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Ways to Give

Choose what you would like to build

Every gift here is a real thing you could stand in, sit at, or watch being taught.

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An Odysseus House at golden hour, within walking distance of campus

The flagship gift

Open a House

Establish an Odysseus House near a campus: a beautiful home within walking distance of the quad, anchored by a host family, and meant to be owned outright so that it stands on its own.

A house is the whole mission made physical. It is where the dinners happen, where the mentors live their lives in front of students, where a young person who arrived in August with nobody has, by October, somewhere to be on a Thursday night. Opening one is the most complete thing a donor can do.

  • Purchased with cash. No mortgage, no lender, no leverage
  • Anchored by a host family chosen and trained before the doors open
  • Naming and dedication opportunities available
  • You are invited to the first dinner, and every one after it
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Odysseus Foundation

At the houses

The table and the retreat are where a student stops being a guest. These gifts keep both running.

Per student

Send a Student on Retreat

Underwrite the multi-day retreats where the deepest friendships and the strongest convictions are forged.

Three days away from the noise does what three months on campus cannot. Students come back with a crew: the people they will call at twenty-eight, at forty. This is the gift any donor can picture, at any size.

  • Travel, lodging, and meals for one student
  • Sponsor one seat, a carload, or a whole house
  • Available at every giving level
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Odysseus Lyceum

In the classroom

Live online classes for students and families, instructors who are trained and properly paid, and a curriculum published for anyone doing the same work.

The Odysseus LyceumA student attending a live online Lyceum class

Odysseus Lyceum

Fund the Formation

Support the teaching itself: logic, rhetoric, character, civics, economics, the great books, and the instructors who bring it to life. Delivered through the mission’s educational arm, the Odysseus Lyceum.

The Lyceum writes and teaches what is taught at the table and in the classroom: live online classes for students and families, a published curriculum used in the houses and licensed to other schools and groups, and a bench of qualified instructors who are trained and fairly paid for their work.

  • Underwrite a live online course for a full term
  • Support and fairly compensate a qualified instructor
  • Fund the writing and publishing of a new curriculum
  • Make recorded lessons available to families who could not otherwise reach them
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Odysseus Network

For the long term

Gifts that outlast all of us: the founders, the first host families, the first students.

For donors who think in generations

Grow the Endowment

Gifts that are invested and stewarded so the mission is never one hard year away from retreat.

An endowed gift is a decision that this work should outlast all of us: the founders, the first host families, the first students. It is the difference between a program and an institution.

  • Invested under a board-adopted policy with a generational horizon
  • Endowed houses, endowed tables, endowed teaching chairs
  • Named in perpetuity, at your direction
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Planned giving

Legacy & Estate Gifts

Bequests, and gifts of appreciated assets or real estate, including the gift of a house itself.

Some of the most consequential gifts we will ever receive will arrive this way. They are handled with professional care and unhurried conversation. We are glad to speak with your advisor, and glad to be patient.

  • Bequests and beneficiary designations
  • Appreciated securities and business interests
  • Real estate, including a house that becomes an Odysseus House
  • Your attorney or advisor is welcome to reach us directly
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Monthly giving

The Crew

A monthly giving community at accessible levels, with the updates and invitations that make you an insider, because you are.

The Crew is how most people begin. Steady monthly support is the most useful money we receive: it lets a house plan a year of dinners instead of a month of them.

  • From $25 a month
  • Letters from the houses, three or four times a year
  • An open invitation to dinner when you are near a campus we serve
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Give

A gift, in about a minute

Give once or give monthly, and direct it wherever you would like it to go.

If you would rather not give online, we would genuinely rather hear your voice. Call (432) 242-6397, or write to give@odysseusnetwork.org.

For advisors

Estate and asset gifts

Wealth managers, estate attorneys, and family-office advisors are welcome to reach us directly. We can provide everything needed for a bequest, a gift of appreciated securities, or a gift of real estate, including a house that becomes an Odysseus House. Financials are available on request.

Contact us on a client’s behalf

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Build it with us

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Amount

Nothing is charged today. We write back to arrange the gift.

  • Applied for 501(c)(3) recognition
  • Houses near campus, online classes at home
  • Stewarded for generations
How we steward it