2023 Financial Review

Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville

Like most spiritual communities, IMCC is financially supported by its members. IMCC has an annual budget of $50-55,000 per year. The majority of our income comes from donations and our expenditures fall into two broad categories: teacher dana and institutional maintenance. This overview of our finances was prepared by the IMCC Finance Committee to provide background on IMCC's finances in general and on how individuals can financially contribute to IMCC. If you have any questions, please let us know: imcc-treasurer@imeditation.org.

Income

Donations include contributions received at regular intervals from IMCC members on Tuesday nights, donations mailed or electronically transferred to IMCC, and contributions made during our annual fundraising drive.

Expenses

Teacher Dana is the compensation provided to teachers which allows them to continue transmitting the Dharma. We have a budgeted allocation for our regular teachers set by the Board of Directors and administered by the Guiding Teacher’s Council.

Institutional Maintenance: Roughly $60,000 per year is needed to fund the infrastructure required to maintain IMCC as an institution. This includes staff salaries for our Operations Director and Accountant, our website system, insurance, professional membership fees, various financial tools such as PayPal, Square and Quickbooks, honorarium for guest teachers, printing and publicity, and scholarships. In years prior (and likely in the future) we also pay for rental of space for our weekly gatherings. Further details are provided below.

IMCC ASSETS as of October 9, 2023
General Fund Balance (this is used for all sangha expenses except those noted below)	43,002
Dedicated Funds (may only be used for expressed purposes)
Fred Meyer Scholarship Fund	4,152
Teacher Development fund	5,847
Organizational Development fund	1,666
ASSETS TOTAL	56,367

2023 INCOME
Donations & Interest	13,922

2023 EXPENSES
Staff Salaries	9,011
IMCC Teacher Payments	7,500
Guest Teacher Honorariums	1,410
Insurance (Liab, D&O, Teachers)	1,981
Professional & Facilitator Services	2,487
Rent	2,065
Web Services	3,000
Supplies, printing, postage	429
Zoom Fees	264
TOTAL EXPENSES	30,047

2023 NET INCOME	-16,125

Ways to give

We are a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization approved by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and unrestricted contributions are always tax deductible. We cannot provide tax advice but if you have questions about the deductibility of specific contributions you can find extensive resources on the web relevant to contributions to religious institutions (from the perspective of the IRS we are a "church").

PayPal

PayPal offers a low cost service for donations to non-profits for one-time, monthly, or (bi)weekly donations. You do not have to have a PayPal account set up in order to use their service; you can manually enter your credit card information at the time of donation. Details and a link to make a donation are available here on the IMCC website.

Electronic transfers

If you would like to have contributions regularly transferred from your bank or some other financial account, you may request your financial institution issue electronic checks to the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville. If you need additional banking information from us, please email: imcc-treasurer@imeditation.org.

Checks

Checks may be made out to the Insight Meditation Community of Charlottesville and mailed to IMCC, PO Box 182, Charlottesville, VA 22902.

Annual fundraising drive

We have an annual fundraising drive in the fall. This is our primary method of soliciting donations. Details of the fundraising drive are announced by email, on the web site, and on Tuesday nights in the fall.

Other forms of donation

As with all 501(3)(c) organizations, we are delighted to receive transfers of stock, and would also be honored if you choose to include IMCC in your estate planning. If you need assistance in coordinating any of these, please contact the treasurer, the IMCC Treasurer by email: imcc-treasurer@imeditation.org.

Final notes

1. IMCC is committed to complete transparency and responsibility in managing its finances, and in particular all disbursements require the approval of the president or treasurer before checks are written separately by our professional bookkeeper, insuring a complete audit trail. If at any point you have concerns about IMCC finances that cannot be resolved to your satisfaction in discussions with the President or Treasurer, please raise these with the Hearing, Ethics, and Reconciliation Council (https://www.imeditation.org/EAR) whose purview includes insuring the financial affairs are conducted in an ethical manner.

2. The membership of IMCC is composed of individuals with widely varying financial circumstances, and our intention is that finances should not impede anyone's ability to participate in our programs. Almost all of our events with fees for fixed costs also have associated scholarship programs; these are usually indicated in the announcement of the program but if this is unclear, please use the contacts for the event to find out what possibilities are available. In keeping with our tradition of lay support, our scholarships typically do not cover 100% of expenses but should reduce the costs to an affordable amount. As noted earlier, dana for teachers is entirely voluntary and the amount is determined by the individual.