Health and Wellbeing

VIA is dedicated to bringing the science of character strengths to the world through supporting research, creating and validating surveys of character, and developing practical tools for individuals and practitioners. VIA is a nonprofit organization created by the Foundation with most recent support for VIA to upgrade their website and to develop certification courses and other training.

VIA was founded on the belief that a sustained and coordinated scientific effort to understand character will yield tremendous growth in knowledge and practice as most all prior scientific efforts have produced.  VIA has produced the preeminent classification of personal character strengths, a manual summarizing what is known to date about the various strengths, and tools for measuring these character strengths in youth and adults. It works to mobilize research on the strengths and to bring awareness of new and promising interventions to youth practitioners, parents, educators, and business people.  The VIA Survey of Character Strengths is offered free online and has been taken by over 4 million people worldwide.  It is translated into 39 languages.  

The YWCA is on a mission to eliminate racism, empower women, stand up for social justice, help families, and strengthen communities.

The Mayerson Foundation provided lead funding for the YWCA's Project CARE – a national model whose purpose is to eliminate violence against individuals with disabilities.

Project CARE operates across sectors of community services to create a seamless system to meet the needs of women with disabilities, women who are survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.

The Mayerson Center for Safe & Healthy Children brings together under “one roof” a variety of activities centered on the issue of child abuse and neglect. The Foundation provided support to replace and upgrade the technology needed to record forensic interviews which are used to aid in prosecution, training and research studies and to provide training and supervision to interns, physicians, social workers, and law enforcement.

The Center integrates the various legal, medical, law enforcement, and child welfare agencies that converge upon a child when neglect or maltreatment is suspected or is a reality. This integration spares children the trying experience of being interviewed multiple times by multiple strangers representing the various systems. It also improves the integrity of evidence brought to court for prosecution. Additionally, the Center focuses on generating important research of the treatment and prevention of abuse and on providing training on such matters.

Children, Inc., the largest provider of early childhood education and after-school programs in Northern Kentucky, believes when children get in the habit of contributing to their community they become adults who contribute to their community. The Mayerson Foundation provided lead funding to Children, Inc. for the creation of the Mayerson Northern Kentucky Service-Learning Initiative: training K-8 teachers throughout Northern Kentucky on incorporating student service to the community in their academic curricula – a teaching method known as service-learning.

Children, Inc. has trained thousands of teachers to use high-quality service-learning with elementary and middle school students each year. Some of those projects help to raise funds for local charities; others keep local parks clean, promote recycling, help keep neighborhoods safe, and raise the spirits of those in nursing homes.  While the program has taken on different forms since inception, Children, Inc. believes in celebrating schools who lead the field of service-learning as well as celebrating high-quality service-learning.  Most recently, Children, Inc. acquired the operations and day-to-day support of the High School Service-Learning Program; formerly operated through The Mayerson Foundation.

Strong Cincinnati works to foster strong, connected communities through the activation of strengths within individuals, organizations, and neighborhoods. The Mayerson Foundation supported the launch of Strong Cincinnati through staffing support and technological assistance in website launch with The Mayerson Academy.

Strong Cincinnati started a city-wide effort and city-wide impact in Madisonville in 2017 and aims to grow throughout Greater Cincinnati.  What if we could activate our strengths in our neighbors to create more connected, engaged and empowered residents throughout our region?