10/23/2026
For the past year, we’ve been continuing to serve rural East Texas while simultaneously listening, learning, observing, researching, and eating a lot from Texarkana to Beaumont and everywhere in between (shout out Mama Jack’s - Kountze, TX). More than 500 conversations, 160+ community surveys, an economic study, 20+ interviews of rural peer organizations later, and we aren’t done but we are making some shifts. Our Operational Planning Midpoint Update has been launched our new website: what we've learned, what we're changing, and where we're heading.
It’s a look at where we are today, and what the remaining planning will look like from here. It includes an updated mission aligned to working alongside communities to build a thriving rural East Texas and our new way of working - organized by place, with staff deeply rooted across Northeast, Deep East, and Southeast Texas. We are hiring for these roles and more right now. We are also opening up more forms of our capital to dramatically increase our investments in a thriving rural East Texas. We are exploring design thinking frameworks that allow our communities to better inform and benefit from our work in real time, while also looking over the horizon to improving the systems that surround them.
This is a midpoint, not a final plan. Over the coming months, we will keep working with communities in each subregion to identify and advance priorities together, and we’ll share what we learn as we go. We hope you will help us continue to build what’s next.
A letter from President and CEO Charlie Glover on the foundation's operational plan midpoint update, with frequently asked questions and the full report.
