The Foundation has been created with the aim of stimulating awareness of the need for excellent churches and with the intention of giving active encouragement to their construction. Churches so conceived should be an expression of authentic qualities both artistic and mystical, and the sacred space which is the result of their effective combination should be capable of making God manifest.

To this end, the "Frate Sole" Foundation has set up an Award to be conferred at four-yearly intervals on the architect or artist of any Christian confession who in the course of the ten preceding years has been responsible for an ecclesiastical building of undoubted excellence.