Thanks for the encouragement, sapphirah. An angle on the retreat center thing that I was excited about was to run the whole thing on a gift economy. I noticed that most retreats, conferences, and workshops come with a hefty price tag attached, which means that the rich get to indulge as much as they'd like, but low income people can basically forget it. Some events have a sliding scale or work trade available, but that can still be a turn-off to the low-income person, since it can feel like they have to ask for a special favor in order to be admitted.

So I thought, why not offer each event as a free gift to the attendees, and then at the end ask for gifts of money to help fund the next event? Attendees would be asked to give according to 1) how much they felt they got out of the event 2) how much they're able to give. That way no individual gets embarrassed by being put on the spot, and people with means who loved the event might end up giving even more than if there had been a sliding scale. This was the system used by a vipassana meditation course I went to, and I think the system was working very well for them.

In terms of market saturation, I thought our center could fill a niche for inexpensive workshops that few if any groups are filling. Elsewhere a comparable event would cost an arm and a leg, but you can't beat free with a voluntary donation. Our beautiful but very rustic facilities (just a cabin and a tepee so far) would keep our costs down, and we wouldn't need more than a trifling upfront investment (for food and electricity) to start hosting events. I'm not sure if we'd pay an expert to come in to lead an event, or maybe we'd only hold events where amateurs help one another learn something. Do you think this approach will work?