Welcoming the Bonner Foundation as a New National Partner
by Ben Scott-Brandt, program director
Overview
This week the Retreat Center Collaboration (RCC) is pleased to announce that our organization has become a national partner of the The Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation. We are delighted to begin connecting retreat centers and allied organizations across the RCC network with Bonner programs, students and alumni around the United States who are passionate about community building, diversity, social justice, spiritual exploration, and wellness.
About the Retreat Center Collaboration
The Retreat Center Collaboration is a community of practice for retreat center leaders and their allies across the United States and Canada, creating containers for information exchange, collaboration, and innovation with the goal of strengthening the retreat center sector. We’ve connected with over 300 retreat centers since our first conversations in 2018.
RCC brings together retreat centers and allied organizations around three core values: the power of place and space, the interplay of inner and outer work, and a commitment to universal flourishing.
In our work, we continue to center the importance of equity practices, maintaining right relationship with each other and the land, and pursuing intergenerational leadership models — all of which are key to the sustainability and resilience of retreat centers.
About the Bonner Foundation
The Bonner Foundation is a small family-funded foundation and nonprofit organization, working as a national network and community of practice to advance higher education through its engagement within communities. Since 1990, the Bonner Foundation has built and sustained partnerships with colleges and universities to foster the deep integration of college access, diversity and inclusion, and student success with community engagement and learning.
The Bonner Foundation network focuses on identifying and supporting low-income, first generation, and underrepresented students, including students of color and from both rural and urban environments. With student leadership at the core, the model improves the lives of people and communities through sustained partnerships involving colleges and universities in service, community engaged learning, and civic engagement.
The Bonner program is structured as an intentional, four-year developmental pathway, where students are trained to progress from direct service work to higher level engagement in the community, including capacity building and advocacy initiatives. Within this pathway, they are also supported in strengthening their campus leadership, so that they may serve in instrumental roles on campus that deepen campus-wide engagement and foster a culture of service on campus.
About our new partnership
Because Bonner’s core values of civic engagement, community building, diversity, international perspective, social justice, spiritual exploration, and wellness align so clearly with the core values of the RCC, we’re excited to connect young adults who are participating in Bonner programs with the work of retreat centers in our community.
As a national partner of the Bonner Foundation, RCC will facilitate new relationships between retreat centers and the Bonner national network. This connection benefits retreat centers with increased visibility and access to 1) host onsite retreats for Bonner student cohorts, university programs, and national gatherings, 2) become host sites for Bonner internships, and 3) share their job opportunities with Bonner program alumni.
We look forward to all the new doors that this partnership opens between our networks.