Evidence · Learning · Accountability
See what the work is making possible.
We report who takes part, the changes measured, and the limits of the evidence. We also keep asking what it takes to carry ceremony into ordinary life.
What the work is designed to change
The passage belongs to the Initiate. The return belongs to the community.
Ceremony is carried into a life: relationships, responsibilities, rest, grief, repair, and chosen purpose. Our responsibility is to prepare well, hold the passage with care, and help build relationships that support an ongoing return.
Prepare with shared language, practical skills, relationships, and honest conversations about readiness.
Step away from familiar roles and routines to consider what you carry and what no longer serves.
Enter ceremony on the land through solitude, fasting, attention, and witnessing.
Bring what you learn into daily choices, relationships, and responsibility, with support and room for what is unfinished.
2025 SSG Fox funded programming
Numbers belong to a period, source, and method.
The figures below come from the October 2025 end of year impact report. Counts describe program reach. Outcome percentages describe the 37 participants with matched baseline and post program assessments, not every person served.
People served
Across funded programming, including 75 Veterans and two Active Duty members.
Roots participants
Across 12 course cohorts, with 96% reported retention and 82.1% average attendance.
Veterans and military family members completing the Rite of Return
Across four wilderness ceremonies. Every Rite participant in the report completed Roots of Resilience first.
Improved PHQ-9 scores
35 of 37 assessed participants improved; two were unchanged and none worsened on this measure.
Improved wellbeing
31 of 37 assessed participants improved on the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale.
Improved across three or more domains
28 of 37 assessed participants improved across at least three of five reported assessment domains.
Veteran voices
A story remains its owner's.
A Veteran chooses whether their story is shared, which words are used, and how they are named. The meaning remains theirs.
More than a grant year
The return continues.
Veteran Rites brings preparation, wilderness ceremony and continuing community into one passage.
The work continues in ordinary life: in how we rest, ask for help, keep boundaries, repair harm, and show up for one another. Incorporation makes room for grief and uncertainty as well as new purpose.
Evidence with honest limits.
Veteran Rites will report what is known, identify what remains uncertain, and keep improving how long term incorporation is understood. Strong numbers matter. So do consent, context, missing data, unintended effects, and the difference between program evaluation and clinical research.
Source documents
Read the 2025 contributions letter.
2025 Contributions Letter (PDF, 3 pages) (opens in a new tab)