Dear Meher Center Family and Friends,
A loving Jai Baba to each of you as we move toward the end of 2020.
As a part of the Meher Center board of directors’ commitment to communicate with more frequency about the Center’s financial picture, this is our fourth financially focused outreach of this most unusual year.
As most of you know, with the Center closed for overnight stays since the middle of March, we have operated without the normal cabin-fee revenues that were in our original budget. Fortunately, cabin-fee income is a relatively small part of the income the Center receives each year. Most of our operating income comes from donations, and, as we shared in our September communication, the level of support from donations has been exceptionally strong. That has made 2020 a much better year than what looked like might be the case back in March. Thank you all for showing so much love and heartwarming support.
And, as a reminder, if you happen to be a person who prefers to save your giving for the end of the year, please keep the Center in mind. We are counting on donations finishing the year on a strong note.
On the other hand, looking ahead to next year, the Center is facing a number of significant uncertainties. As we’ve shared before, an important part of the Center’s endowment is vested in its holdings of Burroughs & Chapin Company stock. This is the company that Elizabeth’s father co-founded in the early 1900s. It is a privately owned company, and the value of its stock is only determined once a year. We won’t know until the first part of 2021 how much of a reduction in value B&C will experience, but we anticipate that it will be substantial. Once we have that information, as well as final numbers from 2020, we will reach back out and bring everyone up to date on the Center’s financial picture.
We also want to revisit the fact that the Center faces a number of financial challenges that will be with us for years to come. Every year we depend primarily on a generous level of donations to minimize (or eliminate entirely) the need to draw funds from the endowment to balance the budget. We hope the amazing support that the Center received this year will continue, as that would help keep the Center in a much healthier position than if donations dropped off.
The Center also needs a source of funds for major, mission-critical projects, such as fire mitigation (which is now essentially complete) and a major upgrade in security. We had planned to move forward with the security upgrade in 2020, but the pandemic changed the timeline for that initiative.
The increasing costs of maintaining existing, aging buildings represent another area that must be properly funded. Additionally, over the coming years, as the Center takes on new projects within the guidance of its Master Plan framework, capital expenditures connected to bringing new facilities to life will need to be funded as well.
It will only be possible for the Center to meet all of these financial challenges through a deep, sustained level of engagement from all of us who love the Center and recognize how important it is to help in whatever way we can.
Once again, we thank all of you for being so beautifully supportive during this year’s unsettling events. We hope to see that support sustained next year and for years to come.
As a reminder, you can donate to the Center through our website at www.mehercenter.org/donate, where you can choose to begin a monthly donation or give a one-time gift. Or, if you prefer, you can send a check to the address listed below. If you have an existing monthly donation and would like to increase it, please contact the Gateway at (843) 272-5777.
In His Love and service,
Meher Spiritual Center, Inc. Board of Directors
Meher Center, 10200 North Kings Highway, Myrtle Beach, S. C. 29572
