For fifty glorious years, Mt. Hermon, a stunning Christian conference center just outside Santa Cruz, California, faithfully served the Christian writing community through their legacy conference. When the Pandemic came, this conference center, which has served hundreds of thousands of families, churches, youth, writers, and innumerous organizations since its founding, was in jeopardy. Thankfully, they survived, but their operating model had to shift in order to weather the years of no/little income. While Mt. Hermon has resumed hosting several of its own retreats and events, especially camps for youth in summer, the Pandemic did result in a permanent partial shift toward hosting events for outside groups for portions of the calendar year.

Because Mt. Hermon's conference, which was one of the first in the United States, had such a huge impact on the Christian writing and publishing community, and we couldn't let that die! So, one author, Robynne Elizabeth Miller, began working with Mt. Hermon to resurrect a similar conference as an outside group. The result? Vision is held with the full blessing and support of Mt. Hermon, and follows much of the legacy conference's model. But it is fully run and funded by Robynne and her husband, Ian, as an outside group.

We weren't sure what was going to happen as we launched our conference just as the world started opening up again, but we trusted God was in it and so we moved ahead.

After several glorious years of successful ministry, in which many hundreds of writers from across the world (New Zealand, Mexico, Europe, Canada, etc.) have been inspired, educated, encouraged, and equipped through Vision, both Ian and Robynne are as committed to, and passionate about, serving the greater Christian writing community as they were when this all was just an idea five years ago.

Where are we now? Vision stands as a top-level writing conference filled with agents, editors, publishers, award-winning authors, world-class speakers, and a host of industry experts. And we're now looking to establish a sustainable model for this beloved conference that will extend far beyond the scope of the founders.

Since its inception, Vision has been privately underwritten by Robynne and Ian. While the sizeable financial risk has been a ministry, it is not sustainable, nor transferrable. And we want this conference to continue to grow and flourish independently of any one person. So, we are seeking an amount of money which would secure the continuation of this conference, without reliance on any one person. Ideally, we would love to secure the entire cost of Vision, which we would use to both ensure the conference will continue AND allow us to expand our ministry reach by opening up significantly more registration spots (It is currently a huge financial stretch/risk for Ian and Robynne to underwrite the current number of spaces). This would dramatically increase and multiply Vision's impact across the world.

$100,000 is roughly half the bare cost of funding the conference at its current capacity, and our "dream goal" for this year. Vision is staffed and run entirely by volunteers and has been run on a zero-profit model, including no salaries for the director or assistant director for all its years of running. This no-profit model (though not a formal nonprofit yet) has been in place to keep costs as low as possible to attendees, ensuring as many writers, creatives, and communicators have affordable access to excellent teaching, fellowship, and community.

So, our first goal is to ensure next year will happen, which will require at least $50,000, This will provide the deposit upon contract, and early run costs. If we make it to $100,000, we would have secured half of 2026 operating costs, which would allow us to contract for more spots, expanding our reach. If we hit our ultimate "dream goal" of $200,000, however, we would be able to do several additional things: Secure significantly more registration spots, LOWER the per-person cost, which would make the conference even more accessible, and secure the continuation of the conference for at least three years via seed money.

We've been blessed with speakers like Bill Myers, James Rubart, David A.R. White, Tricia Goyer, and Robin Jones Gunn, etc., and world-class worship with Thunderstorm Artis and The Voice winner, Todd Tilghman. We even had Broadway performer, Nyla Watson, on faculty this year, and she gave us a bonus mini concert! Our ever-rotating faculty has included Christie Hall of Fame authors, best-selling and award-winning authors, and top experts in all facets of publishing. We have been blessed with the highest standard of teaching, spiritual input, and worship.

We would deeply appreciate your prayerfully considering partnering with us to continue this important ministry to Christian writers, which, in turn, has huge impact on the world.

Thank you ... truly.