Bahá’í Funds
Compilations[edit]
Topics[edit]
- Bahá'í Fund - contribution responsibilities
- Bahá'í Fund - eligibility of contributors
- Bahá'í Fund - treasurer and Assembly
- Bahá'í Fund - earmarked funds
7 Major Bahá’í Funds[edit]
"…all the funds need to be supported, both directly by the believers, and also by the making of contributions by Bahá’í Institutions from one fund to another…"
5 Permanent Funds[edit]
- International Bahá’í Fund
- Continental Bahá’í Fund
- National Bahá’í Fund
- Regional Bahá’í Fund
- Local Fund
2 Temporary Funds[edit]
- World Center Endowment Fund (Temporary, until the House of Justice tells us)
- Kingdom Project (2001-2006)
International Fund[edit]
(To-do)
Continental Fund[edit]
"Nor should the believers, individually or in their Assemblies, forget the vitally important Continental Funds which provide for the work of the Hands of the Cause of God and their Auxiliary Boards. This divine institution, so assiduously fostered by the Guardian, and which has already played a unique role in the history of the Faith, is destined to render increasingly important services in the years to come."
- (From a message of the Universal House of Justice to the Bahá’ís of East and West, December 18, 1963)
National Fund (US)[edit]
"Regarding the state of the National Fund, which you have reported is suffering from a general slackness in contributions form both individual believers and the Local Assemblies and groups: It is only evident that unless the flow of donations is regularly maintained by means of generous and continual support by all the believers, individually and collectively, the National Fund will never be able to meet the needs and requirements of the Cause, particularly in these days when the national activities of the American believers are assuming such wide and increasing proportions."
- (Shoghi Effendi, Letter dated February 3, 1941)
Regional Bahá'í Council Fund[edit]
Local Fund[edit]
"The universal participation of the believers in every aspect of the Faith - in contributing to the Fund, in teaching, deepening, living the Baha'i life, administering the affairs of the community, and, above all, in the life of prayer and devotion to God - will endow the Baha'i community with such strength that it can overcome the forces of spiritual disintegration which are engulfing the non-Baha'i world, and can become an ocean of oneness that will cover the face of the planet."
- (Universal House of Justice, letter dated December 29, 1970)
World Centre Endowment Fund[edit]
"…we have decided to set up the World Centre Endowment Fund, for the preservation, upkeep, and security of the edifices and precincts of the Spiritual and Administrative Centres of the Faith — activities that currently form so large a part of the responsibilities of the Bahá'í International Fund. This decision follows the example of Shoghi Effendi, who during his ministry dedicated the income from lands in the environs of the Jordan Valley for the upkeep of the Holy Shrines."
- (Universal House of Justice, 2001 Nov 12, International Endowment Fund)
Priority of Funds[edit]
Fixing of priorities dependent on the Cause and individual's circumstances[edit]
The fixing of priorities is dependent on many factors, related both to the Cause as a whole and to each individual in his or her own circumstances."
- (Universal House of Justice, August 1993)
General and national interests and Funds take precedence over local ones[edit]
"The beloved Guardian has explained that the general and national interests of the Cause take precedence over local ones; thus contributions to local funds are secondary to those to national funds."
- (Universal House of Justice, August 1985)
All funds must be supported, directly by believers and by institutions[edit]
"As far as the Cause is concerned, all the work must be kept going; all the funds need to be supported, both directly by the believers, and also by the making of contributions by Bahá'í institutions from one fund to another, which do not take the place of contributions from individuals - the source of the life-blood of the Cause.
Individual's attention to different Funds parallels loyalty to different levels of mankind[edit]
"At the level of the individual believer, attention to the needs of the funds of the Faith parallels the principles which govern multiple loyalties. The first loyalty of a Baha'i to the whole of mankind, for the benefit of the part is best achieved through the welfare of the whole. But this widest loyalty does not eliminate the lesser loyalties of love for one's country, for the area in which one lives, or for one's family. They all constitute a network of interdependent and mutually beneficial loyalties. So it is with the individual believer's relationship to the International, Continental, National and Local Funds."
While using personal judgment, individual contributor should bear in mind priorities of the work of the Cause as a whole[edit]
"Although the setting of priorities for contributing is a matter for personal judgment, the individual believer will certainly bear in mind the priorities of the work of the Cause as a whole."
Assembly should educate friends of prerogative to contribute directly to all of the Funds[edit]
"In educating the friends to be conscious of contributing to the fund as a fundamental element of Baha'i life, the Assembly should make them aware of the individual believer's prerogative of contributing directly to all the funds of the Faith: international, continental and national as well as local."
- (From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to a National Spiritual Assembly, February 12, 1987, in Lights of Guidance, p. 260)
