Where dreams meet reality.
Founded in 1986, the Whitman Mayo Foundation has supported and targeted initiatives that positively impact both rural and urban communities, and also their disadvantaged entrepreneurs, students, and small-business owners.
Supporting rural and urban economic development across a range of core initiatives from tech to academic achievement.
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Donor support is at the core of our success. Take a look at some of our core initiatives:
The Whitman Mayo Foundation aims to close the technology education gap among low-income neighborhoods across the country. The nonprofit also hopes to diversify the community of active entrepreneurs in rural and urban America and introduce people to technology career paths.
This training is desperately needed to fill the tech staffing gap and also to combat the economic hardships and growing income gap in rural and urban communities. We succeed when the best and most diverse strategies are used to bring about a brighter future.
The intensive training, will provide participants with the technical expertise, coding skills and the professional support they need to be competitive in the workforce, while introducing them to careers in tech. In addition, they will have access to networking opportunities, and interact with successful entrepreneurs, community leaders and others across the tech community.
Conservation issues in the rural and urban communities vary in size and complexity, and land conservation itself is often misunderstood as “locking up land” instead of having public benefit for all. Many of these issues, however, can be successfully addressed through local, collaborative, and small-scale approaches.
The Whitman Mayo Foundation will strategically invest in increasing local land conservation awareness and in implementing innovative, sustainable land uses through the following programs:
The Whitman Mayo Foundation understands that rural and urban communities are lacking the infrastructure to take advantage of the fast-growing clean technology industry. In order to keep these communities from falling behind in these important jobs of the future, The Foundation is focusing on highly motivated low-income or under-resourced students. We're helping them to graduate from high school and college — as well as to secure a job and pursue a professional career in CleanTech— with special programs designed to reverse such long-term trends.
The Foundation will concentrate on mentoring, community service, and weekend workshops, including sessions on college applications, finding a career, résumé writing, interview skills, and financial literacy, all in partnership other nonprofits. The organization will work with teenagers and young adults, primarily between 14 and 19 years of age.
The Whitman Mayo Foundation empowers high potential, low-income students to gain admission, succeed and graduate from four-year colleges and universities by providing scholarships and a comprehensive counseling and support system throughout their high school and college years.
The cycle of poverty that pervades too many nearby communities erodes the very fabric of our nation. Economic disenfranchisement leads to crime, drugs and dependency—a waste of many smart young students who mistakenly perceive they are trapped in a world without opportunity and give up in despair.
For youth in low-income communities, education is the only viable way out of poverty. College graduates earn an average of one million dollars more over their lives than high school graduates. That not only provides better lives for them and their families, it also equates to a million dollars of increased economic contribution each college graduate will make to their community and to society.
National Impact
The Whitman Mayo Economic Development Corporation (WMEDC) is the foundation’s lead rural and urban economic development initiative. The WMEDC was officially established in February 2004 when the foundation purchased the former ADM cotton seed oil mill in Port Gibson, Mississippi in order to assist the community sudden demise of over 100 jobs. In order to respond quickly to the needs of our communities and businesses, the WMEDC operates like a business in public –private partnerships.
The WMEDC is organized as a public private partnership governed by the foundation board of directors. The WMEDC Board of Directors and advisors reflects the geographic and economic diversity of various communities we serve. The WMEDC focuses its efforts on growing, retaining and attracting new businesses, jobs, development, housing and competitive education projects in our communities.
The Whitman Mayo Economic Development Corporation is committed to attracting and supporting new business investment, creating new jobs for rural and urban America, and furthering our legacy as one of the top advocates in the nation for economic development.
We will aggressively pursue every opportunity that represents a promise for housing, development and jobs, and will compete locally, nationally and at a global level to win these opportunities.
We will attempt to match the interests of new economic partners and the local community, creating opportunities that work for all parties concerned
We will continue to seek opportunities to attract new business and grow our local communities and companies at home, and continue to improve the economy for our rural and urban communities
Our work is far from done and every day, for rural and urban communities across the nation, we must and will deliver the message, the resources and the support to bring more new businesses, jobs, development, housing and competitive education projects in our communities.
