Financial Sustainability for KCC

March 15, 2026

Dear Sangha,

As part of KCC’s ongoing work to sustain our community for the long term, the Board and Staff did a deep dive into our financial health in 2025. This effort supports one of the goals in our Strategic Plan—to create a holistic financial model that sustains our staff and preserves our facilities for future dharma practitioners. The takeaway is simple: KCC is financially strong today, but to support our staff and maintain our physical infrastructure, we need adjust both expenses and revenue.

1. EXPENSES
For 2026, the approved budget includes about $447,000 in expenses. However, the analysis showed that to fully meet KCC’s long-term goals—especially providing thriving wages for our dedicated staff and properly caring for our facilities—the aspirational budget should be closer to $577,000. The difference mainly comes from raising staff compensation to thriving levels and increasing the funds we dedicate to maintenance and repairs.

Budget Category 2026 Approved Budget Aspirational Budget
Labor & Benefits $245,580 $346,000
Non-Personnel Expenses $150,000 $180,000
General & Administrative $51,000 $51,0000
Total $446,580   $577,000

The aspirational budget expenditure was developed from two key components of KCC’s sustainability analysis:

a. Staff Compensation.
The Board believes that increasing staff compensation is priority. KCC currently employs four full-time and two part-time staff, and our 2025 salary survey showed that their pay is still below what’s considered a thriving wage in Portland. Bringing salaries up to that level would cost about $100,000 more each year. It would be a critical step in retaining and attracting the skilled and caring people who make KCC’s programs and operations possible. This figure doesn’t yet include any future staff growth that might be needed as our sangha continues to expand.

b. Maintenance, Repair, and Replacement Costs.
In 2025, KCC commissioned a comprehensive “Reserve Study” to assess the remaining useful life and replacement cost of our physical infrastructure – the Portland Center and the SCOL retreat center in Goldendale, WA. $300K in significant repair or replacement projects are forecast over the next ten years:

• SCOL main building roof and heating
• SCOL gravel road repair
• Portland Center siding replacement
• Portland Center roof

Furthermore, the reserve study recommended repair and maintenance spending at about $30K per year – or $300K over the next 10-years; current KCC maintenance spending is about $13K annually.

These estimates are on the high end. They do not account for the substantial value of unpaid volunteer work KCC uses to perform a lot of maintenance and repair, but this reserve study information gives us at least a conservative understanding of what may be needed to care for KCC in the future.

With a clearer picture of KCC’s future capital expenses and the aspiration to increase staff compensation, the next step is to increase revenue (or income) to meet those goals.

2. REVENUE
a. Annual Income.
KCC is starting from a positive place—we ended both 2024 and 2025 with small surpluses. Our income comes from sustaining and one-time donations, classes and retreats, teachings from visiting dharma teachers, and rental fees from outside groups. To meet our aspirational budget requirements, we will pursue strategies aligned with our mission to increase revenue including:

• Improve communications to deepen community connection to KCC.
• Encourage people to be sustaining supporters of KCC and increase their support as they can over time.
• Encourage long-time members to include KCC as a beneficiary in their estate plans.
• Invite retreat/class participation from dharma practitioners affiliated with other sanghas.
• Increase outside group use of SCOL and the Portland Center.
• Enhancing retreat participation—achieving 80% SCOL retreat occupancy would yield significant revenue without additional expense.

b. Board Reserve Fund (BRF).
The KCC Board manages a small Reserve Fund for emergency expenditures and significant capital repairs. By the end of 2026, the BRF balance is projected to be $65,000 absent new contributions. With $300,000 of capital repairs/replacement forecast for the next 10 years, the Board feels it will be important to fundraise and increase the KCC BRF to cover these costs.

The BRF has also provided seed funding for strategic initiatives that the board believes will result in increased revenue and improved operations and programming. Hiring a part-time assistant to the KCC Managing director is a recent example. For the past two years, the BRF has supplemented a one-time restricted gift to cover the Assistant salary. The Assistant position has broadened the available staff skill set and improved KCC’s ability to effectively plan and execute our events and retreats. In the next year or two, the Board projects that increased operating revenue will fully fund the Assistant position.

With $300K of major repair projects forecast in the next 10 years and many ideas for seed investments to support KCC’s future, the Board and Finance committee is working to define a fundraising goal and strategy for the BRF.

Conclusion.

KCC is in a remarkable situation of financial stability today. Thanks to decades of generosity and thoughtful leadership, KCC owns the Portland Center and the retreat land and facility in Goldendale WA and carries no mortgage or debt. The work done over the past 50 years is felt at KCC today and we hope it provides inspiration to sustain KCC as a welcoming space offering Dharma teachings within a supportive community.

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