Education

The Mayerson Academy is a private nonprofit organization providing professional development to school principals, teachers, and other staff establishing itself as one of the best of its kind in the country.  It resulted from a collaboration with the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative and the Cincinnati Public Schools District.  Since 1992, the Mayerson Academy has been deeply committed to inspiring successful outcomes for learners of all ages through creative, customized services and learning experiences.  

Today, the Academy has made it their mission to celebrate strengths and inspire people to reach their greatest potential—one organization, one team and one person at a time. The Academy has proudly partnered with Cincinnati Public Schools, with whom they design, deliver and/or manage more than 600 learning opportunities for more than 3000 educators, annually. Through online, blended, and place-based experiences, Mayerson Academy reaches more broadly into nearly 100 districts across the country and the world while welcoming more than 10,000 guests to the facility each year.

In 2016 Northern Kentucky University (NKU) kicked off NKU Strong, a new initiative designed to increase the well-being of staff, faculty and students, by hosting a university-wide staff development day in which for roughly 2,000 faculty and staff were introduced to their own signature strengths through the VIA Strengths Survey.

The Mayerson Foundation provided support for the implementation, training, and management of this initiative through The Mayerson Academy.

Through offering tailored trainings, implementing an effective communication strategy and engaging activities, NKU Strong aims to build a strengths-based culture of wellbeing that helps students, staff, and faculty be their best selves and lead engaged and meaningful lives.

RISE was a Cincinnati-based nonprofit organization, established by the Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation, whose mission was to provide national, high quality, cost-efficient training opportunities for adults who work with infants, children, and youth. RISE was formed in 1994 to find large-scale answers for pressing educational needs. RISE began delivering instruction in January 1997.  RISE set the standard for effective distance learning and was well recognized as the "mark of distinction" in the field of early childhood professional development, having provided training to over 100,000 adults nationwide.  As video streaming and Internet technology advanced, other alternatives for early childhood professional education became possible and RISE’s raison-detre was completed.

StriveTogether is a national, nonprofit network of more than 70 community partnerships which works to ensure that every child succeeds from cradle to career, regardless of race, income or zip code. StriveTogether helps communities identify and scale what works in education by providing coaching, connections, and resources to help partnerships share data, align resources and shape policy.

The Mayerson Foundation awarded a grant to Strive's Preschool Promise – an initiative to ensure that every child has access to two years of high-quality, affordable preschool.

The Mayerson grant supported the success of a local ballot initiative to ensure that every child has the same fair start and to provide two years of quality preschool for every child.

Teach for America enlists, develops, and mobilizes our nation's most promising future leaders to grow and strengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence. Corps members become teachers in low-income communities and commit to teaching for two years and are hired by partner public schools across the country.

Through both grant funding and in-kind contributions of Board time, the Foundation has supported the training of corps members on character strengths and how to bring the latest in character science into their classrooms.

With one of the worst child poverty rates in the country, far too few children in Cincinnati receive the kind of education that all students deserve. Over the past five years, Teach for America has brought over 150 corps members to the region, who have collectively impacted over 7,500 low-income children.

WordPlay nurtures every young participant through a personal discovery and academic skill-building program with reading. writing and connecting at its core.

The Mayerson Foundation awarded a grant to WordPlay for a creative writing program called WordUp at Aiken High School that helps students gain self-awareness, conflict resolution techniques, and leadership training.

WordUP runs throughout the academic year, providing opportunities for educational and personal growth through creative projects that showcase students' talent through a publication of student writing, community engagement events, field trips and other interactive experiences.