History of Damaris
Damaris was founded by Nick and Carol Pollard. It was officially born in May 2000 - but that was after a two year gestation period.
For many years Nick and Carol had been serving as chaplains to the colleges of Hampshire, under the auspices of Solent Christian Trust, which they had founded to support and enable their ministry. Subsequently, Nick travelled the length and breadth of UK serving as a University Missioner in a partnership with UCCF. Throughout this time, Nick was always keen to help people to think seriously about the worldviews underlying popular contemporary culture, and to use that process as a way of introducing people to a consideration of the life and teaching of Jesus. Nick was clear that his calling was to be a 'scholar-communicator' - he worked hard on his scholarship and on his communication so that he could help all people at all levels.
Many people asked Nick if he could pass on his skills to them. But he replied that he would rather help them to develop these skills themselves. And so was conceived the idea of an organisation which was a community of people helping one another in this way. This community would include Christians who wanted to be more effective at communicating their faith in the modern world. And so, when Nick was sitting on a train one day reading through the book of Acts, he was immediately struck by the name Damaris. Damaris was a character who (according to Acts 17) came to faith in Christ because she heard Paul speaking about him in relation to the poets and philosophers of his day.
It was at this point that Nick and Carol recruited Tony Watkins, who was coming to the end of his contract with UCCF. He travelled all over the UK setting up Damaris Study Groups, speaking about the Damaris approach to relating Christian faith and contemporary culture, and developing resources for the groups to use. Over a period of two years it became clear that there was a huge need and demand for the resources that Damaris could develop and produce.
So Nick and Carol closed down Solent Christian Trust, put most of the rest of their lives on hold, and threw themselves into developing Damaris. The Damaris Trust was officially constituted as a UK registered charity in May 2000 and has grown at a huge rate since then.
From the beginning, the growth was been facilitated by the establishment of a very clear vision and approach - and by a very clear business model which Nick and Carol developed very carefully.
Initially Damaris was structured as an organisation to serve the poeple of UK. However, it soon became clear that there was a huge international need and demand for Damaris resources. Therefore in 2002, Damaris was restructured to enable this to expansion whilst still maintaining the essentially grass-roots, 'bottom-up' nature of the organisation.
As Nick and Carol look to the future, they see many opportunities to continue to grow Damaris into an organisation which serves many people with relevant and valuable resources.
If you would like to be a part of this continued growth do, please consider joining Damaris - and supporting Damaris.