How a spirit of faith is aiding material and spiritual advancement in the Sunshine Coast

The Sunshine Coast community has learned how a spirit of faith in the capacity of individuals can lead to both its spiritual and material advancement. 

Since the beginning of the Nine Year Plan, the community has focused on strengthening the capacity-building endeavours in the area, with up to 30 per cent of those formally enrolled as Baha’is engaging in efforts to invite more individuals into the spiritual educational process. 

As the community seeks to promote a culture of universal participation, the community-building work is undertaken as a collective endeavour, rather than as a service provided by one group to another. 

While the local Baha’i governing body, the Local Spiritual Assembly, provides financial assistance where necessary, the community shows faith in the capacity of individuals and families to contribute both time and funds to the process of society-building. Individuals often consider their own capacity to contribute to the regular efforts through in-kind or financial means. 

“Friends are encouraged to give in-kind donations for snacks, materials and meals for junior youth groups and day camps, resources for festivals, and meals for youth nights,” the Sunshine Coast team shared. “When additional funds are needed, the Sunshine Coast Assembly covers any outstanding needs.” 

Through collaboration, the Local Spiritual Assembly frequently meets with those overseeing the community-building work in a particular geographic area – setting an annual budget and allowing the Local Spiritual Assembly to plan ahead. 

The community has also been engaging in consultations at Baha’i Feast – a 19-day gathering based on the Baha’i calendar and focused on prayer, reflection on adminstrative matters, and socialisation – moving away simply from a presentation of data and also involving children in the conversations about the fund. 

“The Assembly conveys such needs to the community in Feasts, which engages the community in the plans and the means for their support,” the team shared. “This has created an attitude of supporting innovation and confidence in the Assembly to support new activities that arise.” 

“The loving accompaniment and collaboration of the Assembly with its community is very evident.” 

This year’s National Baha’i Convention’s session on the fund asked delegates to share the various approaches institutions and communities were implementing to raise awareness in their localities about the crucial need for funds and the need to give commensurate with one’s reality. 

Different communities shared the innovative methods they had implemented to raise consciousness among the friends about the need to give sacrificially commensurate to one’s reality for the community-building work to steadily progress. Such efforts included having children involved in the process of consultation, local fundraising efforts, artistic representations at Feast and webinars on fund education. 

The Universal House of Justice in its 19 March 2025 message has stated: 

Member of the Continental Board of Counsellors for Australasia, Vahid Saberi, said Local Spiritual Assemblies had historically done an “incredible job” in contributing towards the National Fund. “It’s quite exemplary in Australia,” he said. 

“The question now is how the Assemblies need to take a step forward and respond to the needs of growth of the Faith in their community in the same way it responds to the needs of National Fund.”