History

The Buddhist Coalition for Bodhisattva Activity (BCBA) started in May 2003. The project was co-founded by Tania Leontov and Prescott Knock. Founding partner Prescott Knock is the representative of Yeshe Khorlo, the host sangha, which agreed, through the generous permission of Gangteng Tulku Rinpoche, to provide the 501(c)(3) umbrella giving the Coalition legal nonprofit status. Five sanghas came together at the beginning to form BCBA.

BCBA received a technical grant and two modest Federal Faith Initiative grants through the Colorado Compassion Initiative. The technical grant was for capacity building in preparation for a partnership with Workforce Boulder's mentoring program, Project Work Together. This partnership was arranged by Leontov through her position, at that time, as representative of the Coalition on the Boulder County task force, Restoring the Soul: Faith and Community Partnerships.

A number of volunteers were enrolled from various Sanghas and trained as mentors. This first project provided a great deal of experience in how various Buddhist groups could work together and the nature of the support that BCBA needed to provide for the projects. In June, 2004, an Advisory Board review came to the conclusions that more projects around different core social issues were needed to meet diverse interests, and that a curriculum for studying the Bodhisattva Path would be helpful to Sanghas who did not focus on these teachings. From June 2004 to date, the BCBA has entered into additional collaborations and created the first stage of a Bodhisattva path curriculum.