About Islamic Center of Rowlett
The Islamic Center of Rowlett (ICR) serves the Muslim community of Rowlett, Texas, near Dallas. Like most masjids, ICR runs on its community's giving: Friday collections after Jummah prayer, online gifts, Zakat and Sadaqah, and longtime supporters who give every month.
The challenge: giving lived in too many places
Before OpenFundraise, online gifts and offline records lived in Funraise. In the masjid, card gifts went through Square: a register at a fixed station and a volunteer walking a Square handheld through the crowd after the khutbah. Messages to the community went out through other tools.
Square kept the line moving, but it rarely told ICR who gave. ICR's Square transaction history had no donor emails, and only 16% of payments carried even a cardholder name. Most card giving happened in the few minutes after Jummah, and the rest of the week was quiet.
All in one platform
ICR moved everything onto OpenFundraise. Every gift, every donor, and every message now runs through one system, so a donor who gives at the kiosk, online, or by check is the same person in the same record.
- May 2026Online giving and donor records move to OpenFundraise
ICR replaced its Funraise donation forms and imported its full giving history back to 2023, so every donor record lives in one place. Offline gifts, from monthly checks to small cash gifts, are recorded there too.
- AugustEmail and SMS come onboard
ICR set up text messaging and began a short Jummah reminder email every Thursday morning and early Friday, sent from the same platform that holds its donor list.
- September 25Always-on TV giving kiosks go live
Two OpenFundraise TV kiosks inside the masjid, plus an OpenFundraise handheld reader for the Jummah collection, replaced the Square register and the volunteer's Square handheld.
Online and offline: 2.5x more gifts
Comparing the same months, May through September, ICR received 2.5x as many one-time gifts in 2026 as in 2025, and 52% more one-time giving. Gifts grew both online and offline: 2.5x online and 2.4x offline.
Much of the online growth came from new people. About 70% of ICR's online donors on OpenFundraise had never given to ICR before. Every online gift arrives with the donor's name and email, so ICR can thank them, send a receipt, and invite them back.
Donors also chose to protect the masjid's gift: 96% of one-time online gifts included the processing fee, so ICR keeps the full amount. ICR's longtime monthly supporters carried over without a gap.
In the masjid: giving every day of the week
On September 25, two OpenFundraise TV kiosks went live inside the masjid, and an OpenFundraise handheld reader took over the Jummah collection. The switch from Square took one week, and Friday participation held steady through it.
The bigger change happened between Fridays. Because the kiosks are always on, people can give whenever they are at the masjid. In the first full week, gifts came in on every day of the week.
The kiosks also added a new option at the masjid. Within days of launch, a community member used a kiosk to start a monthly recurring gift.
We'll show you the kiosk, the online form, and the donor records working together, using your own funds.
Email and SMS from the same place
Because ICR's donor list lives on OpenFundraise, reaching the community no longer means exporting lists into another tool. ICR sends a short Jummah reminder email every Thursday morning and early Friday, and has text messaging set up on the same platform.
Online giving is up 43% since the reminders began. More than 40% of online gifts in that time came from people who had clicked a reminder, and unsubscribes fell by more than 90% after the first weeks.
What comes next
- Moving ICR's monthly donors from Funraise into OpenFundraise recurring plans, so recurring giving lives with everything else.
- Inviting kiosk donors to add an email or phone number for their receipt, so in-masjid donors join ICR's email and SMS list the way online donors already do.
- Revisiting these results after a full season of Fridays.
We import your full giving history, the way we did for ICR, so every donor record comes with you.