“As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”
1 Peter 4:10
BECAUSE, GOD.
At the core is a love already given — not something to be earned, but something to be lived from. From that love comes the conviction that every person possesses inherent dignity, that our lives are meant to be lived in relationship with one another, and that what we have been given — our time, resources, knowledge, influence and opportunity — carries with it a responsibility to serve.
We believe a meaningful life cannot be manufactured for someone. It must be chosen.
People flourish when they have genuine relationships, meaningful opportunities, a wider view of what life can be, and enough freedom to decide for themselves what they will do with it.
Volition is taking what we have been given and doing what we can with it, in the time that we have here. It is choosing to build not only for those who are here today, but to steward what can be handed to those who come after us.
That is volition.
And for us, it begins with Christ.
This House is for everyone.
House Volition at its core is a coalition of people and institutions who choose to live in service of something larger than themselves.
Service can mean capital, knowledge, experience, relationships, facilities, land, technology, professional expertise, institutional capacity, time, or the ability to solve one difficult problem well. Different people carry different things. The strength of the House comes from bringing those capacities into meaningful relationship around work worth doing.
A church may bring generations of trust within a community. A foundation may bring patient capital and deep knowledge of a field. A university may bring research and teaching. A family office may bring judgment, access and the ability to move decisively. A professional firm may contribute expertise that raises the standard of everything that follows. An individual may simply know something, own something, or be able to introduce someone the work needs.
People arrive by different paths, carrying different convictions, faiths, experiences, means, traditions and reasons for serving. The House is made stronger by what each brings with them.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF A MORE HUMAN CIVILIZATION
There is a world where people know one another well enough to notice who is missing, where entering a new season of life means finding new people and responsibilities rather than losing the ones that gave life shape before it.
It is a place where cities contain more than housing, employment and entertainment. They contain communities with memory. There are tables people return to, rooms where introductions become friendships, work worth contributing to, people several steps ahead who are willing to teach, and people several steps behind who are worth turning back for.
Knowledge moves through this place as something living. Experience accumulated over decades does not disappear when a career ends or a generation passes. People learn from those who have done the work, test what they receive against reality, improve it, and carry the useful parts forward. Capability grows alongside judgment. Education remains connected to life.
Land is worked and cared for. People understand what it takes to sustain households, communities and the places they inherit. Work produces tangible things. Hospitality has a table. Stewardship has consequences that can be seen, lived and handed forward.
Across cultures, nations, institutions and traditions, people meet without first needing to be alike. There is enough shared life to know one another as people, and enough confidence in their own identities to encounter someone else without needing to erase theirs.
At the largest scale, this place is connected across cities, countries and generations. Knowledge travels. Relationships cross borders. Institutions remember what individuals cannot. Capital remains available to solve patient problems and improve quality of life. Good work survives the people who began it and becomes a stronger starting point for those who come next.
At the smallest scale, it is simply an individual having somewhere to go, someone knowing their name, an invitation arriving at the right time, a relationship deepening through repeated contact, useful knowledge passing from one person to another, someone being trusted with responsibility they are ready to carry, a meal shared, work completed together, land left better than it was found, and people with different lives remaining in relationship long enough and safe enough to understand one another more fully.
This world is incredibly hard-earned; the accumulated inheritance of countless generations of struggle, sacrifice and service.
The communities and institutions we build today are the foundations of that tomorrow. House Volition exists to build these foundations.
THE DEFINED SCOPE
House Volition has four institutional pillars: young-adult communities, Volition Academy, sustainable farms, and twelve diplomacy houses.
Young-adult communities create durable places for friendship, belonging, participation, service and shared life during a formative season of adulthood. They are a repeatable form, established city by city.
The academy carries knowledge, judgment, capability and formation across generations. It is the permanent center of learning within the House: a place where what is discovered, tested, refined and worth preserving can be carried forward.
Farms root the work in land, nourishment, stewardship, productive activity and hospitality. They are repeatable places where responsibility becomes physical and communities remain connected to the systems that sustain human life.
The twelve diplomacy houses create enduring places of encounter across nations, cultures, institutions, traditions and difference. They make sustained relationship possible while preserving the distinctness of the people who enter them.
Young-adult communities make belonging lived. The academy carries formation forward. Farms make stewardship tangible. Diplomacy houses make difference inhabitable.
Together, they form the complete institutional expression of the mission.
THE ARCHITECTURE
House Volition begins by choosing a city with intention. We look at our systems and expertise and determine which locations and communities have the strongest alignment and the most fertile ground for the work.
Then we study the people, history, institutions, existing networks and character of the area, spending time and building relationships with the young adults who live there and with the community and leadership already invested in their lives. Listening comes before design. All work begins with being present.
From there, we work with young adults and community pillars to discern what structures, resources and connections are already available. The answer will not be identical from city to city. The purpose is to understand what people already have, what they value, what is missing and where a new institution can serve without flattening the character of the community around it. It is our ability to communicate across divides that multiplies resources and minimizes costs.
An operating plan emerges from more than two decades of experience carried forward from The Optimus Consultant Group, from what other communities have already learned, and from the knowledge of people who understand the place better than we do. Strategy, leadership, hiring, training, communications, events, systems, technology, measurement and implementation become tools in service of what the community itself reveals.
Around that work, House Volition builds the coalition: young adults, churches and faith communities, philanthropy, civic and public leadership, businesses, institutions, professionals and individual citizens from very different places recognizing a clear cause worth serving together. The coalition is built through giving, introductions, communication, shared knowledge and the patient work of bringing people into useful relationship with one another.
Together, we capitalize the initiative and build it. We source the people, skills, tools, training and institutional knowledge required for the work to function at a high standard, then develop the local leadership and operating capacity required for it to stand on its own. In some places, House Volition remains involved through capitalization and endowment so that independence is supported by durable financial footing.
Sovereignty is part of the architecture. The institutions developed carry their own leadership, governance, relationships, knowledge and resources so the community itself can carry the institution forward. House Volition remains in relationship, continues learning from what the institution becomes, and carries those lessons into the work that follows.
Common initiative elements include communication and leadership development, entrepreneurship, art and music, mental-health resources, events and safe spaces, volunteering, service and deeper participation in community life.
The purpose remains clear: build something useful, equip people to carry it, and leave the community with more capacity than it had when the work began.
CURRENT WORK
House Volition’s current work is concentrated in San Diego, California, where a coalition of more than 115,000 young adults has already gathered around the vision we put forward for a richer community life. San Diego gives us a dense, diverse and consequential place to do our work at meaningful scale. What we learn here becomes part of the institutional knowledge carried into everything that follows.
What we have built in San Diego is an active, engaged community cultivated over time. Its size and response give us meaningful feedback that people feel connected to the idea and to the vision prepared for their community.
The work now is to gather the human and capital resources needed to serve these remarkable young adults.
Churches, foundations, institutions, funders, operators, venues, professionals and community partners each hold pieces of the capacity required to build. House Volition is currently bringing those pieces together through the initiative named SD20s, while building the institutional, financial and operating structure that can carry the community from digital connection into sustained physical life.
SD20s creates recurring places and experiences across San Diego where young adults can meet one another, build genuine relationships, learn, create, serve, develop professionally and personally, and participate more deeply in the life of their community.
Young adults also help build and operate the community itself. SD20s hires and mentors people in their twenties through paid internships and hands-on roles in hospitality, events, marketing, content creation and AI implementation, giving them real responsibility, practical experience and access to people who help develop their capabilities and ambitions.
The model draws on resources San Diego already has in abundance — people, churches, organizations, venues, knowledge, culture, opportunity and a remarkable young-adult population — and connects them around a community built specifically for this season of life.
CAPITAL FOR THE LONG HORIZON
The House Volition Foundation’s permanent capital architecture includes a $1 billion operating endowment and a $10 billion long-term deployment endowment.
The operating endowment gives the Foundation permanent institutional capacity: exceptional people, research, infrastructure, stewardship, administration, institutional memory and the freedom to make decisions on the horizon the work itself requires.
The deployment endowment gives that capacity physical reach. It funds the creation and capitalization of the communities and institutions through which the mission becomes lived in places around the world.
We work with the capacity available today while building permanent capacity for tomorrow. Each deployment adds knowledge. Each partnership expands what the House can carry. Each institution gives the next one a stronger place to begin.
FOUNDERS.
NICOLE VASSAR
Growing up in San Diego, Nicole was surrounded by the warmth and chaos of a large Filipino family. Her grandmother taught her the power of faith, kindness, and hard work, introducing her to Jesus, who remains the foundation of everything she does.
Nicole’s career has spanned hospitality, marketing, human resources, consulting, systems, and leadership, with much of her work centered on developing people and shaping culture. Combined with a B.S. in Sociology from UC San Diego, those experiences gave her a deep understanding of how relationships and community can transform our trajectories. She co-founded House Volition to bring that understanding to life, beginning with HV’s first community initiative, SD20s.
Her journey has taught her that when we are deeply loved, we are empowered to discover who we are called to be. With House Volition, her mission is to extend that foundation beyond young adults, strengthening Christ-centered organizations, investing in youth around the world, and inspiring people to dream bigger about their lives, their impact, and who they can become.
C.H. McCray
In 2026, C.H. made the decision to bring his active tenure with The OCG to a close and redirect the experience, systems, relationships, and capabilities developed through that chapter toward a more deliberate purpose.
At the center of that decision was his commitment to Christ. Rather than separating his faith from his professional life, C.H. chose to place his work, judgment, experience, and future initiatives in service of it. For him, the transition was not a rejection of what had been built through The OCG, but a decision about what those abilities would be used for next.
He is an accomplished executive, consultant, investor, author and philanthropist. That work now continues through House Volition, where C.H. serves as a President & CEO. House Volition carries forward many of the strategic, organizational, sales, marketing, leadership, and systems capabilities developed over years of work through The OCG, with a particular dedication to serving churches, nonprofits, and other Christ-centered organizations and initiatives.
C.H.’s role is focused on helping leaders strengthen the strategy, systems, decision-making, communication, organizational capacity, and human infrastructure behind the work they are called to do.
