Dear friends,

We're writing to you today hoping to raise some money for our work.

Carla and I have doing this work and nothing else for ten years now, and we have always been very close to the edge financially.  Three or four times every year we find ourselves on the verge of running completely out of cash, as we are now.  We are always reluctant to ask for your help in this way, so we wait until the last minute to see if what's needed will appear on its own before bothering you with financial matters and almost always it does.   The last time we wrote to you like this was in March of 2007, and you responded then — as you always have — with open-hearted generosity.  Now we need your help again.

We know that these are difficult times for most of us.  If you are having trouble making ends meet in your own life now, please just ignore the rest of this letter and accept our love and gratitude.  Your continuing presence and participation in this adventure are far more important than money.

But we do need money, and we think there is nothing more worthwhile that can be done with time and money than to help spread the insight that leads to vichara.  If you agree with this view, and if you might have any money available for tax-deductible donations, no matter how large or small, please read on.

Click here for more information on how to donate.

Our current financial situation.

We have the financial data of the RiverGanga Foundation available on the web, you are welcome to examine it now.  We have spreadsheets and reports and past IRS filings on the web now.  We are even willing to make the actual books of the foundation available to anyone who wants to see them.  (You can find more detail about how to go about getting this information at the bottom of this letter.) ^[1]

But the situation itself is quite simple and easy to understand — with or without the data that describes it in technical detail.  Simply stated the situation is this:

1. Our average monthly income for 2008 was $7,022;
2. Our average monthly expense for 2008 was $9,123;
3. Our total loss for 2008 was more than $24,000.

This work has always needed more money than we have received.  It’s that simple.

So far this year, we have managed to reduce our monthly expenses by about a thousand dollars — from $9,123 to $8,072 — and our average monthly revenue has actually increased by about $600, but we are still losing about $400 a month over the first five months of 2009 and, if things continue the way they are, it will certainly get worse over time. ^[2]

All of the losses have become debt — credit card debt mostly — and all of the credit card debt has, of course, resulted in higher monthly expenses because of compounded interest and fees.  We have been diligent in trying to pay this debt down, but it grows faster than we can bail it out.  The total credit card debt we now carry is something over $25,000 and it is growing every day. 

Click here for more information on how to donate.

What we are doing with the resources we do have.

• In the past two years, we have greatly increased our use of the internet to speak directly in conversation with people all over the world.  The reach of this technology is practically limitless.  Last year, we reached people in every continent but Antarctica, in at least 142 of all the 195 countries in the world.
  
  
• We have dozens of audio and video recordings available on the web for streaming and downloading — all free of charge.  All of these recordings are syndicated and broadcast freely to thousands of subscribers through many different free podcast services.
  
  
• Since 2006, every other Saturday we conduct a live, online meeting, which is attended by people from all over the world.  We record these meetings and the audio files are immediately published on our podcast. Last year alone, we conducted 22 worldwide online meetings, with at least 1,205 people attending.
  
  
• Every Wednesday, we have an Open House where John is available for an hour to speak with anyone who shows up and has something to say.  Last year we had 28 open house meetings, attended by at least 230 people. 
  
  
• In 2008, we conducted 5 week-long online intensives, that were attended by 67 people from all over the world. The complete transcriptions of all these online intensive meetings will soon be available as a free ebook.
  
  
• And, of course, we continue offering open meetings in person once a month, both in Ojai and in Santa Monica, along with afternoon workshops, weekend intensives, private conversations, and five-day retreats in Ojai and in other cities. All always free of charge.

Click here for a complete report of our activities in 2008.

Click here for more information on how to donate.

Our work is showing good results.

Financially our current situation might seem dire, but there also seems to be an actual miracle unfolding here.  Every day, something new appears to show us that this simple, radical insight is what the world has been waiting to hear. 

We have received hundreds of reports from people who have tried this simple movement of looking inward to their actual nature.  They tell us how, over time, the fear of life that is the source and substance of all human misery and hatred of life has dissolved for them.  Most are taken by surprise by the quietness with which equanimity and ease of being emerge from the shadows.  Many are tickled to see how easy it all is, after all.  It’s not at all uncommon for someone from whom the fear of life has departed not even to notice it until the change in their demeanor is called to their attention by a friend or relative. 

Many come to a new appreciation for the beauty of humanity's religious, spiritual and philosophical efforts for all these thousands of years to say something true and helpful about reality; and to a new astonishment at how little practical help all that beauty has provided us. 

Others report periods of dramatic psychological and spiritual suffering, in some cases taking several years to resolve and dissipate.  But hard or not, the end result for them is the same as it is for those for whom the journey was easy. 

The only thing that really recommends this work is that it actually works; people actually fall in love with their lives, not with some magical future state of perfection, but the actual perfection of present reality.

Click here for more information on how to donate.

What we need now.

What we’ve done so far in this work, we’ve managed to do with not much money.  We’ve gotten pretty good bang for the buck, as they say.  And in the course of designing and setting up the systems we use for internet meetings, and deploying blogs, podcasts, email newsletters and two complete websites, we have developed a good understanding of the internet and its potential.  We have many ideas of how this power can be used and what it would take, in terms of money and people, to put it to work.

But first, we’ve got to find a way to get our feet on the ground and be able to pay for what we are already doing, and your free-will donations are really the only resource we have.  All our meetings and events, online or in person, are entirely free of charge.

Currently, we have 35 donors with monthly pledges, and their donations amount to $3,100 a month -- the smallest is $10 a month, and the largest is $1,000. 

We need $10,000 a month to continue at our current level of activity without going deeper in debt. 

My goal in writing to you now is to raise $40,000 in donations, new monthly pledges or increases to existing pledges. This will fund our work for the rest of the year.

Please help us if you can. No amount is too small.

Please click here for more information and to make a donation or monthly pledge.

^[1] I've put a page on the RiverGanga website where you can fill out a simple form and you will receive an email with a link to download a zip file with the following documents:  Income and Expense YTD 2009; Income and Expense Side by Side Comparison 2008 - 2009 YTD; Profit and Loss by Month 2008; and our IRS filings for 2006, 2007 and 2008.  If there is anything else you’d like to see or know about this, please write to me at johnsherman@riverganga.org .

^[2] Actually, this average loss will certainly increase over the year.  Although expenses flatten out over time, income varies greatly from month to month, and the first quarter of the year is usually a period of higher income as a small number of donors make a one-time contribution.  For example, the average monthly Net Income for the foundation in 2008 during this same period (January - May) was $1,152 to the good, and the average monthly Net Income for that whole year was negative $2,100.