An Urgent Appeal for Funds
Dear Friends,
We hope you are all well & thriving in your life.
I am writing to ask for your urgent and important help in supporting our Sangha.
All the teachers in our Sangha are volunteers: we give many hours (happily) to support our Sangha. None of us are paid to teach. At the moment, we cover all of our own costs—even when we are working and teaching on a retreat, we still pay.
However, running our Sangha is expensive.
We pay 2 people—modestly—to help us with our communications and administration tasks. We decided to do this so teachers were not also having to manage and administrate.
We pay for liability insurance, website and software fees, banking fees, and occasional room rentals. Most importantly, we pay to sponsor Sangha members to attend our classes and retreats when they need support. We don’t think anyone should be prevented from participating fully in our community due to their economic circumstances. This means that when we run a retreat, we lose money.
We have a monthly income of ~$1.5k a month. But we need, in total, an income of ~$3k per month to cover our outgoings. This equates to a very modest $35k a year to run our small charity. If we fail to increase our income, we will run out of money in about 9 months' time—or we will have to radically cut back on what we offer.
Might you be able to help without finances? We need more monthly Dana so we can cover our regular costs. But we would also be extremely grateful for any one-off gifts.
We have a Dana-based community: within this, we encourage everyone who takes part in our classes or groups on a regular basis to consider making a monthly commitment. Many of you are already doing so (thank you!!). If you are, could you possibly increase your monthly gift?
You can set this up through PayPal here, and it’s really easy! Or, to increase your monthly Dana, you can use this link to set up a new amount and then cancel your existing payment.
Thank you so much, again, for your amazing generosity to our Sangha and deep bows of gratitude for your love, kindness, and support.
In our Dana economy, we offer this guidance:
People on a fair income give $100 or more a month
People on a more constrained income give around $45 a month (~$10 a week)
Those who feel this is beyond their means would be welcome to make a lower commitment—for example, $10 a month
If everyone who attended our classes made a monthly gift, we would have what we need. Thank you!
With love,
Samayasri, Chair of Sangha