BGR Wins Prestigious Award

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

We are pleased to inform our readers that Buddhist Global Relief was selected by the Foundation Beyond Belief as an encore beneficiary of its “Challenge the Gap” program  for the first quarter of 2013. In the email telling us about this award, A.J. Chalom, the Foundation’s Humanist Giving Program Coordinator, writes:

Your commitment to adding programs for people in need and our positive response from our members when you were last featured helped with our selection.  It’s often assumed that an unbridgeable gap exists between the religious and non-religious. Challenge the Gap—Different Beliefs, Common Goals is an innovative humanist program that challenges this idea by finding and working the common ground between theists and non-theists. In April of this year, 100% of the funds collected in the Challenge the Gap beneficiary category will be distributed to BGR. Though we cannot guarantee any specific amount, the average raised for our recent beneficiaries has been approximately $7,000. We hope this contribution will assist you in the success of your programs.

Foundation Beyond Belief is a charitable foundation created to focus, encourage, and demonstrate generosity in the secular humanist community. The Foundation highlights five charitable organizations per quarter. Its members (over 1,100) join by signing up for a monthly automatic donation in the amount of their choice, and then set up personal profiles to indicate how they would like their contribution distributed among the featured causes. At the end of each quarter, 100% of the donations are forwarded to the beneficiaries and a new slate is selected. More information about the Challenge the Gap program can be found on their website here.

In its recent blogpost (01/28/13) about BGR, the full text of which can be found here, the Foundation writes:

Buddhist Global Relief’s mission is simple to put into words—to combat chronic hunger and malnutrition—but the work they do is anything but simple. Their vision is a complex image of a future without poverty, with equal access to education, where we live in harmony with our natural world, and where all people have the shelter, clothing, and health care they need. To work toward their vision of an improved world, Buddhist Global Relief works to sponsor programs around the globe run by local organizations with track records of success in those communities. These programs support the BGR mission by providing direct food aid, developing sustainable approaches to food production, educating young women and girls, and giving girls opportunities to start projects to support their families.

Naturally, we are deeply grateful to the Foundation Beyond Belief for their cordial words and for selecting BGR as their beneficiary. We are also grateful to all our donors, supporters, and volunteers, whose contributions of whatever sort  have enabled BGR to win the respect of the wider humanitarian community.