Top L-R Michael Barber, Oswald Norton, Rifka Several (office manager), Jane Katz, Mary Salisbury
Bottom L-R Kailani Ward, Halimah Brugger, Fauziyah Ishak, Loretta Covert (National Helper) Missing David Nicoletti (National Helper

Joining SD-USA as a board member brought about a new chapter in my Subud life: contributing to the work of our giving wing helping to distribute the support you, our members, contribute to these worthy causes.

Susila Dharma-USA provides funding for 19 Subud-member projects located around the world. I was given the opportunity to connect with 3 of these projects when I became a board member.

As a part of our annual granting meeting, my projects had to report on the use of their funds, granted for the previous year. And, complete a new application for funding for this year. At our granting meetings I was to represent these projects through the brief relationship I had been able to develop with them and the documents that they’d provided. It was an obligation I didn’t take lightly.  We didn’t have enough money to be able to provide the full funding requested.

Through our meeting, testing and decision processes over 2 zoom meetings and 2 days of in person meetings at Halimah Brugger’s home in Boise, ID, we were finally able to complete the process of determining how much we could provide each project, including mine.

Now that we’ve completed our granting for this year, I am grateful to the other board members and our national helpers for their help and guidance through this my first season. I look forward to the opportunity to get to learn more about the work of my projects and the communities they serve.

Please remember our work in your Zakat giving at the end of our month of fasting