<2006 Annual Report>

Clockwise from top: Lucy Leu at the Vancouver BPF "Seeds of Peace" panel;
BPF NYC members; Staff Diane Gregorio, Bhante Suhita Dharma, and Maia Duerr;
BPF members at Livermore Nuclear Lab on Hiroshima Day 2006.

The Buddhist Peace Fellowship envisions a future in which people from all backgrounds come into a heartfelt realization of our interconnection to each other and to the Earth. We believe that actions generated from this understanding will create societies guided by generosity, compassion, wisdom, and justice.

The mission of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF), founded in 1978, is to serve as a catalyst for socially engaged Buddhism.

Our purpose is to help beings liberate themselves from the suffering that manifests in individuals, relationships, institutions, and social systems. BPF's programs, publications, and practice groups link Buddhist teachings of wisdom and compassion with progressive social change.

Through our worldwide network of 4,000 members and more than 30 chapters, our vision is to bring peace where there is conflict, to promote communication and cooperation among Buddhist sanghas, and to alleviate suffering wherever possible.

I believe that life has a way of moving in cycles of action and reflection, especially for dharma practitioners who are involved with social change movements. For BPF, 2006 was a year of reflection, partially as the result of a comprehensive strategic planning process, and partially because of some transitions in our office.

In fall 2005, we began a year-long strategic planning process in order to take a step back to think more deeply about how we work. During 2006, board and staff members coordinated a process of reflection, evaluation, and visioning. We interviewed key stakeholders, held two planning retreats, and had numerous conversations with former staff and board, chapter leaders, and BPF members to hear input on these key questions:

The fruition of this process is a Strategic Plan which will help to guide our priorities and our work for the next three years. We’ve included the seven key goals from the plan below.

Our office staff weathered a number of transitions in 2006, some of them difficult. In August, Associate Director Diana Lion’s year-long medical leave of absence ended, and unfortunately she was still too ill to return to work. Diana continues to be a valued member of the BPF community and will work with us as a consultant in 2007. In September, Jenesha de Rivera left her position as Associate Director of Administration in order to devote more time to pursuing an MFA degree. She, too, continues to have an association with BPF, consulting with us on financial matters. We are grateful for these continued relationships, and the skills and spirit that Diana and Jenesha bring us.

In December 2005, a racist flier targeting Japanese Americans was left outside our office door and set in motion a painful chain of events that ultimately resulted in one of our valued staff members, Mushim Ikeda-Nash, resigning from her position as Acting Associate Director of Programs in February 2006. This episode showed us just how much we have to learn about being allies, and also pointed out deficiencies in our office safety protocol. Our staff took a diversity training together, and throughout the year we continued conversations and reflections about the meaning of this. We also focused on what it means to truly be a multicultural organization in our strategic planning process. (For a more in depth discussion of this incident and BPF’s reponse, read “Where the Rubber Meets the Road,” in the Spring 2007 issue of Turning Wheel.)

There were also many things to celebrate during the year, including a very successful benefit event with Robert Thurman and our Membership Gathering in June. We also welcomed new staff members Bhante Suhita Dharma, Diane Gregorio, and Oren Sofer.

This will be my last annual report letter to you as executive director. During this past year, I gained clarity on the need to make my own transition into a position at BPF that I feel will be more sustainable for me and for the organization in the long-run: the newly created role of Communications and Outreach Director. We expect a new executive director to be in place by summer 2007. I will do all I can to support a smooth and healthy transition. I have truly enjoyed getting to know so many of you these past three years, and look forward to deepening our relationship in my new capacity.

Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s

7 Key Goals for 2006-2009

From BPF’s Strategic Plan. The complete plan with detailed objectives for each of these goals can be downloaded here as a PDF document.

1. Weaving Indra’s Net: Cultivate a greater sense of our interconnection throughout the BPF community, and an understanding that BPF is comprised of many people: members, chapters, staff, board, and more.

2. Diversity: Commit to becoming a more diverse and culturally competent organization that deeply recognizes the value of difference and unity.

3. Sustainability: Ensure sustainable use of our energy and efforts: spiritual, physical, emotional, financial, and material.

4. Transformative Peacework: Develop a more clearly defined and supported Peacework Program that emphasizes the link between internal and external peacemaking.

5. Transformative Justice: Support the evolution of the Prison Program into an innovative Transformative Justice Program that integrates practice and action, and addresses systemic injustice through community solutions like the Coming Home Initiative.

6. Community: Create and sustain vibrant groups of compassionate activists who come together to deepen their inner and outer practices, using resources generated by the BPF community.

7. Telling Our Story: Increase BPF’s visibility and our capacity to communicate effectively about the contributions of socially engaged dharma to the peace and justice movement, both within our own network and to the general public.

L to R: Consultant Viveka Chen, staff Jenesha de Rivera, and
board member Diane Gregorio swimming in flow charts during our 2006 strategic planning retreat

BPF Staff, December 2006

Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s

7 Key Goals for 2006-2009