Building Search Update - 12/21/09

Dear SMCLA sangha,

I would like to give you an update on our process related to purchasing a building for the Los Angeles Shambhala Center, the physical site which will form the center of our Shambhala Buddhist mandala in the greater Los Angeles and Southern California area.

In August 2008, I wrote a memo to our directors identifying a timeline of activities to achieve our goal: purchase a building for SMCLA prior to our lease expiration in November, 2010. I identified two major phases of the process: Phase I was to span the remainder of 2008 through the end of 2009; Phase II was to begin in 2010 and go through the purchase and occupancy of our new building in the fall of 2010.

The activities in Phase I centered around (i) identifying and securing funding sources, (ii) increasing our outreach and connection with the community, and (iii) gaining clarity about the specifications of our “target” building. Completing these activities will allow us to make informed choices (and compromises) when we kick off Phase II in 2010, which will be focused on looking for property and exploring our alternatives.

Phase I has been very successful. We have raised a significant amount of money in our building fund, and have met with a number of donors/investors about the feasibility of our financing plan to get feedback and “soft” commitments. We have greatly improved our web presence and our community connections through hosting event booths, joining the Eagle Rock chamber of commerce, and growing our program offerings at our West Side satellite. We are currently completing a forecast of our capacity and space utilization in a larger building.

In the meantime, we have had certain conversations with our landlord about options to either buy, build, or lease long term at our current location. Most recently, he indicated that he does not intend to move forward with creating a campus (building a third building), but that he would sell us our current building at his cost. Unfortunately, his cost is very high (remember, he bought it at the top of the market and also thought he was going to develop it further), and I would not recommend investing now at that price. So, I told him we would speak again in the spring, once we had completed our year end strategic planning sessions. I also wanted to take some time to consider our alternatives, and to place the building purchase in context of our other goals for 2010.

It is worth noting that, even though it seemed like a fortuitous opportunity to purchase or build at our current site, perhaps even one that was “too good to be true”, we had never contemplated this possibility in our original plan. So, even though we may have gotten excited about the prospect of being able to stay put and own our building, we are still right on schedule with the plan we made back in 2008. We may have just had a little trip on the attachment train. As meditators, that should be a familiar experience. So now we get to come back to the present moment and the new (and impermanent) state of our reality.

After Shambhala Day, I will go back to our landlord with a fair and reasonable offer on the property. In the meantime, I will continue to monitor the market to understand our alternatives (I have found a number of buildings that would work, none of them perfect, of course), and consider what our “Plan B” should be if we don’t identify the right place by August of this year. Our lease provides for month-to-month tenancy after lease expiration, but we may consider a more formal extension.

As we kick off Phase II, we will be stirring up the coals to allow opportunities to light up in front of us. One really fun thing about real estate, and also a difficult thing, is that each property is unique. That means that as we search we will likely find a number of buildings that will work but which also require some acceptance of imperfection. Deepening our understanding of our physical requirements, building the strength of our balance sheet and “hard” funding commitments, and increasing our potential for membership and program growth will help us to stay focused and agile for the right opportunity that arises.

I will provide another update and "next steps" on Shambhala Day, when we enter the new year of the Metal Tiger. The Metal Tiger is renowned for his sharpness of action and undying bravery. Let us have the courage in 2010 to rest in the unknown, beyond hope and fear, while we condense our energy and power to pounce on the right opportunity when it arises.

Yours in the Great Eastern Sun,

David Armitage

This good news just in!

January 30, 2009

Dear Members,

The dream of owning our own building is turning out to be less dream-like every day. Final results for the fall Annual Appeal exceeded the high range of our expectations, just going to demonstrate again that expectations are problematic…

Harvest of Peace fundraising and appeal calls to members ending earlier this month provided $75,647 in new revenue for fiscal year 2009 through this coming August. This sum is well over twice the budget projection set 5 months ago.

It was a team effort: fourteen members including current and former center directors and co-directors took on multiple calls to our expanding membership. Additional members donated auction items, pledged matching funds, coordinated fundraising at Harvest of Peace, and supported the cause in other critical ways. Last, and of course not least, a large majority of us generously participated by increasing monthly dues and/or making one-time donations, and by sharing questionnaire feedback as to how our sangha can better serve us all personally and collectively.

So…thank you and congratulations. Yes, those of us who made one-time donations, matching funds, and/or increased dues commitments need to be sure that we follow up with our pledges. And yes, we still have a great deal to accomplish in raising funds over the next 21 months to permit us to purchase our next home. But it’s important to celebrate, don’t you think?

Appreciatively,

Todj Mandel
Director, Development

Steady Progress - Strong Support

Dear Sangha,
We are squarely on track to our goals in order to purchase a building in 2010. That may seem very far off now, but it will be the steps we consistently make over the next 18 months that determine both our probability of achieving our goal as well as the breadth of choices we will have with respect to characteristics of our new center.

In 2008, we succeeded in raising our monthly member dues revenues in our annual appeal considerably (details to come in a subsequent post shortly) and were grateful to accept year end charitable contributions to the tune of roughly $35,000, of which approximately $25,000 is earmarked for the building campaign. This is all great news and we should celebrate our progress as well as the universal support (in ways both financial and otherwise) that we, as a community, have shown for this project.

2009 will be an interesting year for our economy. As one who works in capital markets and finance, I would be disingenuous to portray that we are almost out of the woods. Most of the smart economists and market participants I speak with believe 2009 promises to be a very hard year for the US economy in general. With this in mind, we will have to be sure to remain disciplined in the face of uncertainty and adversity if we want to achieve our goal in 2010.

For me, it is helpful to remember our mission to create enlightened society, and go beyond fear and tap into the more powerful motivator - love. If we open our hearts, and appreciate our practice and the world around us, then taking the necessary steps to create a place and space where others can experience basic goodness and spend time in practice and study is a natural extension of our personal practice. The Sakyong spoke of this eloquently in his letter on generosity (linked above right).

So, as with so many things, it will take an unyielding confidence in our ability to reach our goal, coupled with small and disciplined steps that will move us slowly towards it. I have to think of the Tibetan nationals fleeing Chinese occupation, who took turns making the path for their caravans through the Himalayas by laying down in the freezing snow. In this way, each step we can make personally to enable our community to move along the path to our goal is a bridge for those who will come behind us.

So, thank you all for the steady progress and strong support shown in 2008. Let's continue in 2009, and take care not to lose heart. We are on the path to success, and just need to stay the course.

May the good windhorse be with you throughout.
David