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Public Education & Empowerment Resource Service

Public Education and Empowerment Resource Service

PEERS Annual Report 2007 

PEERS (Public Education and Empowerment Resource Service) was officially incorporated on January 4, 2006 as a nonprofit umbrella organization for all of the websites under the management of PEERS. As of the end of 2007, PEERS has been providing inspiration and education free of charge to interested people from around the globe for two years.

With a total volume in 2007 of 1.1 million visits, and with visitors from over 200 countries (including Antarctica and the Vatican!), the empowering work on our six websites is truly reaching every corner of our planet. We’ve had a good number of new developments and expansion this year, the most exciting being the launch of our new Transformation Team website in late September.

Finances: PEERS received $40,453 in donations in 2007. Almost half of that came from Executive Director Fred Burks, yet the over $20,000 not from Fred almost doubled the $10,439 in donations received in our first year. In 2007, contributions were made to PEERS by 116 individuals. 37 of those gave $100.00 or more, and four gave $1,000.00 or more.

Where at the end of last year we had 10 individuals giving automatic monthly donations with the highest amount being $20/month, at the end of 2007 we had 21 people supporting us in this way. One generous man is now donating  $500/month, while another contributes $100/month. Yea!!! We’re hopeful that we can double the amount of outside donations again by the end of 2008, so that Fred will not need to donate so much from his own limited savings this year.

Expenses for the year totaled $38,524. Of that, $35,017 went to pay salary and taxes for the employee we hired in April and fees for the contractor who started in May. Both our employee Tod Fletcher and contractor Andrey Samodeenko did excellent work in maintaining and building websites this year. Tod largely took over management of WantToKnow.info, our most visited website, while Andrey did an amazing job of developing the multi-faceted community portal of our new Transformation Team website.

To see more details of profit and loss figures for PEERS in 2007, click here. For our profit and loss since inception, click here. For our balance sheet as of the end of 2007, click here. These statements were prepared without audit from our books and records, though they have been carefully reviewed by Executive Director Fred Burks and Treasurer Declan Banfield. PEERS had a net gain last year of $1,929. Added to the previous year’s gain of $7,089, the net balance at the end of the year was $9,018. Financially, we are quite sound, though Fred is hoping to decrease the amount he will need to contribute to keep us this way in the coming year.

The Transformation Team Website – Conscious Community in Action: Our most exciting development last year was the launch of our newest website at www.transformationteam.net. Though the idea was born in mid-2006, only on September 23rd of this past year did we officially launch this powerful tool for building conscious community and inspiring personal and global transformation. The main components of this dynamic website are an empowering, 21-lesson transformation course and a dynamic community portal for all who complete the course.

The transformation course uses enlightening written materials, awesome video documentaries, heart-opening exercises, powerful quotes, inspiring images and photos, and lots more compiled from the best of the Internet to weave both educational and inspirational materials into a beautiful tapestry. Everything is presented free of charge and is based in an empowering spiritual overview inviting us to look for the deepest answers within ourselves and to join together in actively supporting personal and global transformation for all of us. Many of the course materials come from our other websites, so that this engaging new website can be seen as a culmination of all our previous efforts.

The dynamic community portal of the Transformation Team (TT) website is a means for all who have completed the transformation course to connect and inspire each other both online and in person. This powerful networking tool contains many thought-provoking discussion forums, personal profiles, a member map, blogs, a community calendar, and lots more. As a result of connections made in the portal, we've already had two deeply inspiring gatherings of local TT groups. We are a conscious community in action!

Since the launch just over three months ago, we've been getting consistent rave reviews from the 132 fascinating people around the world who are taking or have completed the 40-hour, paradigm-shifting transformation course on the TT website. Though in the past we received many wonderful emails of support for other PEERS websites, the volume and quality of appreciative emails for this new website and course have already far surpassed any of the other websites. Here are just a few samples from the past three months:

"Working my way through this material is changing me. I feel more contentment than I have ever felt before, even while becoming more aware of the distress of our world at this time. The transformation course has given me hope that there is still time for me to contribute to Love's work within our world and universe. It felt like returning home and finding that I am not all alone." – JoyAnna

"I am definitely getting a more complete picture of the world around me. This makes all sorts of things easier to comprehend and hence less "scary". I feel more connected to people. I can't help but be nicer and more tolerant of people." – Jeremy from Australia

"The course is beyond price! Doing the exercises made me realise that it is actually okay (and safe) to love everyone. That was a really powerful insight for me. Thank you." – Ursula from South Africa

"What you have compiled here is Genius!!! I am so moved by the transformation course. It is a WEALTH of unlimited possibility. Everywhere I turn another link, another thought provoking tool!!! And it appears endless. I am deeply grateful to have found you." – Alison

"I have struggled for seven years and 3,000 hours of research into the dark side and did not know what to do with it. This course was wonderful in integrating it with the light side, as well as with both of these sides in me. I am much more at peace with the dark side of the world and, more importantly, my own dark side. This should facilitate a dramatic reduction in my use of judgment and a focus on creating a world from gratitude and joy." – Jim

To read many other appreciative emails, click here. 24 people from six countries and four continents have now completed the course and are having a great time sharing connection and inspiration on our community portal. Of those 24, two women from South Africa found out independently about the TT only to discover that they live just three blocks away from each other! And one of the very first TT members turned out to be the partner of the wonderful man who had volunteered to develop a beautiful design for our first three websites several years earlier. She also found out about the course independent of this partner.

We've had so many amazing synchronicities like this. The excitement is building! We are almost certain that this new bridge to expanded consciousness will touch the lives of many hundreds, if not thousands of people in the coming year and beyond. It is a powerful means to bring us all together and transform our lives and planet.

Other PEERS Websites: The six PEERS websites we now manage did not have a dramatic increase in the number of viewers over last year, with the obvious exception of the new Transformation Team website. Four of the websites had a modest 10 to 20% increase in viewers, while WantToKnow.info stayed virtually the same at just under one million visits for the year. That's still not bad considering the many thousands of people who are waking up to the deeper levels of what is going on through our WantToKnow.info work. Web of Love had about 82,000 visits in 2007.  Moment of Love had over 28,000 and Global Community for All had more than 18,000 visits for the year. Our PEERS nonprofit website also had several thousand visits.

The three PEERS email lists continue to grow at a fairly rapid pace. The WantToKnow.info list increased from 3,000 to 4,600 subscribers. The Inspiration and Education list went from 975 to 1,200, while the smallest list, Global Community for All's quarterly e-zine Inspirations increased from 200 to 280 subscribers. We now have subscribers from over 90 countries, too! A Yahoo search also shows that WantToKnow.info has almost 200,000 webpages which link to it.

Our awesome database of powerfully revealing and inspiring summaries of major media news articles has now grown to over 1,500 excellent summaries. Four of the websites draw on this highly informative database to make fascinating webpages available to viewers.  

Largely through the websites, Fred has continued to be invited to talk on a number of radio shows and occasionally at a local event. Tod has also given a couple Internet radio interviews for WantToKnow.info. These talks and interviews have generally been very well received. One talk by Fred from 2006 which was videotaped and posted on Google Video is rated 4½ out of five stars there and has received almost 2,000 views this year. We continue to receive numerous emails giving deep gratitude and praise for all of our work to cultivate community and transformation through inspiration and education.

Future Plans: Our employee Tod was extremely helpful in freeing up Fred’s time in 2007 to focus on developing the Transformation Team website and transformation course. However, as Tod’s salary (and the taxes that go along with it) is our largest expense and the TT website is now up and running well, we may need to lay him off to cut expenses. Tod has been informed of this possibility, though we are hopeful that some major funding might come in so that this is not necessary, but. Tod is using part of his time to do the fund raising necessary to avoid this.

Most of our time and energy in the coming year will likely continue to be focused on further developing various aspects of the Transformation Team website. With the great interest already generated, we have little doubt that this exciting community building website will continue to grow and bring people together in meaningful and inspiring ways. We are extremely grateful to all of the members of our board, to our many generous donors, and to all of our readers and supporters who continue to give us so much support and encouragement. May this coming year be filled with lots of love, joy, and meaning for us all.


PEERS 2007 Annual Report
Compiled and Written By
Fred Burks
PEERS Executive Director

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