fortunate to have it.
Listen to the episode
You can find the full conversation with Omar Hassan on the Muslim Philanthropy Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about opening a donor-advised fund with AMCF or supporting the work Omar describes, visit amuslimcf.org/dafs.
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