The mission of the Charles Moore Foundation is twofold: to preserve the Moore/Andersson Compound and its associated collections and libraries, and to initiate educational programs and projects about the importance of place.

Caring for and maintaining the structures, interiors, collections, and landscape is central to the Moore Foundation’s work. The foundation’s strategy is to treat preservation in an ongoing, daily fashion. Our preservation strategy has been to maintain the whole set of buildings and landscapes in a consistent, incremental way, so that problems don’t escalate and overwhelm the foundation's modest budget.

The Moore Foundation initiates symposia, field conferences, and lectures for the benefit of the professional community, students, and the public. The Moore Foundation also contributes the Charles Moore Memorial Lecture to the University of Texas School of Architecture. Past speakers have been Michael Graves, Cesar Pelli, Ricardo Legorreta, and Rick Joy.

Many of the conferences have been documented in PLACES, A Forum of Environmental Design.

Since its inception, the Moore Foundation has hosted dozens of residents from around the world. Most come as visiting professors of architecture to the University of Texas School of Architecture; others may come for research work or as guests of the foundation. Residents benefit from actually living in the Moore/Andersson Compound (either in the Andersson House or the West Studio), amidst Moore’s architectural legacy, his and Colin Rowe’s libraries.

Every summer the Moore Foundation offers an internship to a graduate student of the University of Texas School of Architecture. Interns work on preservation projects, PLACENOTES, and the foundation’s ARTstor digitization effort.