Since the Foundation’s birth in 1933, our roots and our core commitments have remained unchanged. Yet each generation of Foundation leadership has expressed its mission in different ways based on the language of the day and the needs and opportunities placed before us in the Canyon and in our local communities.
The past few years have been a season of transition, especially with the passing of Howard E. Butt, Jr., and Barbara Dan Butt, the rebuilding of Laity Lodge, the ongoing growth of our core programs, and experiments with new directions for our work. In this time, David and Deborah Rogers’ task has been to absorb the wisdom of the past, listen to the concerns of today, and imagine the shape of things to come.
Last autumn, at a day-long event in the Canyon, David led the staff through a fresh articulation of our mission. This upbeat gathering, which coincided with the reopening and reconsecration of Laity Lodge, represented the culmination of years of deep learning. We’ve since been settling into that mission and determining its implications for the Foundation’s work, learning how it at once strengthens our camps and retreats and calls us to stretch our muscles for new efforts in different environments.
The process of living into a mission is, of course, an ongoing, unending process for any organization that seeks to align around a shared cause and ensure that all of its constituent parts are working together. As we’re now several months into our journey with this mission, we wanted to show you a bit of how it’s beginning to shape our core programs and new initiatives. The balance of this special edition of Echoes is a snapshot of the good work we’ve completed in 2017 and a glimpse at what’s in store for the rest of 2018.
Our mission emanates from a series of key convictions and responses:
Our convictions
Society runs on busyness, individualism, and indifference, distracting us from the deeper connections that lead to transformation. We experience the world as polarized, judgmental, and dismissive, denying our needs to be heard, understood, and valued. Society can be controlling, skeptical, and unimaginative, making it difficult to embrace hope, mystery, beauty, and love.
Our responses
We work to facilitate connections for people to really know and be known by one another, creating opportunity for transformation to take root. We work to transform cycles of brokenness by making space for people, serving them in ways that are relevant to their culture and circumstance, and giving them an opportunity to experience healthy rhythms. God is always at work transforming all creation according to his timing, and we believe God uniquely uses creation, creativity, and the arts to point to and unlock hope, mystery, beauty, and love.
From there, we identify a big mission with a clear focus:
Our mission is to cultivate wholeness in people and institutions for the transformation of communities.
Our focus is spiritual formation and health in families and children.
FAMILIES & CHILDREN: We serve families and children by supporting cross-generational relationships and communities marked by deep belonging.
SPIRITUAL FORMATION: And we invite people into a lifelong faith journey, creating opportunities to encounter God by staking their lives in something larger, deeper, and more enduring.
Rooted in Christian faith and brought to life by our shared values, our work takes two shapes: we run programs that nurture the human spirit, and we forge partnerships with like-minded organizations.
Our programs nurture the human spirit by creating opportunities for people to encounter God through relationships, hospitality, beauty, and reflection.
RELATIONSHIPS: We work to facilitate connections for people to really know and be known by one another.
HOSPITALITY: We make space for people, honoring each person and giving them an opportunity to experience healthy rhythms.
BEAUTY: We believe God uniquely uses creation, creativity, and the arts to unlock hope, mystery, beaurty, and love. We invite people to participate in the creative life.
REFLECTION: We maintain that times of unhurried reflection—silence, solitude, and thoughtful conversation—prepare us to re-enter the world with perspective, wisdom, and openness.
We also form capacity-building partnerships with aligned institutions and programs to increase their impact through collaboration, convenings, and financial support.
COLLABORATION: We connect with like-minded stakeholders in San Antonio, South Central Texas, and beyond, believing that transformative work requires active partnership.
CONVENINGS: We set the table, creating opportunities for institutions and programs to connect, learn about, and share best practices with partnering social services organizations.
FINANCIAL SUPPORT: We partner with catalytic initiatives and strengthen the day-to-day operations of aligned organizations.
