Karuna launches first ever One Year Appeal

The FWBO’s Karuna Trust have just announced their first-ever ‘One Year Appeal’ – a year-long appeal which they hope will bring in 1,000 new donors, allowing Karuna to significantly expand their social and Dhamma funding across India.

The 1YA (as it’s known in Karuna) will be a combined community and Right Livelihood of five men who will, from September, be both living and working together in South London, spending their evenings door-knocking the streets fundraising for Karuna.

Amalavajra, head of the Individual giving team at Karuna reports –

“After a successful ‘taster weekend’ in January, Jayaraja has offered places to Silajala, Bodhiketu, Sanghanath and Peter Hannah. They have all accepted, and we feel confident that this is a very strong team, with room for one more if a suitable candidate comes forward”.

The five men will all be coming to the appeal from very different situations – Bodhiketu has been living for some years at the FWBO’s Guhyaloka retreat centre in the Spanish mountains; Sanghanath is an Indian Order Member who has been part of the Windhorse:Evolution business in Cambridge. Peter Hannah currently works for Karuna in London, and Silajala has been a freelance fundraiser in Bristol – before which he was part of Buddhafield. Jayaraja himself has had a long association with Karuna, as well as working freelance.

Karuna currently have some 7,000 individual donors who together contribute just under £1million per year to Karuna’s work. Karuna has for many years run six-week doorknocking appeals for both men and women, which have consistently brought in around 400 new donors per year – however this has been matched by a more-or-less equal rate of ‘donor attrition’ where people find for one reason or another that they cannot continue.

Hence the significance of the 1YA. Amalavajra comments –

“We are delighted that donor attrition fell in 2009 to 421, which equates to 6% of our pool of 7,000 committed donors, and continues to compare very favourably with the sector’s average attrition of approximately 15-25%. Our current programme of four appeals per year is only sufficient to replace these lost donors, hence the importance of the 1YA in allowing us to grow our donor pool again, at the rate of about 1,000 donors per year”.

Look out for them on a doorstep near you!