In July of 2000, we set out to build an organization worthy of the mission to retain effective teachers in public schools serving low-income communities. More than ten years later, as proud as we were of our entrepreneurial evolution and impact, we made the difficult but (I still believe) right decision to wind down RISE’s operations.
Though we knew our Partner Schools’ budgets would be hit hard in the wake of the “Great Recession," we remained hopeful that such constraints would focus schools more intently on developing and retaining their people. Instead, we saw many partners determine RISE a “nice to do, not need to do”—experiencing a severe drop in earned income that we deemed inappropriate to look to philanthropy to bridge the gap.
Thus, we wrote our supporters in late 2010 not to solicit additional support, but instead to thank them for all that they had done to fuel our mission. We also wanted to detail our plans to disseminate the key lessons that we had learned over that hard fought decade—to ensure that their support would achieve the greatest possible philanthropic return on investment.
We assured those wonderful supporters that we would summarize and widely disseminate RISE’s various initiatives, outcomes, and lessons learned. This website remains our best vehicle to do just that.
That said, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for visiting, and thank you in advance for applying these resources to the betterment of other social entrepreneurs, policy makers, philanthropists, educators—and most importantly, students.
My very kindest regards,
Temp Keller
Founder, former President and Chairman
Though we knew our Partner Schools’ budgets would be hit hard in the wake of the “Great Recession," we remained hopeful that such constraints would focus schools more intently on developing and retaining their people. Instead, we saw many partners determine RISE a “nice to do, not need to do”—experiencing a severe drop in earned income that we deemed inappropriate to look to philanthropy to bridge the gap.
Thus, we wrote our supporters in late 2010 not to solicit additional support, but instead to thank them for all that they had done to fuel our mission. We also wanted to detail our plans to disseminate the key lessons that we had learned over that hard fought decade—to ensure that their support would achieve the greatest possible philanthropic return on investment.
We assured those wonderful supporters that we would summarize and widely disseminate RISE’s various initiatives, outcomes, and lessons learned. This website remains our best vehicle to do just that.
That said, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for visiting, and thank you in advance for applying these resources to the betterment of other social entrepreneurs, policy makers, philanthropists, educators—and most importantly, students.
My very kindest regards,
Temp Keller
Founder, former President and Chairman
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