The Bonner Mission
"Access to Education, Opportunity to Serve" distills the overarching goal of the Bonner Program. Since 1990, a diverse, multi-state consortium of colleges and universities has joined together with a common commitment to the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation’s mission to provide low-income and first-generation students with the opportunity to attend college, while engaging their talents and educations in building and supporting communities.
Bonner at Mason
The Bonner Leadership Program at George Mason University was founded in the Fall Semester of 2019 and welcomed its first cohort of six Bonner Leaders in Fall 2020. Over the past five years, through the hard work and dedication of full-time staff and student leaders, the GMU Bonner Leadership program has grown to over 40 students and expanded its network to more than 20 local community partner sites.
While the GMU Bonner Program is relatively young, the development of the Bonner Leadership Team and the implementation of team-bonding events, recruitment strategies, and professional development opportunities have allowed the program to successfully pursue its mission of building a strong, committed group of civic-minded students. We continue to explore ideas of citizenship and democracy, various modes of civic engagement, and the application of these ideals across a changing sociopolitical landscape through collaboration with both local and international community service sites. Mason’s relationships with local community service sites are essential to mobilizing students, faculty, and staff to meet the transformational goals of both the public and private spheres.
A Special Thank You
Thank you to the founders of the Bonner Leadership Program at George Mason University, Elexus Buckner Robinson, Fiona Klotz, and Patty Mathison, who spent a full year planning, designing, creating, and recruiting partners and students for this program before welcoming our first cohort of students in Fall 2020.
Thank you to our Bonner Advisory Committee, who created the initial curriculum impact grant to bring this program to Mason. Their thoughtful contributions, curriculum design, attention to assessment, and community voice have been tremendous in supporting this program.
Focus Areas: Local government, Nonprofit organizations, quality improvement in human service organizations, neighborhood change, and the scholarship of teaching & learning
Director for the Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) Office. Focus Areas: ethical leadership, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills
Focus Areas: Community engagement, leadership development, social justice, mental health, and student development.
Focus Areas: Ethics and Leadership. Access and experience for adult and first-generation students
Focus Areas: Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership (MSL), leadership studies
Focus Areas: Global and Community Health Administration, Community Health, Epidemiology, Occupational Health, Work-Family Balance
Focus Areas: Black History with a focus on Caribbean American experiences, Black feminism, youth development, and community organizing
The National Bonner Foundation
Both Bertram and Corella Bonner's personal journeys played a significant role in the development and direction of the Bonner Foundation. Bertram Bonner was born "without a dime" in 1899 in Brooklyn, New York. At the early age of 22, after putting himself through college at night, Mr. Bonner was named Head Treasurer for Hetty Green Banks. As Head Treasurer, he made many loans to New York builders, which inspired him to become involved in real estate. He was successful from the beginning, but in the stock market crash of '29, like so many others, he lost everything. With hard work and a tremendous business acumen, Mr. Bonner quickly made back his fortune. His career spanned six decades and can be credited with the building of more than 30,000 homes and apartments.
Corella Bonner, like her husband, was born into poverty. She began her journey in the rural south—in the town of Eagan, TN. As a fourteen-year-old, after living in coal-mining towns in West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, Corella Allen, along with her mother, sought opportunity in the northern city of Detroit. Arriving penniless, the young Allen soon found work as a cashier at a cafeteria, attended Wayne State University at night, and made sure that her younger siblings went to school. She worked her way up from cashier to manager and was eventually transferred to the Statler chain's New York hotel. It was there she met Bertram Bonner. They were married four years later, in 1942.
The Bonners' involvement in community service began with their early work providing food for destitute families in Fort Lauderdale. In 1956, the Bonners moved to Princeton, NJ, where they began a broad-based ecumenical crisis ministry program housed in the Nassau Presbyterian Church. In 1990, after working with the late John B. Stephenson, President of Berea College, Bertram and Corella established the first Bonner Scholars Program at Berea College to provide "access to higher education and an opportunity to serve" for students in the program.
After Mr. Bonner passed away in 1993, Mrs. Bonner traveled extensively to campuses in the Bonner Network. Beloved by everyone she came into contact with, she received ten honorary degrees as well as the 1998 Award for Voluntarism and Philanthropy from the Council for Independent Colleges , which recognized that "through the Bonner Program, you have created powerful opportunities for students to develop strong leadership skills as they link lessons learned in the classroom with knowledge gained from service and volunteerism." Mrs. Bonner continued to carry on their legacy of hope, service, and gratitude until her death in July 2002.