Introduction

This series of articles offers insights into four interdependent dimensions needed to build strong Buddhist communities: foresight and strategic planning; fundraising; governance; and planned giving. The focus is on lay leadership.

In this introductory article, you will get the overall context and also explore some of the unique challenges that Buddhist organizations face in community development.

I’m grateful to Thomas Bruner, of Bruner Strategies, for his deep experience in this field and his willingness to share what he has learned with others, through the workshops he offers for Buddhist groups and through his assistance with this series of articles. Thomas has been a practitioner with the Dharma Rain Zen Center in Portland, Oregon, for almost 25 years, and also has decades of experience in capacity building for more than fifteen different Buddhist organizations such as the San Francisco Zen Center, the New York Zen Center, Zen West, the Soto Zen Buddhist Association, and many secular NGOs.

An old proverb says it is a wise community that plants trees under whose shade they will never sit. In other words, when we turn the wheel of the Dharma, we are turning it for generations hence, and in that regard, it is important for us to build strong communities that will be sustainable long after our contributions have ceased. We need to see ourselves as good ancestors.

Of course, the teachings and practices bequeathed to us by Shakyamuni Buddha and the lineages of teachers who comprise our refuge trees provide the foundation for our efforts, but the Buddhist project is far too big to rest on the shoulders of those teachers alone. Sangha is necessarily one of the Three Jewels of Refuge!

Buddhism is relatively new in North America, particularly among communities founded and filled with members who arrived disaffected from their Western spiritual traditions and who came to Buddhism looking for a different path. It is a history comprising charismatic teachers from the East, a DIY approach to community development, and little interaction between groups. In the subsequent decades, teachers from these various communities have formed networks that have helped them grow, evolve, and learn from the successes and challenges of others, particularly within their own lineages. But for the lay leaders of those communities, the opportunities to network with their peers have been limited, if not actively discouraged by their ordained counterparts.

In our current era of post-charismatic Buddhism, strengthening and sustaining our communities must include a more institutional approach. We must do more than support ordained teachers in vision and liturgical roles but also support lay members of the sangha in management roles.

Foresight and strategic planning

Your definition of what constitutes “success” in your particular bodhimandala, and the resources available to you, may vary greatly depending on the size and location of your organization, but the fundamentals of foresight and strategic planning remain the same. Starting with a clear and articulated vision of your organization, its mission, its structure, and its place in the larger community will give you a strong foundation upon which to build out and evaluate your efforts going forward. In the next article in this series, we’ll look more closely at implementing foresight and strategic planning to the specifics of running a Buddhist center.

Fundraising

When I asked Thomas what he had learned from the folks who have attended his workshops, he said he was struck by two significant challenges. The first was how sticky the topic of money is for Buddhists. The second was how many folks mistakenly assume fundraising is inherently complex, expensive, and time consuming—something only large, well-established centers do. So, in the third article in this series, we’ll explore dana in its modern forms and offer a variety of case studies that have worked for North American Buddhist organizations of all sizes.

Governance

Governance involves much more than rules and regulations. It means having a strong and committed board of directors, onboarding opportunities for community members to play a meaningful role in day-to-day operations, fostering a sense of belonging, scaffolding for future growth with productive committees, outreach, cooperative engagement with secular and civic initiatives for the common good, and robust frameworks for accountability, assessment, and evaluation. In the fourth article in this series, we’ll explore how to apply good governance to the tasks of running a successful Buddhist center.

Planned giving

There are clearly many challenges to creating a healthy endowment that will sustain your Buddhist center well into the future—even in the face of impermanence, since all good things come to an end too. It’s not just the affordability crisis that has seen charitable giving decline in recent years. It’s not just that many Buddhist centers experience a lot of membership churn. It’s not just the small footprint of many Buddhist communities. And it’s not just the reluctance most of us feel about preparing dispassionately for our own exit from the stage. Nevertheless, there are a variety of approaches to planned giving that are entirely congruent with Buddhist practice, relatively easy to implement, and offer strong support for long-term sustainability. In the last article in this series, we’ll explore how all that could work for you.

A few notes about the unique nature of the challenges facing Buddhist organizations

The challenges facing organized religion are hardly unique to Buddhism, and they are frequently in the news. A quick browse for books and articles about organizational management for churches, synagogues, and mosques reveals a respectable selection of resources. In the descriptions, a lot of emphasis is on couching the advice in the lingo of that particular faith tradition, but two things jumped out at me: first, the intended readers are the ordained leaders; and second, the texts are long on inspiration and short on specifics.

Back in the 1980s, I was coordinator for the Toronto Buddhist Federation for about five years. Each month, lay leaders from about 20 centers would meet to learn more about each other, exchange ideas, and plan community events such as an annual joint Vesak. Eventually the organization grew into the Buddhist Council of Canada, which soon after imploded. The reasons were twofold. First, some ordained leaders of those founding centers felt it should be their job to do the networking and they withdrew their support from what had been a lay-led initiative. It took about 20 years of stagnation and failed efforts by various monks after that to build back the mandala with those leaders in the central roles. The second reason was that in aspiring to be national in scope, the Buddhist Council of Canada lost its grassroots connection with its constituency and became excessively focused on trying to articulate its vision in complex documents. In the past few years, there have been some attempts to revivify the BCC, but top-down management has yet to provide a value proposition that is relevant to Canada’s more than 500 Buddhist organizations.

Another challenge for Buddhist organizations arises in the tension between divisive identity politics and shared values rooted in practice. I wish there were less focus on being this or that type of Buddhist, good or bad Buddhist, and just practicing Buddhism!

There has been a solid relationship between Buddhist teachers and Buddhist scholars in academia for many decades. While this has borne many fruitful cross-pollinations, it has sometimes also lent itself to sterile scholasticism, or at least a perception from the wider world that Buddhism is more of an esoteric philosophy and less of a practical guide for everyday living. Two grassroots academic networks that have sprung into existence recently are leading the way in revisioning the relationship between Buddhist teachers and scholars in a way that focuses on practical application of the Dharma in the wider world. One is the Buddhist Spiritual Care Educators of North America, an association for Buddhist chaplains.* Another is Maitreya, an association for Buddhist chaplains serving on college and university campuses. For me, the takeaway is that building strong Buddhist institutions isn’t just about what happens within one’s center, but also through networking with other like-minded colleagues in the mahasangha.

Whatever our lineages, let’s work together to nurture the flowering of those refuge trees for years and decades to come. The world needs us.

* Buddhist Spiritual Care (BDG)

See more

Bruner Strategies
Thomas Bruner returns to Portland as CEO for Cure (Oregon Live)
Maitreya Association for Buddhist College Chaplains

Related features from BDG

Connected, Yet Untethered: Rediscovering Sangha
Toward a Multi-faith Vision of University Chaplaincy in America: An Interview with Reverend Greg McGonigle
Life in America as a Chinese Buddhist Monastic: An Interview with Venerable Guan Zhen
Buddhist Ministry Initiative Conference: Building Partnerships and Forging Ties

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