Building the Khyentse Foundation Database
Stories of Khyentse Foundation Volunteers
Since the beginning, Khyentse Foundation has been staffed mainly by volunteers. In our series “Faces of the Foundation,” we ask our team members—both past and present—about their experience working for the foundation. Here, we talk with Margret Sablatnig, KF’s former database manager—a volunteer role she held for some 20 years.
Since the beginning, Khyentse Foundation has been staffed mainly by volunteers. In our series “Faces of the Foundation,” we ask our team members—both past and present—about their experience working for the foundation. Here, we talk with Margret Sablatnig, KF’s former database manager—a volunteer role she held for some 20 years.
When we speak with Margret via Zoom, she is in the living room of the house she shares with her daughter in St. Jakob im Rosental, Carinthia, Austria. In the background, the family’s 5-month-old cocker spaniel can be heard, and later on, she lifts him up to show us. Margret now lives with her daughter and her 8-year-old grandson, and her warmth and her love for her family are readily apparent.
Margret first met Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche in Vancouver in late 1997, not long after she, her husband Frank, and their daughter Eva moved from Austria to Canada. This was her first encounter with Buddhism, and she took refuge at that very first teaching. She and Frank then began to visit Sea to Sky Retreat Centre, volunteering there whenever they could. At one point Siddhartha’s Intent asked her if she would like to start collecting the names and email addresses of Rinpoche’s students on a spreadsheet, and when Khyentse Foundation came into existence a few years later, the list was shared by both organizations for a time.
After the foundation was established, KF’s then executive director Cangioli Che asked Margret if she would be willing to formally take on the role of database manager. “People may not understand the complexity of maintaining a database for an organization like KF,” says Cangioli. As well as confidentiality issues, the role involves dealing with names in multiple languages and with different currencies. “It’s a very tedious and difficult job, but very important. It requires a lot of patience.”
But Margret felt that for her, the role was ideal. “When I came to Canada I didn’t speak English,” she says. “So that was actually the best work for me because I didn’t have to show that my English wasn’t good. Also, I knew that this is a key thing because without names, without people, the foundation cannot grow. And it was really ‘work as practice’—I was so lazy at that time practicing—so I thought, well, that’s perfect for me!”
Despite having no formal training, Margret threw herself into the job. Finding that the spreadsheet was no longer sufficient, she enrolled in a course at Vancouver Island University to learn Microsoft Access. But then she came across eTapesty, which offers a database for nonprofits. “This was a whole learning process for me in itself,” she shares, “but it was quite amazing what it was able to do for us.” The platform enabled people from all over the world to register their details on the website directly, and the database went from around 500 names to some 20,000. Donations to the foundation went through eTapestry, and in the early days, when the database was still shared by KF and Siddhartha’s Intent, the teaching send-outs also went through the platform. “When Rinpoche was teaching anywhere in the world, we sent the information to the people on that list,” says Margret. The foundation continued to use eTapesty for many years.
The work was not without challenges. “Chinese names!” says Margret. “That was always a bit of a disaster for me because I know nothing about Chinese. And people would sign up [to the website] with their Chinese name and then sign up for the teachings with their English name. Josh Lee helped me for many, many years to get rid of duplicates.” Did Margret ever feel frustrated? “Of course! We are in samsara. But I guess in the end, that’s just work as practice. You know this will happen. Through Rinpoche’s teaching, I understood a little bit, I guess, how I can help myself to just recognize my frustration and let it go in the end. Overall, the work gave me great satisfaction.”
And Cangioli was always there to help her. “Cangioli was always a big light for me,” says Margret. “She guided me and she was happy to do that. And I was happy to receive all of that. She always had a lot of input, and we had great discussions about how we would do things.”
“Margret never complained,” says Cangioli. “She just quietly did this work for many, many years, even when dealing with health or personal issues. She is a really strong woman, and one of the people that I really respect a lot.”
While maintaining the database was Margret’s main role for the foundation, she was happy to perform other tasks as needed. In the early 2000s when the sangha was still quite small, all kinds of volunteer opportunities were available to those who were interested. “One year I was asked to coordinate interviews [with Rinpoche] in Vancouver,” shares Margret. “It was really humbling because I could see how much devotion everybody brought to request an interview. At that time, for me, as a very new student, I felt very honored to do this and I took it very seriously. … That’s me, whatever I do, I do with precision and I put my whole heart into it.” Her husband Frank also videotaped Rinpoche’s teachings for many years and converted the tapes to MP3 files. “It was a very exciting time for technology. It was also very time-consuming, but he loved doing it. It was a perfect situation for us.”
Does Margret have any advice for other KF volunteers? “We are a big family in a sense, and if everybody does a little bit, the mandala gets filled up,” she says. “It’s just a seed we plant everywhere.”
Following a car accident in 2018, Margret decided it was finally time for her to retire as database manager. The foundation was also evaluating other platforms, and Margret helped with the transition.
“I think it is good that the younger generation comes into the foundation now, because they have other skills that they bring with them,” she reflects.
In 2022, the whole family returned to Austria, where Frank sadly passed away in 2024. With no sangha members living nearby, Margret is grateful for the Zoom practices arranged by Siddhartha’s Intent.
“That’s what I’m doing now,” she says. “Practicing. In other words, not ‘work as practice’ anymore—practicing.”
Khyentse Foundation is grateful to Margret for her contributions over so many years. She and Frank are listed among the people Rinpoche thanked for their valuable assistance to the foundation in KF’s first annual report.
Featured image: Margret receiving the bodhisattva vow from Rinpoche, Fantasy Garden World, Richmond, BC, Canada, c. 1998. Photo by Rob MacLachlan.