February Board Highlights

March 4, 2022

Dear Sangha,

The February meeting of KCC’s Board focused on the following major topics:

Strategic Planning Update. The SPPT gathered good information and input in the three listening sessions with over 40 Sangha members and member email submissions. The group is working to collate all of the input in a master spreadsheet to identify the key issues that “rose to the surface.” The SPPT is still working on what the actual strategic planning process will look like and anticipates that it will involve a professional facilitator, the Board, and community members. A major goal is to avoid making decisions about strategic goals without considering community input.

Board member terms and recruiting efforts. In 2021, the Board put effort into creating a structure to stagger the departures of Board members at the end of their terms. With two members having recently left before their terms expired and replaced by three new members, that plan has been disrupted as the three new members’ terms will now end simultaneously. There was general agreement that it would be best to avoid this situation, but also to wait to adjust any of the new members’ terms until it becomes clearer how Board recruiting might go and whether all three new members are likely to serve their full terms and agree to serve a second three-year term per Board policy. There was also discussion of ideal Board size either 7 or 9 members. The Board continues to seek sangha members interested in joining the Board.

Administrative Reorganization.  The Service Groups continue to develop their organization, with each group now having a work plan, a coordinator, and a co-coordinator. The coordinators and co-coordinators are:

    • Program Support – Linda Grove and Linda Logan
    • Portland Center Facilities – Coordinator open and Elaine Johnson
    • SCOL – Sarah Lyon and Chehale Alexander
    • Community Life – Judatha Kline and Amy Vance
    • Finance & Development: Linda Besant and Cynthia Irvine
    • HR and Volunteer Support – Rosemarie Sweet and Sally Mead

The Service Group coordinators are still considering whether there should be a separate communications service group or whether it would be more efficient for each group to do their own communications. Doug Dunlap and a small group have met about forming a possible communications service group.

Community Life submitted a new work plan. Community Life incorporates the Engaged Buddism, Needs/Care and Sattva Social Club subgroups.

Finance and Development. Linda Besant presented an extensive and detailed new work plan for the Finance Service Group. It covers detailed work under six main categories: receiving and spending funds, budget preparation and monitoring, monitoring insurance coverages, payroll, fulfilling fiduciary reporting obligations, and maintaining the business office.

2022 Budget. Linda Besant presented the annual budget, which was based on 2021 actual expenses, with input from the newly formed Service Groups. The Budget incorporates a 6% increase in compensation for staff due to inflation, and anticipates increased revenues from increased development efforts, particularly an annual membership drive planned for this Spring. In all, the budget anticipates total income of $330,962 and total expenses of $327,555, with a surplus of $3,407. This projected surplus is highly contingent on the success of new development efforts and all programming and retreats going forward as planned.

Additional items of note:

— Financial report. The financial reserve continues to be only 3.6 months of operating funds due in large part to the large payment for SCOL fire insurance in January. There are hopes that the reserve will increase, but it was also noted that there are Board-designated funds for capital expenditures and maintenance not factored into the amount of reserve that could be used in an emergency. For the first month of the year, KCC is on budget with slightly lower than expected revenues from the Chenrezig retreat, but also expenses slightly lower than budgeted.

— Work continues on the Inclusivity Action Plan. Rosemarie Sweet has redrafted some aspects of the planning document and is waiting for Lama Eric to return from retreat to go further with the plan.

— A facilitated Meeting. Lama Eric participated in a special meeting with the Women’s Action Group before he left on retreat.

— Sangha meetings. There was a discussion of the best way to organize and facilitate sangha meetings as that is no longer part of Linda Grove’s job responsibilities. There was agreement the meetings are important and appreciated by attendees, but that they could maybe happen every other month or quarterly instead of monthly.

— Re-Opening the urban center. Sally Mead, Linda Grove and Elaine Johnson have volunteered to be on an advisory group to provide direction with John Jennings as Board President about when it will be sufficiently safe to re-open the urban center and begin hosting in-person events.

If you wish to see the full detail of our meetings, the full minutes of each KCC Board meeting are posted on the website after they have been approved by the Board at the following Board meeting (30 days later).

All Board meetings are open to all sangha members. We meet by Zoom on the third Sunday of each month from 1:30-4:30pm. Please join us.

John Rothermich, KCC Board Secretary