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Public Education & Empowerment Resource Service

PEERS 2011 Annual Report
Making a Difference in Our World

I just wanted to thank you for the brilliant work you're doing. You have certainly opened my eyes, and I hope it won't be too long before the rest of the world wakes up.
  ~~   Stacie regarding WantToKnow.info on Sept. 19, 2011

PEERS (Public Education and Empowerment Resource Service) was officially incorporated in early 2006 as a nonprofit umbrella organization for the 11 websites now under its management. As of the end of 2011, PEERS has been providing inspiration and education free of charge to many millions of interested people around the globe for six years. We continue to touch countless people's hearts and make a difference in our world in a most meaningful way.

Both donations to and interest in our websites and email lists grew significantly in the past year. The total amount of contributions increased by 20% over 2010, while the number of donors increased by an impressive 35%. And thanks to a wonderful outpouring of support in December, PEERS expenditures for the year were only slightly more than income.

PEERS websites received a total volume for 2011 of nearly 2.9 million visits and 4.7 million page views (over 12,000/day), an overall increase of around 30% over the previous year. The number of subscribers to our WantToKnow.info email list broke the 10,000 mark just this past December. Our two email lists combined now have over 12,000 subscribers from more than 140 countries.

"I am shocked you don't have a million subscribers. The information you send is always very interesting and well documented."
  ~~   Rudy A., Jan. 1, 2012

A questionnaire was made available to our WantToKnow.info email list subscribers at the end of the year using a rating scale of one to five stars. Out of 125 respondents, 97% ranked the overall quality of our email list as either four or five stars and 94% did the same for our website. Clearly, the empowering work of PEERS is educating and inspiring ever more people around the world. Hundreds of people sent messages expressing gratitude for our work this year.

"Thank you so much for all you do to keep us informed and motivated. I truly believe PEERS is the best source of unsensationalized news and information."
  ~~   Bill T. on WantToKnow.info, Dec. 25, 2011

"Thank you for the beautiful, loving and informative website. I am excited about sharing some of the breathing exercises with our circle group. This work is an example of the light that shines so beautifully and powerfully in our world. Thank you and shine on."
  ~~   Rev. Karen on the Moment of Love website, April 28, 2011

"When I started the Transformation Course I couldn't possibly have known how powerful this experience would be! For the first time in my life I know exactly what I want from life. I'm surprised to find deep revelations and emotional processes I have been hiding from myself. All of the topics are very close to my heart and I find great motivation in studying. You have done an enormous amount of work gathering this information and presenting it in such a coherent and positive way. Thank you for your work and for making it possible to do this course online. I live in Finland and have been searching for something like this for many years."
   ~~ Emil, April 19, 2011 on the Transformation Course

The Personal Growth Courses

The average number of registered people journeying through one of our four empowering online courses at any time continues to hover around 100, though many of these don't finish. Only 20 registered participants completed one of our courses last year, down from 40 last year. Yet registration is not required to take a course, and we know from emails and website statistics that many unregistered individuals complete one or more of the courses. Despite the smaller number of graduates, almost everyone who has completed a course continues to give glowing reviews.

"Just a few days after I did lesson three, my dear husband and I had a heartfelt and life-changing conversation filled with honesty and transparency. We finally both had the courage to explore some of our deepest needs and found out that we were each wrong about the other's opinions and feelings about those needs. It was amazing, and I KNOW without a doubt that had I not found this course, this conversation would not have come to the peaceful and loving end (and new beginning!) that it did. For that alone, I am so grateful. The journey through this course has been so deeply personal, yet so profoundly universal. I have never before felt so much a part of the whole."
  ~~   Erika in Indiana, U.S., on completing the Transformation Course, Feb. 23, 2011

"I want everyone I know to explore this beautiful course! I thank God and the Universe for this incredible opportunity. This course was a divine gift! Thanks PEERS for every lesson! It's difficult to find words. I'm so grateful for this course! Love to you all!!!"
  ~~   Erika B. in Brazil on completing the Inspiration Course, Dec. 18, 2011

All four of our courses provide a rich variety of deeply inspiring and educational materials. Even though not many are taking them now, we are hopeful that these heart and mind expanding courses may become more popular at some point. Those who complete one of the courses can join in the many engaging conversations with the 220 caring individuals who are now members of our beautiful and increasingly popular community networking portal, the Gathering Spot.

"I want to thank you for creating the Gathering Spot. I don't know if you realize how unique this forum is in its ability to convey spiritual, political, and social information. You've attracted an extraordinary group of people here, which I believe is due to most of us completing the PEERS Transformation Course. You have created a thing of much greatness. Bravo!"   ~~   Noa in France on the Gathering Spot, June 30, 2011

"It has been over a week since I joined the Gathering Spot. I just wanted to express my gratitude to you for creating the Transformation Course and all that goes along with it. I have enjoyed meeting the Team and have read many member profiles to get to know as many as possible. I have also spent considerable time reading many of the current and past posts. It is wonderful to connect with such diverse personalities drawn together by the common thread of loving transformation, both personal and cosmic."   ~~   Marcia H. on the Gathering Spot and Transformation Course, Aug. 4, 2011

Other PEERS Websites

Compared with 2010, our most popular website, WantToKnow.info, experienced an increase of 33% in the number of visits, with over two million visits to the site in 2011. That's an average of over 5,500 visits a day! On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, we even broke our one-day record with over 56,000 visits in one day. And for that week, the website had over 200,000 visits.

Visits to the Web of Love website increased by a whopping 66% to 275,000 visits or about 750 a day. Visits to our personalgrowthcourses.net website filled with fascinating and inspiring videos were down about 8%, yet still over 300,000 for the year. Overall, we had nearly 2.9 million visits to the websites and around 4.7 million page views. That's an impressive average of over 12,000 page views per day. We are excited that PEERS continues to reach an ever larger audience.

Several key new pieces were posted to the websites this year. Fred was given permission to make and post a 16-minute version of a riveting documentary on amazing afterlife investigations. Our excellent timeline on humans being used as guinea pigs was also vastly improved and drew a lot of attention this year. A powerful summary was added of the Hidden Hand material dealing with the network of secret societies which has played a major role in the evolution of humankind. And our amazing database of summaries of revealing news articles has grown to well over 4,000 articles.

We continue to get lots of supportive and grateful feedback on our websites, email lists, and online courses. Here is a further sampling of the many wonderful emails of support we received this year.

"I am very impressed with your web site. It is the most complete, well structured and positive information center that I have found on the net. It would be wonderful to translate your site."   ~~   Bernadette in Germany on WantToKnow.info, Oct. 15, 2011

"When i found your Web of Love, i literally fell into Light, Harmony, and most of all LOVE. This is how we can all find love, the answer to everything! All i can do now is spread your message far and wide. You are great. My heart kisses your heart."
  ~~   Echo C. on the Web of Love website, Feb. 19, 2011

"I just want to say a great big 'thank you' for this priceless website. The wealth of reliable and knowledgeable information it contains seems never ending. I am in awe of all that you've accomplished, and truly grateful for beings of light and truth who have the courage to step forth and tell it like it is. Bravo and all the best to every one of you."
  ~~   Corrine V. on WantToKnow.info, April 16, 2011

PEERS Finances

PEERS had a total income of $39,736 in 2011, a 20% increase from 2010. All but 4% of this came in the form of donations from generous supporters. The number of individuals making monthly contributions decreased by five to 57 in 2011, though the number of caring individuals who made one or more donations during the year increased by an impressive 35% to 420. While many other nonprofits are struggling financially, PEERS is most thankful to have such strong support.

Our total expenses for the year were $39,905, up 44% from 2010. There was a good reason for this increase. After volunteering full time on the PEERS websites for several years and donating over $25,000 of his own limited funds, PEERS income finally justified compensating Executive Director Fred Burks at $1,000 per month in 2010. In 2011, as we had a good buffer in the bank, the PEERS board of directors agreed to increase this amount to $2,000 per month. Fred continues to work full time for PEERS at a compensation rate for his position well below that of other nonprofits.

Even with the significant increase in expenses, PEERS ended up only $169 in the red for the year of 2011. This was largely thanks to a major outpouring of support in December, when 208 contributors donated a record of nearly $11,000 in one month. As a result, we are quite pleasantly surprised that PEERS still has $23,428 in the bank, down just slightly from the previous year.

Our two major expenses last year were $23,000 to Fred for his continued excellent management of PEERS, and $13,100 for Tod's quality weekly news summaries. Another $1,050 went to our web wizard Andrey for his brilliant and highly useful technical support. The remaining $2,755 went to pay Internet expenses, PayPal fees, government taxes and fees, insurance, and more for running the websites and nonprofit organization.

To see the QuickBooks form listing profit and loss figures for PEERS in 2011, click here. For profit and loss since inception, click here. For our balance sheet as of the end of 2011, click here.

The statements at the above links were prepared without official audit of our books and records, though they have been carefully reviewed by Executive Director Fred Burks and were examined and certified by Treasurer John Lumiere-Wins. PEERS had no liabilities at the end of the year. All donations were unrestricted. We had a net loss for 2011 of $169. We are extremely grateful to all of our caring contributors who so generously supported us, especially in these challenging times.

Transforming Our World Together With You

Our world is rapidly changing and transforming with each passing year. People are waking up around the globe and wanting to make a difference. The banking scandals, Occupy movements around the world, and much more have opened the eyes of many people to deeper, previously hidden levels of what is happening in our world. And people all over seem to be awakening to deeper spiritual realities and to our common humanity. It's an exciting time to be alive!

We believe that PEERS is at the forefront of a grand movement to transform our world into a more caring and loving place for all people to live. Thanks so much to all involved with PEERS for your invaluable support in this most noble endeavor. We enter the year 2012 full of excitement at the possibilities of ever greater transformation of our world through our work and the work of our supporters and so many others who are coming together for the betterment of all in our world.

"I cannot thank you enough for opening my eyes to what is going on around me. I had NO IDEA of many of the things going on in our government. Now that I know some of it, I feel like Neo who took the red pill. There is no going back. As much as I don't want to believe much of it, I must. I am spreading the word. Please know how much I appreciate all that you do, and that there are many, many of us who care about your work."
  
~~  Mary D. on WantToKnow.info, Nov. 20, 2011

Note: To read other messages of deep appreciation for our work, click here and here. And we'd be thrilled if you are inspired to make a donation to support our work. To do so, please click here.


PEERS 2011 Annual Report
Compiled and Written By
Fred Burks
PEERS Executive Director

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