From Corporate to Cause: Launching The Muslim Nonprofit Show | Episode 1

How do you launch and lead a successful Muslim nonprofit?

In this very first episode of The Muslim Nonprofit Show, Dr. Tayyab Yunus shares the inspiring "why" behind the show, his personal journey from corporate success to faith-driven service, and how Muslim-led organizations can change the world.

If you're thinking about starting a nonprofit, already running one, or exploring how to serve your community better—this show is your roadmap to impact.

🎙️ What you'll learn in this episode:

• The mission of The Muslim Nonprofit Show

• Common challenges in the nonprofit space

• The story behind Intuitive Solutions

• Empowering the next generation of Muslim changemakers

🔔 Subscribe for future episodes with nonprofit founders, Islamic scholars, and sector experts.

📌 Follow Dr. Tayyab Yunus:
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/tayyabyunus/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/tayyabyunus
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@tayyabyunus

00:00 – Welcome & Vision
00:30 – The “Why” Behind the Show
01:15 – Nonprofit Sector Challenges
02:00 – Calling All Changemakers
02:40 – Learning Through Others’ Journeys
03:20 – Tayyab’s Personal Journey
04:10 – The Turning Point
05:00 – Founding Intuitive Solutions
06:10 – Mentorship & Education
07:20 – What This Show Will Deliver

#MuslimNonprofitShow #TayyabYunus #IslamicLeadership #HowToStartANonprofit #FaithBasedLeadership #MuslimEntrepreneurs #ServeWithPurpose #SocialImpact #NonprofitStartup

 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu, your brother Tayyib Yunus here and I am

(00:01):
super excited to introduce and launch the Muslim non -profit show.
Before I get into more about it, let me tell you the why in the journey. The why
is because we believe a world served by Muslims experiences Islam.
What is Islam? Islam's peace. And right now, we're living in a world right now
where that's exactly what people are looking for. They're trying to find it anywhere
and everywhere, but we know that there's a way to find peace. And a big part of
that journey to find peace is actually through service, through serving others. And
it turns out that there's a lot of good people out there. Heroes and sheroes that
are already trying to serve others and make the world a better place. And those
folks in the United States specifically, 1 .5 million nonprofits founded by heroes and
sheroes. And out of those 1 .5 million, turns out about 95 % of them stuck in
startup. If we were to only talk the Muslim non -profit sector only in the United
States turns out about 8 ,000. Same stats. Out of those 8 ,095 % stuck in startup.
Now, if all we did was leave the world to become a better place to just these non
-profits and everyone else is focused on exploitation and more money and more
resources at the expense of other people, man, that's going to leave us to not so
good of a world. And that's why we need to help these heroes and sheroes. These
heroes and sheroes, 95%, if we help them, if we can figure out a way to support
them, and many of those are you, you right now, maybe you're,
you got a job And you're sitting in a cube and you're punching in and you're
punching out and you're thinking man I want to make the world better Maybe you're

(00:22):
in college and you're studying but you're passionate about food security Maybe you're
an empty nester kids are old enough to take care of themselves and you're wondering
hey wait a minute How do I restart but I want to make the world a better place
and you're trying to figure it out Maybe there's a group, maybe there's a Muslim,
maybe there's an Islamic school. Maybe there's a relief organization out there that
needs your help, that needs help. This show is about helping,
providing the insights of what worked by bringing together heroes and sheroes that
are working at it every day. They're going to tell us the things here on show.
That are the key insights that will help all of us get to where we need to be.
That's what the Muslim Nonprofit Show is about. The Muslim Nonprofit Show is about
heroes and sheroes working to make the world a better place to serve humanity. And
in doing so, we help the world experience peace, we help the world experience Islam
in a good way, in the right way, in the best way. And so from here on out, we're
going to bring founders, we're going to bring funders, We're going to bring rising
stars and change makers and we're going to try to figure out what was their story,
what inspired them, what kept them going through the night, through the dark, through
the day and everything else and pass that along because I'll tell you what, even
for me, they will help me the most, wasn't what I learned in the classroom will
help me the most, wasn't what I did out there on my own in the dark will help me
the most was the mentors and the teachers who shared the insights to me,
who showed me how to get through the hurdles I wasn't thinking about because that

(00:43):
experience, that wisdom comes from different people who went down the road that
you're thinking about going and you learn things from them that'll help you dodge
the things that you don't want to run into and that's what this show is about And
if you're asking who I am, Theobunus, I am a minority in a minority majority world.
And I'll tell you what, it took me a long time to embrace that identity. When I
was in high school at this time, I truly was a minority, not understanding my
identity, lost, lost in terms of my religious identity, lost in terms of my cultural
identity, lost in every aspect. But what helped me was actually finding other guides
in life. And that led to meeting other lost youth who needed a guide,
who empowered me to be a guide for them. This actually eventually turned into the
founding of a youth organization. I was part of the journey in the co -founding of
Young Muslims North America, an organization in the 90s that connected youth like
myself, who were lost to help us find our American Muslim citizenship identity and
to find purpose to prioritize how we want to make the world a better place. But
something else happened. As I was graduating from high school, my father said,
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" And I said, "I want to make the world
a better place." And he said to me, "Well, son, if you want to do that, this is
1999, 1998." He said, "You've got to make some money first before you do it."
Because in his mind, the paradigm of philanthropy was you go,
you get a career, you make money, and then you have your access and you donate it.
That's a traditional volunteer approach to philanthropy, access approach to

(01:04):
philanthropy. And so I said, okay, I guess that's what I have to do. And so I
started my journey, went to the University of Florida, got Microsoft certifications,
ended up in Chicago, ended up in the tech sector. And in that journey, I still was
volunteering for youth. I became the national president of this youth organization. On
the evenings and weekends, I'm trying to help youth in the daytime. I have my nine
to five job so I can pay my bills and build economic power. But something was
wrong. What was wrong is in that short amount of time on the evenings and weekends,
I never had enough to support or to pay for the resources to solve the problem of
youth leadership and youth development. So I quit my job. Said there had to be a
better way. Let me start a business. Let me be a true philanthropist. Let me find
the freedom and flexibility to build an economic engine to support the world and the
work that I want to do good to make the world better and that became the founding
of intuitive solutions my first social enterprise which was founded in 2002 and on
that journey I hustled and built a business and through that philanthropy we did all
types of work through that philanthropy but something happened in 2015 2015,
2016, I actually wanted to learn more. And it was when I first was exposed by one
of my teachers and mentors, Dr. Shadek Siddiqui, who I love dearly, who changed my
life, who helped me refine my purpose into a clear path. He taught me the framework
of philanthropy, and he taught me and showed me the concept of social
entrepreneurship and introduced me to the idea of social enterprise and how the
research existed, that the practice existed. And he showed me how broken the sector

(01:25):
was and the different tools and resources available to fix it. And the entrepreneur
in me said, you know what, I think we can go out there and make a difference. And
that led to the building of additional tools and resources that are focused on one
mission on one mission alone, making the world a better place by increasing the
capacity of the social good sector. That's the journey that I'm on, is how can I
help make sure the world, the business of doing good has the people and the
resources in it to keep moving good forward. Today, I'm completing my doctorate.
My thesis is studying and looking at the failure of Muslim -led non -profits and has
come up with strategies post startup. That doctorate is after my completion in an
MBA and my focus and my journey as social entrepreneurship and innovation. And now I
wanna bring all that to you. I wanna bring that to you through this show because I
believe that it takes both business principles and concepts and the business of doing
good that work together and human power and human intelligence and artificial
intelligence and these things must come together to create this future world a better
world that all of us are so dearly longing to be part of. So if you're dreaming
of the world being a better place, this is the show for you. If you're hacking
away at a solution to make the world better, this is for you. If you're in the
middle of a startup, if you're in the middle of trying to scale your organization
up, this is the show for you. We're going to bring experts, we're going to bring
experience, we're going to bring failures, we're going to bring successes, and we're
going to tell those stories so you can figure out a way to adapt that for where

(01:46):
you're working and how you want to make the world a better place.