This year we have continued to have regular virtual practice spaces held by both community members and co-founding teachers. You can find a complete record of our weekly and monthly offerings here: https://www.bhumisparsha.org/events. Many of these offerings are also shared on our Youtube Archive: www.youtube.com/@bhumisparsha so the community can access these practices anytime.
Chaplaincy has also been provided for much of the year by our Community Chaplain Raphael Diaz and another community member, anita
You can find more details about what we have been cultivating this year on our The Bhumi Garden, our blog page here: https://www.bhumisparsha.org/blog. Including:
The money that we received through donations this year primarily went to our virtual bills (“Bhumi utilities”) such as our Zoom, Google workspace, and Squarespace subscriptions. Additionally, we paid two of our teachers a monthly stipend of $1,000 each for the time and energy they give to the sangha. We also were able to pay two part time contractors to keep the gears turning in all aspects. These contractors maintained the calendar, resolved tech issues, coordinated small groups, coordinated new offerings being available, coordinated all details of day long offerings, facilitated meetings with volunteers and lamas, regularly distributed information on Slack, wrote seasonal blog posts to keep community updated, sent out a monthly newsletters with community highlights, offered trainings to community members to learn more about technical aspects that keep Bhumisparsha running, offered insight to support the sangha’s transition into a volunteer led community and much more!
Our biggest challenge this year was not having a clear or consistent money flow and at times, wondering how the sangha would sustain on donations alone after the last installment of a large grant we had received began to dwindle down. We realized that the financial model we were operating under was unclear and unsustainable.
Due to this, the community has made a big decision to move to a volunteer led organization in 2024. This means the two part time contractors will be moving on to other endeavors and teachers will no longer be receiving stipends. Luckily, we were able to secure funding to keep the “Bhumi utilities” paid for at least another year (likely more) and additional funding to support BIPOC organizing. Though all the details are still being worked out, we know this shift is one that will stretch our community in a beautiful way as it all continues to take shape.
