SUMMARY

Minara is a social justice–centered cultural salon and evening café by MIPSTERZ. More than 3,000 people have gathered over the past three months for art, conversation, and music through 70+ programs led by the people who walked through our doors.

Our pilot ends March 22, 2026, after which we must vacate or purchase the current space. 

We’re raising $3 million to secure a permanent home—with $300,000 already pledged from donors. Your gift proves community demand and encourages further support. If Minara has inspired you, or if you believe in the need for justice–oriented cultural spaces, please give what you can to help keep it alive as a catalyst for art, empathy, and belonging.

STORY

Minara is a culture salon and evening café in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was created as a third space for art, conversation, and collective imagination. With generous support from the Barr Foundation, this undertaking was the inevitable next step for the Cambridge-rooted, decade-long arts and culture nonprofit—MIPSTERZ.

Minara was born from a need that has only grown more urgent: a place that could hold us through joy and grief, and remind us that we can be a light for one another. We named it Minara, meaning lighthouse, because we wanted a space that offered steadiness, guidance, and warmth.

In late 2025, we opened Minara as a short-term experiment. Could a space rooted in art, justice, and hospitality become a necessary community practice? Would people show up, share their talents, give their time, make it their own?

The answer has been clear: Since our December opening, Minara has hosted more than 70 public programs and welcomed over 3,000 people through its doors. Artists, organizers, families, students, and neighbors have gathered here to share work, debate ideas, make music, drink chai, and build relationships.

Minara exists because many of us share values but rarely share rooms. We needed a space where cultural work and community life could happen under one roof. Where people could return regularly and build something over time.

Now we are looking to make it permanent.

On March 22, Minara’s temporary lease will end and we will close our doors. Today, we are launching a public campaign to secure a long-term home for Minara and protect what has already been built.

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WHAT THIS FUNDING WILL DO

Your support right now is one portion of our overall effort to:

• Lease a long-term property
• Complete essential build-out for a multi-purpose space
• Adequately staff MINARA
• Establish the operational backbone needed to grow programs sustainably
• Host consistent programs and engage more deeply with communities (click here for past programs)

WHY YOUR GIFT MATTERS RIGHT NOW

MIPSTERZ is actively raising $3,000,000 for MINARA’s permanent home. We have already received $300,000+ in verbal commitments from major donors and $150,000+ in grant funding from the Barr Foundation, Cambridge Arts, and the Mass Cultural Council. Our donors believe in this space, but they want to see that the community does too. Every gift, at any level, tells them that the need is real. That Minara is worth backing for the long term.

That’s why we’re asking you to give. Not because of the dollar amount. Because of what it means when the people this space was built for show up and say: this matters.

FUNDING GOAL FAQs

Why do you need $3,000,000? 

How does the $50,000 fit into the larger goal of $3,000,000?

What happens to donations if the fundraising goal isn't met?

Yes, raising $3M is a lot. It is the minimum needed to create something permanent (at least a 10-15 year lifespan). MIPSTERZ commits 100% of all raised funding short of our primary goal toward meaningful arts, culture, and justice programming in Cambridge, MA and beyond for the foreseeable future, as we have done for the past 14 years already. We will keep you informed along the way with relevant updates, making every last cent of your contribution go the extra-mile.

Is my donation tax-deductible?

Are you accepting non-monetary donations?

THE VISION:

Why is MINARA special? How is it different from everything else? 

We are a café & shop, an art gallery, and a community center. MINARA thoughtfully blends all three through a third-space model rooted in the Muslim majlis tradition: a modular, open-door gathering place where art, justice, and hospitality live under one roof. It is where anyone can walk in, meet a friend, and take part in conversation and storytelling, joining in the shared work of building community. Across generations and geographies, majlis spaces brought people together to create, debate, and imagine collectively—shaped not by exclusivity, but by an open door. Minara is built in that spirit: a majlis for today, open to all, shaped by what we build together.

From a sustainability standpoint, this hybrid design is also a strength: instead of relying on a single stream of patrons, MINARA combines café and curated retail, ticketed workshops, private rentals for the community, memberships, and city partnerships—exactly the kind of diversified model needed to weather shocks and build resilience. From a mission standpoint, it centers marginalized creatives in a city that has world-class universities and institutions, but very few spaces explicitly built to incubate their voices over the long haul. ​ In just weeks, MINARA has already hosted MacArthur “Genius” and Guggenheim fellows alongside local organizers, families, and students, proving that it can bridge worlds that rarely share the same room. That mix of rigorous cultural programming, everyday hospitality, and justice-centered design is rare.

What impact will a permanent MINARA have on Cambridge and beyond? 

Think of a permanent MINARA as both a neighborhood “living room” and an engine for long-term cultural and economic value. Securing and renovating a space locks in an accessible, intergenerational space for at least 10–15 years, protecting it from the changes of Cambridge’s real-estate market and giving artists and organizers the consistency that research shows is essential for community-building and survival. ​

On the ground, MINARA will: 

• Host hundreds of public programs a year—expanding from the 70+ already piloted—to support local artists, youth, and families. 
• Provide steady work and marketplace access for artisans, performers, and small food/retail brands through retail, programs, and partnerships. 
• Generate $28,000–$30,000 per month in earned revenue, keeping dollars circulating locally while reducing dependence on unstable grant cycles. ​
  
  

  

When will the permanent MINARA happen? 

WHO ARE WE (and why place your trust in us)?

MINARA is the latest project of MIPSTERZ. MIPSTERZ is an award-winning nonprofit arts and culture collective with over a decade of experience building community, incubating creativity, and amplifying marginalized voices. As a non-traditional arts and culture collective, we prototype culture-changing creative works. We incubate ideas and initiatives from emerging Muslim artists. We transform academic ideas into accessible experiences. Our projects are a home for marginalized Muslim and allied creators to flourish, collaborate, and experiment with diverse folks who share a common connection to a larger tradition.

We have been bringing multidimensional third-culture-inspired stories to outlets worldwide since 2012. MIPSTERZ projects have been featured at the Tribeca Film Festival, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, NEW Inc, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum of Design, The SHED, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and Duke University. MIPSTERZ has been generously supported by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Barr Foundation, Cambridge Arts, Mass Cultural Council, the San Francisco Foundation, and our community. Learn more at mipsterz.com.

The current MINARA core team consists of Yusuf Siddiquee, Ahlam Saïd, Jana Amin, and Abbas Rattani. Together, they combine decades of experience in community organizing, arts and culture, design, and nonprofit leadership—with a track record of building ambitious projects and actually sustaining them. Learn more at minaraspace.org.

Yusuf Siddiquee is a Sound artist, curator, producer, and organizer who has helped shape MINARA’s musical program vision and operational strategy, including the revenue and sustainability modeling needed for a long-term space. Blending mixed media with interactive storytelling, he works across film and music to strengthen a sense of belonging. A NEW INC alum, at MINARA Yusuf brings 15 years of experience in nonprofit financial management for cultural institutions such as StoryCorps and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Ahlam Saïd is a designer, strategist, and storyteller with over 15 years of experience building campaigns and crafting narratives that inspire action, Ahlam's work stretches through advocacy, nonprofits and creative startups. She founded Mennās, a woman-led social enterprise rooted in Yemeni heritage, creating a brand that bridges cultural preservation with economic dignity for artisans. At MINARA, Ahlam leads the creative vision, drawing on her background in production, brand building, and community organizing to shape a space of connection and hospitality.

Jana Amin is an award-winning food anthropologist, recent Harvard College graduate, and two times TedX speaker with deep experience building large-scale campaigns and movements focused on girls’ education and Muslim women’s leadership, bringing strategic advocacy and youth organizing expertise to MINARA. Jana reimagines food as a conduit for community healing, archiving, and political education.

Abbas Rattani is the director of MIPSTERZ, process artist, ethics scholar, and physician-leader with over two decades of experience mentoring emerging artists and stewarding complex, grant‑funded arts projects from idea to execution. Abbas brings his experience in development, execution, and evidence-based research strategy to MINARA.