When I’m wrong about something, I admit it. It’s a good policy to have. It’s fair.

A couple of days ago I got a comment from Pancharatna dasa, the devotee who heads up Friends of the BBT. Now, if you remember, I questioned this organization about where the donations that are given to them are going. How much of it was going into their pockets and how much was actually going to the BBT?

Turns out, 100% of the donations go where you want them to go. That’s a good thing.

However, I want to apologize to the Friends of the BBT for assuming they were pocketing the money.

Here is what was said (in case you didn’t see it as a comment):

In fact ALL project sponsorships go 100% to the project sponsored. In some cases, like the Art Seminar, Friends of the BBT spends directly on the project. In other cases like the Archives we transfer funds to the implementing organization, That is why I mentioned it like this.

That is not to say that the folks running Friends of the BBT are unpaid. Farther down, he said:

Fortunately all funding for staff stipends currently comes from contributions from our Board of Directors.

While I’m not really sure how I feel about this, it does mean that 100% of the donations go to where they should be going. A huge HARIBOL! for that.

Also, on a slightly different subject, this surprised me:

It is a standing policy of the BBT not to pay any royalties to authors.

That’s very impressive. I assumed the opposite. I was wrong again.

I also made mention that I had never heard of Srila Prabhupada asking his disciples to translate other books. I was wrong yet again:

Srila Prabhupada was directly asked by the GBC about future translation. You can read his response here:

http://friendsofthebbt.org/srila-prabhupada-future-bbt-translations

I’m sure the Prabhupada quote could be taken several different ways. However, to me, it seems like he wanted the translation work to go on if it was done properly (which, for the most part, I feel it has been). Now whether that should be handled by the BBT, I don’t know. It’s my opinion (mostly) that it should not be. But I mostly don’t care about that. But I’m glad to be corrected.

He also said:

Srila Prabhupada’s emphasis on quality is why the BBT should be the publisher and why we need a training program that includes spiritual training as we are attempting in our school in Govardhan.

I don’t fully agree with this. Yes, the BBT publishes stuff of very high quality. Everything they put out looks great. And generally it’s free of typos and stuff like that. But that should be par for the course. That should be expected from any publisher. Of course, there’s always the very notable exception of Kushakratha prabhu’s books. His books looked pretty bad. There were tons of typos. But wow – the bhakti contained in each volume MORE than made up for it.

So, I think it depends on which quality you’re looking for. It would be nice to have both, of course.

You can read the whole comment here. And you should.

Thank you to Pancharatna prabhu for schooling me on this important subject. It was wonderful to learn that I was wrong on some points that I really wanted to be wrong about. Thank you and all glories to your work!

And please forgive me, I’m naturally skeptical of every charity. That probably has everything to do with the amount of time I’ve spent at New Vrndavana. But still, I should learn to be a bit more trusting. Thank you again for calling me on it.

Haribol!

Related posts:

1. Who are the “Friends of the BBT”?
2. Will the REAL Damodarastakam in English please stand up?
3. I’ve got me some mighty fine friends
4. My Friends! Come back!
5. We’re all friends at the Unisound!