Economics
The facilitation of relationships
Program Cost
As an organization, we devote significant time and attention (indeed, the vast majority of our time and attention) to developing our programs – thinking about our purpose and creating pedagogies and practices to get there. All of our programs are born from a purposeful philosophy, informed by research, and implemented with intentionality, down to the smallest detail. This is our promise to care, to facilitate meaningful wilderness experiences, and our commitment to seeing that promise through.
We make this investment in our programs because doing so is an investment in our participants – in helping the youth and adults who come our way to know the world wholly and to live life fully. The enrollment cost of our programs reflects this investment, and nothing more.
We also invest significantly in our staff, all of whom are lifelong or recently beginning educators deeply committed to their profession. We are immensely grateful for the opportunity to work with such devoted individuals whom have wonderful visions for the world. They are true masters of their trade. We are proud of the work they are doing, with and beyond Headwaters, and we want to help them continue this work.
We recognize that the monetary system is not the ideal way by which to facilitate relationships, as it encourages interactions that are transactional and disposable. While we must engage the world as it is and partake in monetary exchange in order to run our programs, that does not mean we cannot work toward a better world. In dealing with the flaws of monetary transaction, we find it important to first acknowledge the power it holds over the way we are able to operate: desiring to run the best possible programs, we necessarily invest heavily in them; while we aren't here to make money, we do need to use it. As we are not presently in a position to run our programs free-of-charge to participants, the cost of each program recognizes the financial investment we have made, and nothing more. Our long-term work is to overcome the necessity for participants to fund our programs by building a financial endowment along with more just systems of exchange. In the short-term, we attempt to mitigate this transactionality as much as possible by keeping program costs reflective of program investment and by working to remedy economic barriers.
Community Supports
To encourage and support community-building, those who join a program as a group of two or more (such as family members, friends, and colleagues) are eligible for a 10% reduction per-person of the program cost.
Additionally, anyone who works as an educator on an ongoing basis either professionally or in a volunteer capacity (such as teachers, coaches, and youth-group leaders), and who is either joining a program themselves or is registering their child, is eligible for a 10% reduction in the program cost.
If either of these two categories apply to you, just let us know when registering.
Lastly, because building community and caring over the long-term is important to us, anyone who has previously taken part in a Headwaters program automatically receives a 10% reduction in the program cost of all future programs they partake in.
Trips designed intentionally for families have a different and already subsidized cost structure (in an aim to keep them as affordable as possible for families), which is explained in the description of those trips. As such, these community supports do not apply to those programs.
Economic Barriers
While the enrollment cost of each program reflects our investment in the program, we never wish to turn anyone away due to financial barriers.
If you are interested in attending a program but are concerned about the cost, please get in touch, we may be able to work something out; there are always options.
Additionally, we offer numerous low cost and pay-what-you-can, single-day programs in various places throughout the year. We encourage anyone to attend those programs. Not only are they fun and meaningful nature-based community events, but a first connection often leads to something more – sometimes you just need to water the seed. Head over to our Community Programs page for more details.
