By Judy Van Cleave, secretary, Urantia Foundation, Idaho, United States
Operations Overview
The board reviewed reports from Education, Translations, Books, Fundraising, and Finance.
Books
Book printings: Because of good book sales, we printed 9,500 English books, 2,200 Spanish books, 2,000 French books, and 5,000 Portuguese books. We ordered books in September 2021, and due to transportation problems, we didn’t receive the last container until March 15.
Sales and Downloads: Book sales were up 7% despite significant supply-chain delays and out-of-stock books. Urantia Foundation has been committed to keeping the price of The Urantia Book the same despite increased paper and transportation costs. Downloads of The Urantia Book from urantia.org were 86,703, with 842,811 website visitors, and 1,511,944 unique sessions.
Android App: The digital team nearly completed the Urantia Book Android App. Currently, we are making minor improvements before launching. With the app, you can read The Urantia Book in 19 languages.
Education
In 2021, 452 students attended 737 classes at the Urantia Book Internet School (UBIS). Forty-three volunteer facilitators led 53 separate courses.
Urantia Foundation is grateful to the corps of volunteers from around the world who work diligently to provide students of The Urantia Book with an in-depth and interactive study of the revelation.
Finances
Donations: 2021 was a successful fundraising year because unrestricted donations covered the operating costs. In the last three months of 2021, 54% of the annual contributions arrived in time to take advantage of the winter donor match. We are so grateful to everyone who contributed to the programs of Urantia Foundation!
We also received an unexpected estate gift. To learn more about donating an estate gift, click here [2].
New Mustard Seed Fund: Because of the generosity of one family, the Mustard Seed Fund was established. This fund, restricted to grantmaking, is aimed at supporting community education and outreach endeavors. More information will be available in late spring.
In addition to the Mustard Seed Fund, Urantia Foundation has three other funds. They are the Perpetual Printing Fund (so that there is always money to print books), the Hales Fund (investment and cash flow fund), and the Revelation Bridge Fund (an endowment to ensure that Urantia Foundation endures for generations).
Translations and Revisions
The teams made progress on the Filipino, Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Esperanto, and Greek translations. The Polish revision is ongoing, thanks to the dedicated work of Paul and Gosia Jaworski. The Portuguese revision is nearing completion and should be ready for review within a couple of years.
Spanish Revision: On December 16, 2021, the Spanish revision was published on Urantia Foundation’s website. Since then, we have received valuable comments and suggestions. Spanish-speaking readers are invited to study the new text at urantia.org/es-int [3] and send their observations here [4]. After careful review, any necessary improvements will be made before printing. For those of you analyzing the new text, thank you for your help.
Russian Revision: Michael Hanian and his team completed the fifth revision of the Russian translation. Michael is the original translator and has improved the translation ever since the first printing in 1997. Thank you, Michael!
Given the world situation, we hope to have the Russian translation back in distribution as soon as possible. In the meantime, you can find the revision here: urantia.org/ru. We are confident that our continued efforts to bring the teachings of The Urantia Book to the Russian people will bear fruit.
Community Relations
Urantia Foundation has been working with other Urantia organizations over the past year to disseminate the teachings. We hope to continue working together in the same cooperative spirit during 2022.