The Dhamma Development Fund — a vision taking shape

How other communities built their schools

For a century, the church communities of Australia built their schools through community development funds: members placed savings at modest interest, and the fund lent to build classrooms — each generation's savings raising the next generation's school, with the margin returning to the mission instead of leaving as bank profit.

The old idea: the rice barn

Picture a village rice barn, built of money: families store their surplus; building families draw seed-grain and return it with a little extra; the barn keeper takes nothing.

The community's intention

Our community intends, carefully and lawfully, to build the Buddhist equivalent — a fund whose entire balance sheet is right livelihood, lending only within the family of protected Buddhist schools, holding conservative reserves as its own discipline, because no school building is worth an elder's savings.

The promises we have already made to ourselves

• No fund will be established except under law, with independent advice and full documentation.
• No money will be sought, received or held for such a fund before it lawfully exists.
• Any future offer will come with plain risk warnings and complete documents, given before anyone is asked to decide.
• Monastics will have no role in any such fund: not as board members, not as promoters, not as signatories.
• The fund's purpose would be limited to Buddhist education and community facilities.
• Any board would be lay, skills-based, and answerable to members through published reports.

What you will not find on this page

There are no interest rates here, no product names, and no form. There is nothing to express interest in, because there is nothing yet to be interested in. If that changes, it will change publicly, slowly, and with documents.