Economic Working Group
Minutes
April 21, 2004
Present: Trish Barbato, Connie Brock, Lynele Jones, Michael Greenleaf, Nancy McCabe, Jim Rosen, Denny Robertson, Terry Rudderham, Chris Tamdjidi
Jim reviewed changes to project plan. There was one major change, which is that we will start to talk about fundraising. There will be a discussion started but no commitment to a time frame to make recommendations. President Reoch will head this group.
A question was raised as to whether this plan would be posted on the website. Yes, it will be posted on the website when we are satisfied it is ready and there will be no major changes.
Jim mentioned that there were two or three people who questioned the overall approach and presented some healthy comments.
One comment was that a personal approach should be taken in working with the centres on the level of contribution they would make to the centre of the mandala.
A second comment was that it would be better to put less attention on operational issues and more on local centres. More attention on the centres will lead to a more organic solving of operational issues.
He presented proposed team leaders for projects and noted that it is important that it still be a collaborative process. That the role of the leader is to keep the ball rolling.
It was suggested that Chris and Connie put together the overall funding proposal, which includes the whole mandala. It was suggested we express the focus on larger view that is not just the central office but includes the larger picture. Also, Focus how we anticipate substantial growth. Bring in more people to teach; stabilizing finances can help this. Acknowledge finance office is foundation piece. There was acknowledgement that we need to create radically open space before moving onto other things. Then things will naturally arise. Finance doesn’t exist by itself but is the greatest problem so needs to be related to first. However, it is clear that we don’t want finance to set the vision per se. It is not the role of finance.
There was a discussion on reporting requirements from local centers. The possibility of creating reports that would be recommended for Centres to use in reporting to their communities, but not mandated was discussed. It was suggested that we could mandate timing and type of reports to the Central Office so that we could fulfill reporting requirements to the government as well as have the required information to our banks in a timely fashion.
A suggestion was made that we could clarify what are central and local responsibilities. And also that we could create report templates that would include internal reporting intended for the community and external reporting intended for government and banks. External reports would need to comply with GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles).
Discussion of new staffing roles and responsibilities. Michael Greenleaf would lead a group on defining this. It was suggested that a plan needs to mention when the new staffing would happen. Also indicated that there is some urgency since it could take a six-month search to hire a CFO or a similar position. Connie will follow up with President Reoch on this issue.
It was suggested that each set of recommendations needs to state explicitly who will implement it and in what time frame.
It was agreed that if there was disagreement in the working group that rather then have a majority vote or force consensus that the final decision would be at the discretion of the Working Group chair. In such a case we would lay out dissenting opinion. It was further acknowledged that the first objective is agreement.
Connie presented her report. (see atatachments) It is not at the proposal stage yet. The next step is the draft proposal.
There was a brief discussion on Shambhala Training being removed from the Nalanda Foundation and incorporated into the Shambhala International (Vajradhatu). This has been recommended by the review group.
Discussion on the Practice Centres contribution to the central office. Jeff Waltcher requested an update on the Economic Working Group for the Practice Centers Directors Meeting. Discussion on funding model and agreement to start with a tentative assumption of % of gross revenue. Connie agreed to contact each of the Practice Center Directors and talk through the issues and come up with a reasonable percentage. She will then put together a proposal and organize a meeting.
It was acknowledged that there is a general consensus that everyone wants to support central even if it is a minimum amount.
Chris expressed that he disagreed with some of the assumptions based on his experience in Europe. He recommended that the Economic Working Group come up with the formula on how much each center should contribute and ask the centers to meet it. Then exceptions could be made depending on the circumstances of the individual centre.
There was discussion that the proposal did not necessarily fill in the gaps and would leave us with a budget that was too low and was not realistic. It was suggested that our annual budget should be a minimum of 1.5 million not including special projects.
Further discussion on the long-term view and basing percentages on what we need. This lead into a discussion on cultural and historical differences between North America and Europe. Connie and Chris will follow up on this.
It was noted that a primary agenda item is a status report from all team leaders and they should start to schedule discussions.
Next meeting is May 13 at 3:30 EST.
Some members of the group stayed on the call for informal discussion.