Skylark Church Partner Overview 2023

CHURCH PARTNER OVERVIEW

A Revolution in Summer Camping for Christ

Skylark is a powerful new ministry driven to empower local churches to grow the family of God by reaching more kids and young families for Christ through high quality, Christ-infused summer camps. Skylark’s vision is rooted in the fact that reaching children is foundational for the future of the Gospel. Multiple studies show that the vast majority of Christians come to faith during these early years. George Barna says simply, “Reach a person for Christ by their 13th birthday or the chances are slim that you ever will.” We call it the Gospel Shot Clock (GSC), and the buzzer goes off on the 13th birthday. Young parents are also uniquely spiritually sensitive during these yearsmaking this the perfect season of life to reach young families.

Skylark partners with local churches to provide world class all-summer daycamps for elementary aged children that are affordable, fun, and spiritually intentional. By providing working families an excellent full-time summer childcare option, Skylark enables our church partners to attract unreached kids and families in the community, love and serve them well, share the Gospel and get them connected into the church.

Skylark completed its second “proof of concept” summer in 2022, conducting camp at five church partner locations across the Dallas area (see page 8). We already clearly see Skylark’s potential to help churches reach millions of kids and families across the country and disciple the next generation of Kingdom leaders. Over the next four years we seek to add 12 additional locations as we solidify the ministry model and prepare the platform for faster scale. If your church is passionate about reaching more kids and young families with a new creative “front porch” like Skylark…..we’d love to talk!

CONTACT:

Jake Collins, President | jcollins@campskylark.com | 940-453-4970

Josh Fortney, Director of Programs & Partnerships | jfortney@campskylark.com | 214-794-9912

REVOLUTION IN CHRISTIAN SUMMER CAMPING

Traditional Christian Camping (1 Week)

• Lower price

• Embed in church

• Reposition as all summer childcare solution

Skylark (10-11 Weeks)

1. All Summer

Most church summer programs (VBS) and traditional camps last for one week – leaving working families to seek other childcare options (mostly secular) for the rest of the summer. Skylark believes the big opportunity is to offer working families an all-summer option – a one-stop summer childcare solution! This allows us to engage with the kids and families for up to eleven weeks versus just one – deepening the Gospel impact in the kids and building relationships with the families to get them connected to church. Each of our campers will have clearly heard the Gospel and be given the opportunity to respond and each family will be given opportunity to engage deeper in the church.

We offer versatile programming to accommodate and engage campers for 1 week or all 11 without campers losing their excitement. This includes our SIGMA reading program, innovative activities, and rotating exciting X-Tours for campers each week. SIGMA is a major attractor for local elementary schools to encourage kids and families to attend.

2. Local Church Integration

Skylark does not exist outside of a partnership with a local church. Skylark exists to help grow the local church – providing a powerful “front-porch” to bring hundreds of unreached families to the campus each summer with intentionality to introduce them to Jesus and the get them connected into the church. Skylark and the church are fully integrated partners to achieve those spiritual goals.

The Skylark Camp Director is key to that integration. This leader is paid by Skylark but serves as an extension of the church staff year-round. The highlight of the year is leading the summer camp and staff – but the Camp Director remains integrated in the church throughout the year focusing on cultivating relationships with local elementary schools and ministering to families.

Skylark is taking the proven success of high-quality Christian camping and making two major pivots to make this experience available to mainstream America and to have a lasting spiritual impact.

SPIRITUAL OPPORTUNITY

Reaching more kids is critical to the future of the Gospel. With this in mind, we ask the question: How do we reach a lot more kids (and their families) for Christ during their formative “Gospel Shot Clock” years?

Most American families today are either dual-income or single-parent households, meaning that children spend a majority of their time during the Gospel Shot Clock in childcare of some form, including preschool and after school and summers during the elementary years. The childcare industry is currently dominated by secular companies.

We see an opportunity to empower the church to take leadership of this critical industry for Christ. The Church has the passion, goodwill, facilities and people to do just that! Lionheart Children’s Academy, a sister ministry of Skylark, helps churches reach more kids and families during the Gospel Shot Clock’s early years by operating full-time childcare academies in church facilities. Skylark focuses on helping churches reach elementary aged kids and their families during the summer. Everything we do at Skylark is aimed at pointing to the Gospel and providing an environment where children can clearly know and understand the love of God.

STRATEGIC SUMMER

Summer for elementary age kids may be the most spiritually strategic opportunity within the Gospel Shot Clock for the following reasons:

1. Kids are old enough to understand the core elements of the gospel and respond.

2. Kids are available all summer for up to 12 hours per day - allowing time to cultivate deep relationships with them and their parents.

Working parents struggle to put together a summer childcare schedule that is conveniently located, affordable or attractive for kids. Summer camps are fun but expensive and often inconveniently located. Most of the available options are secular. Currently the Body of Christ provides mainly one week options like VBS and summer camp, leaving parents to choose secular options for the remainder of the summer.

Godquakes

One of these campers journeyed through multiple foster homes before being adopted by a family at TCAL. Born with an addiction, he’s had developmental and behavioral challenges in many other childcare situations. At Skylark he’s been able to thrive. Though not every day has been perfect, he is being loved and led and is growing immensely this summer under the care and direction of the Skylark team.

His counselor is the young man pictured reading to them. He was an incredible model of kindness, patience, strength of character and faithfulness all summer. He’s exactly the kind of HERO children need, especially children from hard places. He’s the kind of hero we search for when we hire our summer staff. What a beautiful picture of how our program is reinforcing the Gospel he hears about at home and church by also experiencing it all day at camp.

CHURCH PARTNERSHIP MODEL

Skylark does not exist outside of a partnership with a local church. Skylark exists to help grow the local church – providing a powerful “front-porch” to bring hundreds of unreached families to the campus each summer with intentionality to introduce them to Jesus and the get them connected into the church. Skylark and the church are fully integrated partners to achieve those spiritual goals.

The Skylark Camp Director is key to that integration. This leader is paid by Skylark but serves as an extension of the church staff year-round. The highlight of the year is leading the summer camp and staff – but the Camp Director remains integrated in the church throughout the year focusing on staff recruiting, while continuing to cultivate relationships with local elementary schools and camper families.

Our church partners provide the facility and related cost while partnering with the Skylark team to maximize relationships with the families and opportunities to connect them more deeply into the church. Skylark seeks to hire 50% of the camp staff (high school and college) from the local church to make this assimilation more seamless and help disciple the next generation of the church. A full camp will have about 28-40 staff each summer.

Skylark handles all operational aspects of camp including hiring and management of staff, marketing, IT, financial services, and all start-up costs. Each camp is designed to grow to serve 200 kids per week by year three. YEAR 1 = 100 YEAR 2 = 150 YEAR 3 = 200

SCHOLARSHIPS

Skylark and our church partners have a strong desire to serve families in need. The church provides $50,000 per year in scholarship funds and Skylark matches that amount for a total of $100,000 per year. These funds provide direct aid to families in need and other incentives to fill the camp and to encourage campers to come multiple weeks.

Skylark seeks to run each camp at break even while generating enough funds to match the church scholarship funding ($50,000 per year) after the first two years. Any additional surplus funds generated will go to reduce the church scholarship commitment. Skylark provides $220,000 in start-up capital needed to get the camp to breakeven in year two and $50,000 matching scholarships for the first two summers.

25% of camp revenues help cover the expenses of BaseCamp – the Skylark team that provides support for all camps. These services include HR/Recruiting, IT, Marketing, Finance/Accounting, etc. The camp financial template is shown below.

SKYLARK TYPICAL CAMP MODEL ($ IN 000’S)

Weekly Camper Average 0 100 150 200 200 200 200 200

Annual Revenues $0 $304 $456 $608 $608 $608 $608 $608

Annual Expenses ($68) ($355) ($427) ($519) ($517) ($515) ($513) ($513) Operating Result ($68) ($51) $29 $89 $91 $93 $95 $95 Cumulative Cash Need ($68) ($120) ($91) ($2) $88 $181 $276 $370

CHURCH PROVIDES

• Long-term ministry to families

• Facilities and related costs

• Staff recruiting help

• Scholarship funding ($50,000 per year)

• Community outreach/marketing help

SKYLARK PROVIDES

• All camp operations

• Camp Director (Year Round)

• Community outreaching and marketing • Staff recruiting, training, development

• Start up costs • Matching scholarship funding • FUN!

RESULTS TO DATE

Summer 2022 was Skylark’s second full summer of “proof of concept.” We had 10 weeks of camp at five Dallas locations with fabulous church partners (CityBridge - Plano, Cottonwood Creek - McKinney, Irving Bible, TCAL - Mansfield and Hillcrest - Cedar Hill). Watch highlights at campskylark.com/video

Key results include:

• Served 925 campers and their families who attended a total of 2,594 weeks (avg. 2.8 weeks per camper)

• Approximately 25% of kids/families were “unchurched” (Goal is 50%)

• Saw 30 campers accept Christ

• 26% of families received scholarship assistance

• First year to test SIGMA reading program

We are refining the model and working through the best approaches to sharing the Gospel with the kids and families and connecting them to the host church.

What summer staff are saying ...

“God has grown my faith through camp by teaching me patience and compassion for other people and especialy campers. They’re so young, but they go through so many things and God has just really shown me that and taught me to love others well.“

- Jenna

PARTNER OVERVIEW

FUN STATS

• It was a record-breaking year, more than doubling our camper numbers from last summer!

à 1st summer for any of our sites to have a 100+ camper week!

à 1st time for a BRAND NEW site to host a week with 75+ campers.

• 238 Morning Gauntlets

Every morning the staff run around the drop-off cars. When kids get out, they celebrate the arrival of each camper, complete with fun music, dancing, jumping and cheering. One parent affectionately dubbed them “The Happy People” and said she was tempted to swing by on her way to work even on days when she wasn’t dropping campers off.

• 488 Rally Sessions!

The kids gathered twice a day to dance to music, watch a silly skit, play games and have a Bible lesson

• Incredible A+ Parent Ratings from our Satisfaction Survey

• First time for a staffer to move to Dallas for 3 months, just to join our summer team and serve with Skylark!

campskylark.com | info@campskylark.com

BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION

To accelerate the development and growth of Skylark, the organization is being built on the foundation of two other cutting edge ministries: Apartment Life and Lionheart Children’s Academy. These ministries have developed a shared-services model which shares top talent in key areas (strategic planning, finance/ administration, HR) to incubate new ministries like Skylark. Some of this talent is profiled in the Leadership Profiles.

Apartment Life was founded in 2000 to help churches more effectively reach apartment communities for Christ. With $25 million in annual revenue and deploying over 1,200 missionaries into apartments, Apartment Life is one of the fastest growing and spiritually impactful ministries in the country. Around 90% of Apartment Life’s expenses are covered by the apartment owners.

Lionheart was launched in 2014 to take back the childcare industry for Christ. Lionheart partners with

local churches to provide full-time preschool, after school and summer programs targeting unchurched working families. Lionheart currently has 14 locations, $22 million in annual revenue and 400 employees and is growing rapidly. Lionheart locations become selfsustaining within two years.

Apartment Life and Lionheart participate in the Best Christian Workplace annual survey to measure organizational health.

Apartment Life has received “Best Christian Workplace” designation for fifteen consecutive years and Lionheart has achieved the designation every year since inception as well.

PARTNER EXPECTATIONS

Skylark Expectations (of church partners)

• Active promotion of camp to congregation through physical, digital, and stage announcements.

• Support for staff recruiting and hosting internally through the church and church’s reach.

• View the summer staff as an extension of the church ministry.

• Adequate engagement by church staff during camp to facilitate connection with kids and families and invitation to church.

• $50, 000 in scholarship funding for lower income families.

• Appropriate access to facilities before and during summer for camp-related work.

• Shared communication about year-round events we can partner together on.

Church Expectations (of Skylark)

• Skylark will be good stewards of church facilities.

• Skylark will communicate to Church in a timely manner.

• Skylark will be positive addition to the Church reputation in the community.

• Skylark Camp Director will be an extension of the Church staff and serve intentionally alongside.

• Marketing efforts will reach into multi-ethnic and unchurched areas of the community.

• Skylark BaseCamp will provide accurate and timely communication with impact statements.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Stan Dobbs, Founder and CEO

Andy Miller, Chief Revenue Officer, Heritage Golf Group

Batteries

LEADERSHIP PROFILES

Stan Dobbs - Founder and CEO

Stan Dobbs is the founder of Apartment Life, Lionheart, and Skylark. After a career in the computer industry, Stan attended seminary in Fort Worth, Texas and developed a passion for serving apartment communities while on staff at a chuurch. His passion is to birth and develop “businesstry” visions which are spiritually effective, scalable and sustainable via integrated business models. He lives in the Dallas area with his wife Vicky.

Jake Collins - President

With an eclectic array of interests and passions, Jake has experience in the medical, educational, travel, and Christian camping industries. He most recently spent 8 years at Pine Cove Christian Camps where he served in a variety of positions, his latest as a leadership development coach for young professionals. He has a track record for using creative solutions to further God’s Kingdom purposes and further human development. Jake is pursuing an MDIV from Southwestern Seminary with intents of completing a doctorate shortly after. When he is not around the classroom creating fun for kids, you can find him enjoying his own fun as a mountaineer, leading study tours, photography, writing, or running with the bulls in Spain.

Tommy Miller, Former CEO, Interstate

Bobby Page, Founding Partner, JPI

Gary Staats, Partner and President (retired) The Covenant Group

David Ward, Executive Vice President, MAA

LEADERSHIP PROFILES

Julie Barker - SVP - Financial Services

Julie has over 25 years of experience in Accounting and Finance both in for-profit and not-for-profit companies. She has been an AVP and Controller for multiple organizations. She is a CPA and holds a B.B.A. in Accounting from Angelo State University and an M.B.A. from Texas Tech University. She has served with Skylark since its’ inception. She took 3 years (2005-2008) to serve on the mission field in Mexico City as a teacher at Mexico City Christian Academy and taught middle school and high school students in Math, History, Science, and Bible. She enjoys spending time with family, friends, and her two dogs.

Baylee Blankenship - HR Partner

Baylee is from a small town in north Louisiana. She spent most of her life there and even stayed and went to Louisiana Tech University. Throughout her time at LA Tech, she spent her summer as a camp counselor at Pine Cove Timbers sharing the good news to 8th and 9th grade girls. After her college days, she explored different career avenues to find where the Lord was calling her to be. She spent time in ministry at the Austin Stone Community Church, The Bridge Community, and financial institutions. During this time, she also met her incredible husband, Reeves, while he was finishing up his football career at LA Tech. Through much prayer and patience, Baylee and Reeves found themselves in Dallas. Baylee loves serving, developing, and preparing people for life and for the Kingdom!

Brent Buell - Camp Director at CityBridge Community Church

Brent grew up as a youth pastor’s kid in Fort Worth, so the life of goofy, high energy ministry has shaped him for as long as he can remember, though you’d never guess it if you saw him in his happy place– sitting in a coffee shop, earbuds in, reading and journaling. From Fort Worth, Brent left for Wheaton College, where he graduated with a degree in Biblical and Theological Studies. Go Thunder! Brent has spent every summer since 2016 working at camp, where his louder, energetic side comes out more than anywhere else. Some of Brent’s favorite things include spending time with his family in Fort Worth and exercising, especially running.

Karis Childres - Camp Director at Irving Bible Church

Karis is a graduate of Dallas Baptist University! She was born and raised in East Texas, but dreams of living in the mountains one day. Karis has always loved working with and serving families. She has gotten to do this through babysitting, serving in children’s ministries, and being a counselor at Pine Cove for a few summers. Karis is a peopleperson and loves traveling, being outside and texting with exclamation points! Also, she can make almost anyone feel funny considering she laughs at everything. Karis is thankful and pumped to be a part of the Skylark team!

Elliott Dobbs - Director of Operations

Elliott is the how-to guy when it comes to camp! He has been a family camper for 8 years at Pine Cove Bluffs, worked as the college operations staffer on one of Pine Cove’s traveling teams, and now has worked in full-time camping ministry for 2 years. He has a passion for getting things done and conquering various challenges which is seen in his love for hiking, rock climbing, woodworking, and volleyball.

Kelley Grace Flournoy- Administrative Director

Kelley Grace (yes it’s both names) grew up all over the world. She spent the majority of her childhood overseas in Malawi, then moved back to Louisiana. She worked for Pine Cove during her summers in college and then did an internship there. KG married her husband Carter during his time at Texas A&M, and after he graduated they moved up to the Dallas area. They have the most perfect dog Olive who is normally right at KG’s heels. KG loves planning, processes, organization, and the craziness of Summer Camp.

Josh Fortney - Director of Programs & Partnerships

Josh spent over 10 years on staff at churches as a pastor before joining Skylark. He spent the first part of his career with Pine Cove Camps before recognizing the call on his life to serve God’s church in a unique way. Skylark blends his love of camp ministries and his desire to see the church reach people for Jesus. Josh is a graduate of Texas Tech and Dallas Theological Seminary. The greatest joy in his life aside from knowing Jesus is getting to be married to his best friend, Melissa. They have 2 wonderful kids (Fortniños), a spry senior pup (#PennyThePup) and are a family who loves to find joy and laughter in life.

Hannah Garcia - Camp Director at TCAL

Hannah graduated from the University of North Texas in May of 2021 with a Spanish degree in hopes to pursue a life in Latin missions. In college, God ignited Hannah’s heart for reaching the lost, intentionally loving others, and mentoring those who desire to grow in their relationship with the Lord. In the past year and a half, Hannah served and moved to Boston to help a church plant, but she moved back in 2022, allowing her to serve her first summer as a senior counselor for Skylark, where she was able to utilize her passion of mentoring. Her time at camp has been short, but it’s fitting for how the Lord has equipped her. Hannah is hopeful and expectant for God to move in the next season as a camp director!

William Garrison - Area Director

While studying Psychology at Texas A&M, William began spending summers working at camps. He spent every summer in East Texas at Pine Cove. After graduating in 2017, he briefly moved to Houston to work in construction logistics until he returned back to summer camping. William began working at Skylark in 2019 as the Hillcrest Site Director.

LEADERSHIP PROFILES

Emily Gentiles - Director of Marketing

After moving a gazillion times, Emily settled finally in Texas, which she now considers the Motherland. She grew up in a Christian home with her 2 sisters and gave her life to the Lord at a young age. After graduating with a degree in Religion from ETBU, she spent the next several years doing camp ministry full-time at Carolina Creek Christian Camp. Then she met this handsome guy named David Gentiles. He was a singer, songwriter and worship leader and she HAD to have him. They’ve been involved in church ministry together for 15 years. While in Houston they began to foster and were able to adopt two wonderful children. David is on worship staff at CityBridge Community Church (The best church in the world) (If she’s allowed to say that).

Jacob Shellum - Camp Director at Cottonwood Creek Church

Jacob grew up in Fort Worth and he attended summer camps all through elementary and middle school. In high school, Jacob started working at Camp Thurman where he served four summers as well as volunteering at Camp Barnabas. After high school, Jacob studied Recreation, Parks & Tourism Sciences with a certificate in youth development at Texas A&M University (WHOOP!) and found his passion for camp ministry and chose to pursue full-time ministry. After serving two summers at Sky Ranch and graduating in December, Jacob moved to Dallas where he served as the CityBridge Program Director for the summer. The Lord opened up the right doors and Jacob was blessed with the opportunity to come on to Skylark full time as the Cottonwood Creek Church Camp Director.

Ashley Sink - Chief People Officer

Ashley spent her college summers at Worldsong Camp in Alabama, leading girls in discovering their part in God’s mission to the world. Through the years her Kingdom calling evolved through people and HR leadership roles in energy, full-time ministry, education, and publishing before joining Skylark. She is passionate about developing people to their God-given potential while enabling an organization to meet its strategic goals. Ashley and her husband have two daughters (Skylark campers!) and love to explore ideas, books, and the outdoors as a family.

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