Welcome to our Spring 2025 Appeal
The Power of Your Giving
Help SRF Fund Annual Operating Expenses
Loving greetings from the ashrams of Self-Realization Fellowship! This appeal was created in response to many requests from members and friends like you for more information about how the operations of SRF are being funded, and how you can support that effort, during this current expansive phase of Paramahansa Yogananda’s worldwide work.
We are grateful to the thousands of you who shared insightful feedback with us during our fundraising feasibility study in the fall of 2024. We were deeply encouraged by your overwhelming enthusiasm for SRF’s current and future growth.
It is our honor to join hearts and hands in advancing this divine cause; and we welcome an ongoing dialogue with you as we share, over the coming months, a behind-the-scenes look at how SRF operates to carry on our Guru’s sacred legacy.
This work has been sent by God to India, to America, to the world, through Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and my gurudeva, Sri Yukteswarji. You will see that in the beginning it will start as a gentle zephyr. Gradually it will become a stronger breeze. In time it will become a mighty wind, a force that will do tremendous good....
Paramahansa Yogananda
Advancing Paramahansa Yogananda’s Mission Today
Paramahansa Yogananda’s God-given mission is to share the soul-liberating teachings of Kriya Yoga with the awakening global family. And this is why he founded Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in 1920: to spread these teachings worldwide and ensure they will transform the lives of seekers for many generations to come.
Today, hundreds of thousands of souls worldwide are receiving spiritual upliftment and guidance through SRF’s ongoing efforts to share Paramahansaji’s teachings — and benefitting from our expanding array of resources, programs, and inspirational offerings.
This dynamic and exciting new era for the SRF work is only possible because of your generous support. Unprecedented opportunities lie before us to ensure these teachings reach the millions seeking spiritual wisdom in the world today — but this growth also comes with unprecedented expenses. Every contribution, large or small, helps to spread Paramahansaji’s transformative teachings far and wide. Together, we are building a brighter future and lighting the path to help humanity transition into the emerging higher age.
What our Guru and Paramgurus have brought is a pattern of living that is ideally suited, ideally positioned, to become the basis for a higher age of civilization in our modern world.
Brother Chidananda
Each One of Us Can Play a Critical Role
SRF President Brother Chidananda has urged that SRF actively embrace the many new ways that exist to bring the light of Paramahansa Yogananda’s epoch-making teachings to the world. The visionary plan for the future of SRF was set forth by Paramahansaji and nurtured by his first-generation disciples. Now, as we embark on this next phase of organizational growth together, each one of us has the blessed opportunity to do all that we can to carry forward that vision.
We deeply appreciate the many ways we see you supporting this work — through your own personal spiritual practice, your prayers, your volunteering, and your financial assistance as an expression of love and service to God and Gurus.
The Power of Your Philanthropy
In order to sustain our ongoing operations and expand our program offerings, your financial contributions are vital. It is your philanthropy — your giving to benefit the spiritual welfare of others — that makes it all possible.
In fact, approximately 91% of SRF’s annual operating revenue — the funds needed to pay for the expenses of running our Guru’s organization — comes from your generous philanthropy.
PHILANTHROPY in the diagram above includes donations and planned gifts. These may come in the form of one-time and recurring donations; offerings given at our temples and centers; gifts at Convocation; non-monetary donations such as equipment, vehicles, etc.; donated real estate; bequests; gifts from donor advised funds; qualified charitable distributions from retirement accounts; donated appreciated securities; grants from charitable foundations; and gifts made through other means.
OTHER in the diagram above includes, for example, publication sales (our books, magazine, etc.); merchandise sales; SRF Lessons subscriptions; and other mission-related revenues.
Philanthropy Directly Fuels SRF’s Operations
Your support is essential to SRF’s operations. Contributions to SRF — unless otherwise designated — primarily support day-to-day operations and future planning, including:
- Programs and outreach services for members and truth seekers around the globe
- Publishing and disseminating our Guru’s life-transforming teachings in various formats and languages
- Strengthening and modernizing our operating infrastructure, such as adequate staffing, digital systems, and support for all departments, so we can better handle the expanding volume and complexity of work required to provide spiritual services to our growing worldwide spiritual family
- Maintaining our ashrams, sacred sites, and administrative facilities
- Providing for our dedicated monks and nuns who serve the spiritual work of Paramahansa Yogananda
- Longer-term planning for the future of our Guru’s mission
Your philanthropic gifts enable us to offer many of our programs and resources free of charge or at reduced prices. Your ongoing support is essential in sharing Paramahansaji’s teachings worldwide and making them more accessible and available to all.
You Make a Difference
Your support is not just important; it is critical to advancing Self-Realization Fellowship’s sacred mission — helping us share Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings with souls in all lands and empowering the ever-increasing success of his world-uplifting spiritual mission.
Your support matters! We invite you to consider these options for offering a gift to fund SRF’s annual operations:
Donate Now
1. One-Time Gift
Every donation makes a difference.
2. Recurring Monthly Contribution
Having a steady stream of contributions allows SRF to effectively plan and expand with the assurance of your regular and ongoing support.
If you are already a monthly donor, thank you! If you are able, please consider the added support of increasing your monthly contribution. For any changes to your recurring donation, please call Membership Services at +1 (818) 549-5151.
3. Planned Giving
Leave a lasting legacy to SRF.
4. Large Gifts
Offer a transformational gift and help ensure the success of SRF for generations to come! We invite you to contact the Department of Philanthropic Planning (DPP) at PhilanthropicPlanning@yogananda-srf.org for information.
I am so grateful to be alive at this time — to witness the divine fulfillment of ‘yoga encircling the globe.’ Always grateful to be of service and to support this sacred work....We stand at the ready!
K. C.
What I receive from Paramahansa Yogananda through Self-Realization Fellowship is simply priceless! I send my love and gratitude to you all! ‘Thank you’ simply isn't enough, and as soon as I am able to do so, I intend to increase my monthly contribution.
A. L.
The Living Spirit behind the SRF/YSS teachings is truly transformative. It is a privilege to donate, it really is!
K. S.
Contributions in response to Self-Realization Fellowship’s 2025 Spring Appeal are for the general support of SRF. As such, gifts shall be designated as, and remain, unrestricted and can be utilized for purposes SRF determines. Donations designated for this Appeal received later than approximately twelve months after the mailing date of the Appeal will be credited to SRF’s most recent general appeal at that time.
Self-Realization Fellowship is recognized as exempt from U.S. federal income taxation under 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and classified as a public charity pursuant to Sections 509(a)(1) and 170(b)(1)(A)(i) of the Internal Revenue Code by the Internal Revenue Service. Self-Realization Fellowship’s federal tax identification number with the Internal Revenue Service is 95-1942336. Accordingly, gifts and bequests to Self-Realization Fellowship are deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law for federal income tax and estate tax purposes, respectively. Please consult your tax advisor regarding the deductibility of your gift or bequest based on your own circumstances.
