Our Mission is to use online education to transform lives through Jesus, Justice and Technology.
01
Jesus
City Vision was initially founded to provide online Christian education to staff at evangelical organizations serving the poor as well as their program participants. While this still remains a core focus, we have since expanded to also provide Christian education to students pursuing nonprofit and counseling careers. See our Statement of Faith.
02
Justice
We promote Justice through radically affordable, practical education focused on addressing the needs of the poor, addicted and underserved.
03
Technology
We use Technology in our cost-effective, disruptive innovation, lean startup approach to online education. We are pioneering a new model that could dramatically increase access to Christian higher education to those serving the poor and the poor themselves.
Recognition and Awards
Profile on City Vision President
Andrew Sears
City Vision University's President Andrew Sears' story was featured in Christianity Today.
US Department of Education
Innovation Award Finalist
City Vision was a finalist in the US Department of Education's "Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem" competition along with edX, Google & others.
City Vision has roots and history that span rescue missions, Christian community development, the Salvation Army, evangelical ministries, Christian recovery and the Black and Hispanic church traditions. All of these traditions inform our values and core organizational DNA. We also have a rich history of innovation from our leadership’s involvement in co-founding a MIT research group with one of the fathers of the Internet, involvement in the 90’s dot-com boom and leading disruptive innovation in higher education today.
1998
City Vision is founded as the education arm of AGRM called Rescue College.
1998
2002
TechMission is founded out of a Black church ministry, PREP, and the Christian Community Development Association movement and develops a partnership network of 500+ education programs in urban ministries.
2002
2005
Rescue College is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission with a Bachelor’s degree completion program in Missions.
2005
2007
TechMission launches UrbanMinistry.org and ChristianVolunteering.org which grew to have 100,000+ open educational resources and became the third most visited website among Christian organizations serving the poor.
2007
2008
Rescue College becomes a part of the Christian nonprofit TechMission and is renamed City Vision College.
2008
2015
City Vision College starts offering graduate programs and becomes City Vision University.
2015
2016
City Vision’s leadership co-founds the Christian Higher Education Innovation Alliance with 100+ leaders with the vision of expanding Christian higher education to the poor and developing world.
2016
2019
City Vision launches free, non-credit Massive Open Online Courses in Education Management in partnership with the Christian Higher Education Innovation Alliance with over 7,000 users.
2019
Our Partners
Scholarship & Education as Employee Benefit Partners
Rescue Missions
Any student from a rescue mission or Citygate or GRMF member organization will receive a 15% discount.
Goal 1: Christian Social Service Education: to provide affordable, practical education enabling Christian leaders to transform the lives of the poor, addicted and underserved with continuous innovation.
Goal 2: Radically Affordable and Free Education: to use disruptive innovation to provide free educational content and radically affordable programs to diffuse innovation and best practices for Christians serving the poor and increase our global presence.
Goal 3: Human Capacity: to recruit and develop faculty and staff so they can provide effective education to our students, further our mission and pursue their own calling.
Goal 4: System Capacity: to provide effective accounting, finance, technology and administrative support to City Vision University’s programs and services in a way that reflects our values and achieves our mission.
Goal 5: Financial Capacity: to secure significantly increased resources and expanded enrollment enabling City Vision to add new programs, expand existing programs and further our mission.
This statement of faith comes primarily from the statement of faith of National Association of Evangelicals, with a few minor elements of CCDA’s statement of faith added to reflect our justice values:
We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God and through it we are called to live out justice, reconciliation and redemption. We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential and that the church nurtures God’s people gathered as a community to carry out God’s Word.
We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.
City Vision University is a “doing business as name” of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit ministry, TechMission. They are essentially the same organization with the same staff, board, finances, etc. TechMission previously had programs other than City Vision, but now it is essentially our only program. TechMission is incorporated in Massachusetts, whereas City Vision University is based out of Kansas City, Missouri.
TechMission is founded out of a Black church ministry, PREP, and the Christian Community Development Association movement and develops a partnership network of 500+ education programs in urban ministries.
TechMission is founded out of a Black church ministry, PREP, and the Christian Community Development Association movement and develops a partnership network of 500+ education programs in urban ministries.
