New Urban Center: A Question of When

Beginning in June, the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) convened a series of four focus groups to talk about central issues raised in our strategic planning process.  The second meeting revolved around the idea of a new urban center and which configuration would best meet KCC's needs.  We broke into small groups, where we considered five different facilities currently on the market.  The idea behind this focus group was to begin to see where the community's priorities lay: a smaller center we could use in the short term, a more expansive center that would accommodate more functions as KCC grows, or some combination of the two.  

One thing that wasn't explicitly on the agenda was when we might pursue a new urban center.  It has been the policy of the board that we first raise all funds necessary to complete the long retreat cloister at Ser Cho Osel Ling; the SPC has therefore been operating under the assumption that this is at least months and probably years in the future.  Yet the opportunity to buy the St Mark's building two blocks from KCC got some members of the sangha excited.  In an email to the Community listserv, one member wrote:

And yet for me, as a relatively new member of seven years or so, the contemplation of an expanded urban center has ignited excitement, enthusiasm, and a heart-felt passion that says YES! We CAN do this! We MUST do this! Our Monroe Street home is a place where we go to sit, to receive superb teachings, and to feel somewhat connected to other practitioners. But it’s not a place where we go to get to know one another very easily. We squish into the kitchen for tea, and hope to find a seat for the potluck lunch on the 1st Sunday of the month.

KCC's current urban center was designed to be a residence, not a meeting place.  It's too small and the configuration doesn't work.  This isn't a new situation, either--the sangha outgrew its current home sometime in the mid-1990s, and that's when members first started talking about moving.  Yet there are also serious challenges to moving.  Next spring, the first of the long retreats begins at SCOL.  We've been building facilities in Goldendale since 2000, and the prospect of launching another major initiative is daunting.  Moving to a new home will cost money and consume enormous volunteer effort.  If KCC were to decide to go into debt to finance the move--something it hasn't done in Goldendale--it would create a new level of financial risk.  Even as some people express excitement at the prospect, others have misgivings; at the financial resources focus group, one small group returned with the recommendation to delay finding a new center for those reasons.

When KCC began exploring the idea of building a rural retreat center in the late 1990s, it seemed like a pipe dream.  Inspirations sprang from the enthusiasm of a small group, and over time, the center continued to discuss it and dream about it.  KCC set up a planning committee to study the possibility.  In 1999, a large contingent from Portland visited Mirik and discussed the prospect with Bokar Rinpoche, who encouraged us to pursue it. By the time the community met for its annual sangha meeting after that trip, almost everyone at the center was behind the plan.

That was a fascinating real-time experiment.  None of us knew anything about running a retreat center, and only a tiny fraction of us had any direct experience with extended retreat.  At the time, it seemed like such a facility would only be used by a small portion of the sangha.  And yet, by the time we decided to pursue it, nearly the entire community (90% or more) had coalesced behind the plan.  What followed was one of the most remarkable projects I've ever witnessed--that a center our size could raise funds and build a state-of-the-art, multimillion-dollar facility is unbelievable.

By comparison, finding a new urban center seems like small potatoes.  But only by comparison.  In the event, it will require a huge amount of effort by dozens of volunteers, a new campaign to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, and months of work and transition.  KCC has proven we are eminently capable of managing a project like this, but the sangha has to fully support it first.  Most things in a small volunteer organization happen when there are champions to make sure they happen.  On the SPC, we're doing our best to assess the energy and support for a new center--that will go a long way toward answering the question of when.  The KCC Board of Directors recently confirmed that we need to complete fundraising on SCOL before pursuing a new urban center.  Whether we begin looking for a place immediately thereafter or wait--this remains a real puzzle.

We'll have to just keep talking to each other.


The posts on this blog have been written to reflect the intention and work of the Strategic Planning Committee.  This post, written by Jeff Alworth, has more editorial content and may not reflect the opinion of the strategic planning committee. 

So You Want a New Urban Center?

The Urban Center focus group will be held at KCC on Sunday, June 8 from 2-5pm.  Hanna Karlin is arranging a post-meeting feast.  Please come if you can--

___________

KCC is in the midst of a strategic planning process, and we're seeking sangha input during four summer focus groups.  In the second of the series, we will discuss the issues involved with finding a new urban center.  This issue has easily been the longest to mature.  As one of the strategic planners, Dora DeCoursey has pointed out, we've been considering it for 17 years.  Over the course of those years, members of the sangha in forms official, quasi-official, and wholly unofficial, have taken tours of buildings all around the city.  (I--Jeff Alworth--remember visiting a very cool site in Multnomah Village in about 1998; West Siders may know it now as the Lucky Lab.)

Even as we've been preparing for this focus group, the interest in an urban center has inspired a new wave of visits to sites in North and Northeast Portland.  If you cock your head just so, every one of them has the potential to be our next center.  Indeed, in some cases you have to tilt your head very little to imagine a tranquil room full of meditators.

But when any two people begin talking about a potential building, they wonder how well it would "work."  Turns out this is a thornier question than it sounds.  What works for one set of assumptions doesn't with another set.  So we decided to step back and consider KCC's needs separate from any particular building.  A number of criteria have been worked up over the years, like a size range for the meditation hall, number of rooms for interviews, classes, office space, and so on, the need for ADA accessibility, parking, and location.  We've compiled those for handy reference.  But there are a range of strategic areas that can't be quantified.  As the strategic planning committee considered this, we started with KCC's vision statement, which has a number of useful hints.  Then we made up a list to try to capture the variables:

1.  Size and Phasing.  What type of building should we be looking for and on what timeline? 

KCC currently has an active sangha of 100 people, and we can squeeze only about half that into our meditation space.  What size building do we need in the short term, the medium term, and the long term?  How do we build flexibility into the building and allow for change in sangha size we know will come over the years and decades?  Should the building be an interim or final destination?

2.  Physical/logistical criteria.  How well does the building serve the needs of the sangha in the full cycle of a week, month, or year?

How will the building handle current activities and future needs?  Will someone staff it during the day?  Will there be residents on-site?  How it will be used when formal practice isn't happening?  Does it it encourages incidental sangha interaction (can sangha members drop in, do practice, and do committee work)?

3. Financial sustainability.  Can we afford to operate the building?  Will the building help pay for itself by drawing people in and supporting our activities?

Buildings cost money, but they also make it possible for money to flow in.  A very small building that doesn't encourage sangha growth and engagement may make worse financial shape than one that brings in and sustains a larger, healthier sangha: what elements do we need to encourage a positive balance?  Is there a way for the building to generate funds or otherwise support KCC?

4. Place of Engagement and Support.  What do we need to consider to create a place where people want to come together and where they feel supported?

What kind of spaces will make this a center where people are drawn to do practice and form a healthy community?  One way to think of this is different cohort groups--young people, families, older people.   Another way is to think of different functions, like a common meeting space (with or without an espresso machine!) or as a place with a dharma focal point (think of how the Kudung Shrine room functions in Bokar Monastery). How could the space inspire? What kind of atmosphere should the building provide?

5. Integration with SCOL.  How does the urban center support the coming and going of sangha on long retreat and serve as a place where that deep practice can benefit the larger community?

Should the building have residential space for retreat transition or space for personal retreats?  What other ways might the building help those preparing for or coming out of longer cloistered retreats?

Parameters For a New Urban Center

Over the years, the KCC Board, committees, and sangha members have contemplated a new urban center, and the fall 2010 sangha meeting focused on this. The following considerations have emerged. This is not a formally adopted list of criteria, but more a summary of the conversation so far.

Qualitative considerations for a new center

• Room to grow
• Close-in location
• Easy access by bike and public transport
• Homey feeling
• Inspiring space
• Proper zoning
• Simple, avoid volunteer burn out
• Economical, avoid debt
• Quiet ambiance 

What will we actually do in our new urban center? What does the facility need to support? The following list includes an expansive vision of what could happen at a new urban center. KCC will need to decide which of these activities must be accommodated, which ones are "nice to have," and which ones are not on the docket at this time.

• Regular group meditations
• Classes and study groups for adults
• Dharma day care and programs for children, teens
• Gatherings of the Sangha for center business
• Operations, bookkeeping and other management activities
• Meetings of the Board of Directors and Committees
• Personal interviews with teachers
• Informal sangha interactions
• Potlucks and urban retreat cooking
• Urban retreats
• Periods with two concurrent programs (e.g., Sunday sit and weekend retreat)
• Storage for chairs, tables and other equipment for regular and special events
• Hosting visiting Lamas- lodging and food
• Bookstore
• Library
• Outdoor gathering, contemplation, children's play
• Housing for residential trainees, volunteers, and/or long retreatants in transition
• Parking--car and bike 

What does a building need to have to accommodate the uses?

• Meditation hall to seat 150-200 people, about 1800-2000 sq ft.
• Second practice space to seat 20, about 250 sq. ft. (could double as classroom)
• Kitchen
• Eating and social area
• Class/meeting rooms, 1 or more
• Kids' rooms, 2 or more
• Office, 1 or more
• Interview room, 1 or more
• Bookstore area or room
• Storage room, 1 or more
• Possibility to make ADA accessible
• Parking
• Outdoor space
• Residential space (depends on use)

Finding Agreement on Goals: Facilities

From March 22 to 26, members of KCC's leadership (Board, Program Council, and others) met to discuss the strategic plan. Our intention was to hone in on our key goals in four categories: Facilities, Programs, Organization and Staffing, and Financial Resources.  We weren't looking for agreement on the goals themselves--we'll need Sangha input for that--but rather agreement on what the big issues are.  Today we'll discuss some of the issues that came up around facilities.

Current Situation

Dawn at SCOL.

KCC is nearing completion on a long-retreat cloister that will be used in a one-year retreat that starts around April 1, 2013.  The remaining elements are a fence and cooks and retreat cabins.  The fence is funded and in-design, the pre-fab cabins are on their way to being funded.  The board sees no barriers to completion before retreat. The wonderful facilities at Ser Cho Osel Ling have served short-term group retreats and individual personal retreatants for the past few years, but these won't be possible when the cloister is occupied by long-retreatants. 

The Urban Center is more problematic.  It has for nearly two decades been too small, both as a place for sangha-wide meditation and meetings, as well as having too few spaces for activities like multiple-year children's instruction.  The house wasn't designed to serve the needs of large groups, lacks basic features like large meeting space, a commercial kitchen, and parking.  It effectively caps sangha growth, and KCC has had a stable membership of around 100 people for 15 years.


Possible Goals
Below are a list of goals the Strategic Planning Committee and Leadership group identified.  While the groups have spent substantial time thinking and discussing them, they are only a starting place for further discussions.  The SPC hopes members of  the sangha think about KCC's situation, its needs, and its resources and offers feedback and suggestions.  Have a look:

• Find a larger urban center that has the space we need to conduct current programs as well as room to grow.  Discussion: there are multiple ways to accomplish this, including renting a facility, purchasing a facility, joining with another group/sangha to get a new facility.  Many people have noted the expense associated with such a move and this is a huge factor.  How much appetite is there among the sangha to raise funds for a new center?  Will it compete with the completion of the cloister--or, put another way, how do we phase it in while the cloister is being completed?  What kind of facility do we need to meet our programmatic needs?  This last point led some to consider the next goal.  Related Goals: Finish fundraising for the cloister before any fundraising on the urban center;
• Include a residential component in an urban center.  Discussion: One way to meet the needs of a sangha more deeply connected to retreat activities at SCOL is by having rooms available.  This would allow people transition time before and after retreats.  It would give KCC the option of offering a work/practice or lay training option to some members who wanted to live at the center.  (Some Zen communities have experience with this.)  
• Create a low-cost, seasonal option for group and individual retreats at SCOL.  Discussion: The idea here was to use tent platforms and tents or other seasonal facilities so KCC could continue to host short-term and individual retreats at SCOL.  One theme that has emerged in all our discussions is the need to integrate the facilities in Goldendale and Portland programatically.  This has been easier when KCC could host the winter retreats, the annual Mahamudra retreat, and other events at the cloister, but will be harder during long-retreats.  And yet, this may be the time when integration is most potent and valuable.

As you might imagine, there were extensive discussions behind each of these proposals--and one doesn't have to look too hard to foresee extensive discussions in the future.  We hope you'll join us.  Please feel invited to comment on this thread and consider coming to the Sangha meeting this Sunday following meditation (roughly 11:15 to noon).

Update: A Useful Thought Experiment

It's been a bit quiet on the blog lately--my apologies (this is Jeff writing).  The Strategic Planning Committee have been busy beavers, but our work hasn't exactly been easy to summarize.  We're in that soup of confusion that contains a few meaty chunks of insight--and we've been trying to sort it all out.

Our work has centered on trying to identify the major issues KCC needs to address in the next 3-5 years.  It's a process of sifting and sorting and--painfully--choosing.  Those of you who were at the SWOT meeting know that the Sangha identified dozens of potential opportunities for us to pursue, from securing a new urban center to setting up hospice care.  The SPC has to take that huge pool of suggestions (plus even more we came up with), sort them into categories, and see what needs immediate attention.  We've been meeting as a group on our regular Monday night sessions (see schedule in the left-hand column) and also in smaller groups to continue chewing on these issues.

Things are beginning to come ever so slowly into focus.  At a smaller group meeting this Sunday, we dug into one issue very deeply--a new urban center.  We tried a thought experiment where we looked forward 50 years to see what that facility looked like and how it complemented SCOL.  Our idea was that this might help shed light on some of the other issues we've been considering, like the finances and fundraising, teacher support and succession, and the menu of programs.  It worked!

By building SCOL, KCC has embraced an ambitious vision that will require quite a bit of financial and volunteer/staff support in coming years.  How would an urban center help provide that?  How would the urban center interact functionally with the retreat center at SCOL?  Would it make sense to have an urban center that had residential space for people coming in and out of retreat or for people who want to have a quasi-monastic live/volunteer arrangement at an urban center?  Could we keep the current house at 73 NE Monroe as residential space and get a small meeting hall with offices elsewhere? 

The thought experiment led us in the direction of having a residential component.  It also awakened our awareness of the sharp increase we'll have in expenses, as SCOL and a new urban center come with attached costs.  Of course, it also opens the possibility of a much more integrated fabric of programs, which is the exciting part--and the reason we began this project in the first place.

I invite you to try out the thought experiment yourself.  The year is 2062, and KCC is a wonderful, self-sustaining center with an urban and retreat site.  What do those facilities look like to you?  What programs and retreats are happening?  How does the center pay for itself?  How big is the community? Where do teachers come from?  Allow yourself to think of all the possibilities--a monastery, hospice, school, whatever makes the vision sing to you.  What's your vision?