FOCUSED GIVING
Cloud Mountain maintains the following special funds to which we invite you to give:
- The Nuns Initiative
- Scholarship funds, including a general fund, a fund for
- People of Color and a fund for Young Adults
- A new sleeping lodge and private sleeping cabins
- Ongoing improvements in accessible housing
Additional information about each of these funds is provided below.
NUNS INITIATIVE
Cloud Mountain is making steady and concerted efforts to invite fully ordained nuns (bhikkhunis) and former female monastics to lead retreats at Cloud Mountain. This new direction springs from several primary goals:
- To support momentum toward greater modern-day gender equality in the oldest Buddhist institution, Theravadin Buddhist monasticism.
- To ensure that our retreats continue to be led by highly qualified and realized teachers.
- To continue to offer retreats that are solidly rooted in Buddhadharma.
- To fulfill the Buddha’s aspiration to maintain the Fourfold Sangha (nuns, monks, lay women and lay men).
Donations to this fund are utilized in various ways, primarily to provide direct financial and material support to bhikkhunis and their young but growing communities both in Asia and here in the west.
You may visit our annual retreat schedule to view all upcoming bhikkhuni-led retreats. For more detailed information about the Nuns Initiative, please follow THIS LINK.
SCHOLARSHIP FUND
It is our sincere wish that financial constraints not be an impediment to individuals’ ability to hear and practice the Dharma on retreat.
Financial assistance is available on all retreats and to all individuals with financial constraints. Our standard Scholarship Fund is subsidized primarily through a portion of our retreat fees and also by the direct donations of individuals.
We have received special donations from within our sangha to offer additional assistance for people of color and for young adults, ages 18-35, in need of financial support to attend retreats any retreat offered at Cloud Mountain (with the exception of those sponsored by outside groups, who provide their own scholarship opportunities).
For more information about applying for any of our scholarships, follow THIS LINK.
SLEEPING LODGE FUND
Plans are in motion to build a new sleeping lodge, plus three small solitary sleeping cabins. Once completed, these new buildings will allow us to house 36 retreatants in single sleeping rooms and up to 8 in special-needs doubles. All of the quads, triples and most of the doubles will disappear, as will all of the bunk beds. This project is meant to perfect the retreat environment, not expand it; Cloud Mountain’s total capacity will remain capped at a maximum of 44 participants, allowing us to contine to offer small, intimate retreats while providing retreatants with greater privacy.
ACCESSIBLE HOUSING
Cloud Mountain remains committed to constructing special accommodations for those with disabilities or physical challenges. We wholeheartedly wish to keep the retreat center as accessible as possible for all. Our plans for constructing a new sleeping lodge include plans for highly accessible housing and bathroom facilities. It is also our intention, folowing completion of the sleeping lodge, to renovate the Bamboo Room and its small, attached bathroom to be wheelchair accessible and compliant with ADA guidelines.
With our aging meditating population, we anticipate the need for accessible housing to increase and we wish to be ready to meet those needs. Your donation will help us to continue to support those with physical limitations—brought on either by disability or the inevitability of sickness and aging—to attend retreat as long as is physically possible for them.
Friends of Cloud Mountain is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Federal EIN # 91-1859995. Your contribution is fully tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.