After functioning ten years as a joint project of the US-based Khmer Studies Insitute and American Institute of Buddhist Studies, the Khmer-Buddhist Educational Assistance Project became its own legal entity in 1999. It was registered as a non-profit corporation in the State of Colorado under the Colorado Nonprofit Corporation Act, after which it acquired tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable educational organization (tax/employer identification number is 84-1498749) with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS). KEAP is governed by a board of directors and advised by an international advisory council. Its registered agent is Dr. Peter Gyallay-Pap of Crestone, Colorado (USA).
 
 

    You or your group can help make a difference in the moral, spiritual, and cultural recovery of Cambodia that will honor and strengthen the Buddhist ethos and spirit of the Khmer people. Since its reorganization, KEAP serves as a bridge between Buddhist and non-Buddhist donors abroad and local beneficiaries in Cambodia. As an "international friends of Buddhism in Cambodia," KEAP as an organization no longer directly implement projects but, rather, works with local implementing partners. As a donor, you choose the local project (or projects) with which you wish to be linked through your support. At all times, KEAP works to ensure local ownership, self-reliance, and project sustainability. You are encouraged to establish direct communication with the project you support as means of promoting people-to-people contact, providing moral support, and rendering advice or any needed technical assistance. You are also encouraged to pay a site visit to the project. The source, quality, and spirit of material support are valued as much as the material support itself.

       KEAP operates with low overhead costs and a flexible structure geared to meeting Khmer needs. Its administrative and facilitation costs are sustained by an overhead fee deducted from your tax-deductible (in the USA) donation. The standard deduction is ten percent, less for large donations (above $5,000). KEAP welcomes small, grassroots donations, each of which represents a vote for Buddhist renewal through educational development. You or your group may also provide direct support in the form of an unrestricted donation to KEAP to help cover the costs of maintaining a mainly volunteer staff in Cambodia.
 
 

     KEAP's honorary founding patron was the late Most Venerable Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda, the spiritual leader of Cambodian Buddhism, who passed away in March 2007. KEAP began its work in 1988 by videotaping a dhamma talk by Venerable Ghosananda and screening/field-testing the tape in the refugee camps to thousands of monks, nuns, and laypeople. Referred to by many as the "Gandhi of Cambodia," Venerable Ghosananda has led Dhammayietras (literally, pilgrimages for the truth) throughout Cambodia since 1992 on behalf of peace and reconciliation, banning landmines, and

environmental protection. For his selfless efforts, he has     Ven. Ghosananda visting his native    

been nominated four times by Nobel laureates for the        wat in Takeo province in Nov 1991

Nobel Peace Prize.

     KEAP is run by a board of directors based locally in Crestone, Colorado. Its six members meet two times a year and informally as needed between meetings. Members of the of the international advisory council include Joseph Goldtein (USA), of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts; Marcia Rose (USA), a guiding teacher of Vipassana mediation; Dr. Walter Aschmoneit (Germany), a researcher and people-center development expert; Prof. Padmasiri De Silva, (Sri Lanka & Australia), a Theravada Buddhist scholar; and Prof. Donald K. Swearer (USA), author of numerous studies of Buddhism in Southeast Asia.

       KEAP's home office in Colorado is staffed by a volunteer executive director, Peter Gyallay-Pap, assisted by his wife Kimnath Gyallay-Pap, a Cambodian. The Khmer-managed field office in Phnom Penh is staffed by a volunteer Acting Country Representative, Mr. Chin Channa, a former monk and member of the first graduating class of the Buddhist University since the re-opening of the University in 1997-98; and Keo Vichith, Acting Field Coordinator since January 2008, also a former monk and a member of the Dhammayietra Center. An ex-officio board member, Dr. Gyallay-Pap, a social scientist who has published numerous articles on social aspects of Buddhism in Cambodia, has more than 15 years of Buddhist-related educational assistance and research experience with KEAP and other organizations in the Khmer refugee camps and Cambodia. His partner and wife, Kimnath, served in Cambodia as a pre-school teacher and later as an administrative assistant/accountant in the Siemreap provincial education department.