Earth Sangha Inc.

“The President and Executive Director/Treasurer of Earth Sangha are married; their son and his spouse are also employees of the organization. See Schedule L.Two of the volunteer directors are married to each other.”

“Line 8b: No such committees were in place during the year.”

“Form 990 is reviewed by the President, on behalf of the Board, and by our accountant.”

“Relevant personnel must sign an annual disclosure.”

“Appropriate documents were made available upon request.”

“OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 4: Tropical Agroforestry: Tree Bank Hispaniola Program - Operation of two community tree nurseries and associated forest-conservation and tree-planting programs on the Dominican side of a portion of the Dominican Republic Haiti border, to slow deforestation and help small-holder farmers increase their incomes. During 2017, 54 farms participated. The nurseries produced about 15,000 orchard, timber, and local-ecotype native tree seedlings; 25 native species were represented, all of them probably in decline in the wild. Our Forest Credit program, in which our local independent partner organization extends low-cost credit to small-holder farmers in exchange for forest conservation easements, lent $22,789 to 35 farms, in exchange for easements over about 195 acres of forest. Our 44.3-acre nature reserve, the regions only community-owned nature reserve, is protecting the headwaters of a village water supply. Our Rising Forests Coffee program, which buys small-holder native-shade coffee, is protecting about 20 acres of forest; during 2017, Rising Forests continued to help local farmers recover from a devastating leaf-rust epidemic that killed virtually all of their coffee trees during 2014-15; about 7,000 rust-resistant coffee trees were planted under native forest canopy. Also during 2017, we expanded our Rising Forests Cocoa project, by growing and distributing cocoa trees for planting under native canopy. About 5,000 cocoa trees were distributed in 2017. Our cocoa effort began in 2016. Since coffee and cocoa are high-value shade-tolerant crops, Rising Forests creates a powerful economic incentive to conserve forest. As part of our Rising Forests effort, we continue to restore additional patches of forest for underplanting with coffee and cocoa. OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 5: DC-Area Meditation: The practice of traditional Buddhist meditation in a nondenominational format, in the Washington, DC, area. During 2017, sessions were generally conducted once a week. Some 20 people attended at least one sitting; there were eight regular attendees. OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 6: DC-Area Forest Restoration Outside Stream Buffers:On-going work at the 20-acre Marie Butler Leven Preserve in Fairfax County, Virginia. During 2017, about 378 people volunteered 967 hours of their time to help suppress invasive alien vegetation in the parks 17-acre forest, and to restore native vegetation. We suppressed a wide range of invasives, including trees, shrubs, vines, and herbaceous species. Control efforts extended throughout most of the park but are far from complete. We also put in about 2,000 locally native plants, produced at our Wild Plant Nursery. About 100 of these were shrubs and trees; the remainder were herbaceous species. OTHER PROGRAM SERVICES 7: Renovation of the Leven House at the Marie Butler Leven Preserve:In collaboration with the Fairfax County Park Authority, we completed our upgrade of the house at the Marie Butler Leven Preserve. Total renovation expenditures in 2017 were $369,761. The cost of renovation has been capitalized as leasehold improvement costs for accounting purposes and is being amortized over the lease term for the house. (The house is owned by the Park Authority, as is the Preserve itself.) The house is now occupied by two of our staff members, who are directing fieldwork at the Preserve. In-kind rent of $19,500 was received by the Organization during 2017 related to occupation of the house.”

“The Organization had income of $137,324 from sales of native plants grown in the Wild Plant Nursery and $368 from sales of coffee grown through the Tropical Agroforestry program. This income is reported on line 9 of Part I. These sales are directly related to the Organization's tax-exempt purpose. See Part III lines 4a and 4b.The Organization had income of $475 from occasional sales of t-shirts bearing Earth Sangha designs, reported on line 11 of Part I. This income is not reported as unrelated business income under the exclusion for income from activities that are not regularly carried on (IRC 512(a)(1)). The t-shirts are sold at or near cost; the entire cost of t-shirt purchases is recorded as an expense at the time of purchase by the Organization.”

“During 2017, volunteers contributed approximately 10,000 hours of service to our Wild Plant Nursery and DC-area ecological restoration sites. We value this effort at $26.96 per hour, which is the current (2016) value of volunteer time for Virginia, as recognized by the Virginia Office on Volunteerism and Community Services (2016 is the most recent year for which a value was available). The total value of our 2017 volunteer effort was therefore $269,600.In collaboration with the Fairfax County Park Authority, we completed our upgrade of the house at the Marie Butler Leven Preserve. The house is owned by the Park Authority, as is the Preserve itself. The house is now occupied by two of our staff members, who are directing fieldwork at the Preserve. In-kind rent of $19,500 was received by the Organization during 2017 related to occupation of the house.”