Swedenborg Foundation team shares their thoughts on how donations fuel their work!
How Our Work Benefits Real People
Online and offline, whether in video, print, or in-person—we’ve seen the power Swedenborg’s life-guiding spiritual principles have had on people throughout the world. Here’s a small sample of comments we’ve recently received:
“You and Swedenborg have saved my life and my soul. I now want to know everything about God and Heaven. Please keep up the great work you are doing. GOD bless you.”
“You have opened my eyes, mind and heart to the Word in a way that I never dreamed possible. I have been on a spiritual search for over two decades trying to sew bits and pieces of different religious and spiritual material (that resonated with me) into some kind of path for myself while feeling spiritually isolated and still ‘lost.’ Then, I find you and Swedenborg, and it is like I can’t even believe it—I’m HOME! I don’t how else to describe it. Thank you with all of my heart.”
“My beloved wife recently passed in January of this year suddenly at age 41. Needless to say, I have been shaken to my very core in dealing with her passing. I have recently stumbled across your videos and the teachings of Swedenborg. I would just like to thank you with all of my heart for saving my life. . . . You have given me renewed hope and I eagerly await the very moment of our reuniting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
“I really never considered myself a religious person and since I’ve started watching these videos I’ve been thinking about what I do in my life and how it affects others around me. I have been thinking about doing some volunteer work in my community for a while now and watching this channel has given me that final push to do so.”
“When the Lord God ‘shatters’ you, on your own you search for answers that only Swedenborg was given. When my brother was killed in a road accident, I wouldn’t rest and I believe I was led to this guy. The pain of the loss lessened tremendously. I am on the road of spiritual regeneration now. The answers are better than any ordained priest/pastor could ever hope to give.”
“Amazing. I love this. I’m Muslim but I watch your videos because the teachings are the same. Thank you so much for educating me and allowing me to be open to learn and heal and grow.”
“I am from China and I love this channel! It changes my life!”
“I get this guy. So refreshing. Why did I just learn of his existence? This philosophy or theology makes so much sense, it hangs together so well in such a precise and self evident way that it astounds and delights me.”
We get comments like this almost every day, and without donors like you it wouldn’t be possible to provide this type of inspiration and spiritual nourishment to so many people. How many? Well, the numbers speak for themselves.
How We Know We’re Successful
- 10,000+ video views on our YouTube channel every day
- 100,000+ minutes of watch time per day
- 8,000 people per day see our tweets on Twitter
- 700,000 to 1 million people see our posts on Facebook each week
- 128,000 likes, comments, and shares per week on our social media posts
- 15,000 people per month visit Swedenborg.com
- 4,000 free e-book downloads per month
How Donations Helped in 2016
The numbers above are just the tip of the iceberg. Our team of social media moderators spends hours each day interacting with people across all of these platforms, responding to Swedenborg questions on our offTheLeftEye YouTube channel and Heaven and Hell Facebook page, sharing ideas with like-minded users on our Swedenborg Foundation Twitter page, and replying to private messages via e-mail.
At the same time, we’re joining a larger conversation. Curtis Childs, the producer of our YouTube videos and host of our weekly webcast Swedenborg and Life, has appeared on more than a dozen programs this year that are aimed at spiritual seekers from a variety of backgrounds.
Our community support has enabled us to increase the number of hours that moderators spend on responding to comments, move our YouTube production team to a bigger studio space, introduce new features on Swedenborg and Life, and be in more conversations online—all thanks to our donors!
All of this activity depends on having access to good, reliable translations of Swedenborg’s works. The New Century Edition editorial team has taken on an expanded role in the past couple of years: not only are they continuing to produce new translations of Swedenborg’s core theological works, but they’re also providing expert insight into Swedenborg’s writings through consultation on projects like our YouTube videos.
We’re excited this year to report that the paperback edition of New Jerusalem was completed so far ahead of deadline that we were able to do an early release. This short work is important as an introduction to Swedenborg’s theology, and printing it as a standalone volume allows us to more easily distribute it to people who need a good, quick overview of his thought.
Also, donor funding provided an additional new editor and a new annotator to our NCE team, and as a result we’re looking forward to even more new releases next year!
OffTheLeftEye and the New Century Edition are our two biggest projects, but they’re not the only thing we do. On our website, our Spirituality in Practice and Scholars on Swedenborg blogs offer a breadth of perspectives on Swedenborg’s thought from a variety of contributors, from seekers to scholars. Our publishing arm has just produced the first-ever compilation of Swedenborg’s writings on the Ten Commandments (coming soon to our online store!). And we’re proud to be co-sponsoring the historic Swedenborg and the Arts conference in 2017 that’s drawing prominent scholars from all over the world.
How Your Donation Can Help in the Future
As we put all of this together, here’s what we realized: Online, offline, video, print, in-person conversations—all of these things are organically connected. There are some very generous donors who agree: they’ve offered matching funds for all donations to the Canopy Project, a single fund that covers all of our programs and helps support our work in taking awareness of Swedenborg’s thought to a whole new level.
Any amount you can donate today, whether it’s $10 or $1,000, helps to change lives by bringing Swedenborg’s spiritual teachings to people in need.
Thank you for everything you make possible and all the wonderful possibilities that tomorrow brings.
P.S. Want to help us introduce new people to Swedenborg? Donate $50 or more and we’ll send you a free copy of New Jerusalem to pass along! Donate now >