2020 Grant Announcement

With gratitude for the compassion and determination of our nonprofit partners, The Dan and Margaret Maddox Fund is honored to announce our 2020 grants to support education, marginalized youth, and wildlife conservation in Middle Tennessee.

The discernment of our grant committee and board was unique this year. Applications were submitted on January 15, a lifetime ago in the wake of the tornados and the spread of the coronavirus. Making decisions about future funding in a season of uncertainty was humbling, to say the least.

The Maddox discussions focused around two primary themes:

Trust:  We trust our nonprofit partners to know the needs of the people and environments they serve, as well as the best way to redesign programs to meet those needs.

Flexibility: Program descriptions and outcomes written on January 15 are, in many cases, obsolete. We will be flexible, listening to and working with our partners to best meet our shared missions to better the lives of young people and further wildlife conservation.

In 2019, The Maddox Fund made a commitment to equity and justice, stating: “Undergirding this commitment is the conviction that all human beings are interconnected, not just with one another, but with all of nature – a belief that makes our desire to foster connection and a sense of belonging even more urgent.”

Over the past several months we have learned that connection and belonging are essential to our well-being – indeed, to our survival – and yet xenophobia and racism, as well as our continued disregard for creation divide us. The Maddox board of directors remains committed both to dismantling historic systems that marginalize our neighbors and to creating liberating systems to take their place.  

In times of crisis we may be tempted to suspend our core values, but we must remember that crises are everyday realities for our neighbors who struggle on the margins and for environments threatened by deregulation and abuse.  Maddox will live out its commitment to justice and equity for people and all of nature through our 2020 partnerships with 71 organizations.

The Maddox Board of Directors gives thanks for the generosity of Dan and Margaret Maddox that continues to serve the Middle Tennessee community.

Mission: To better our community through partnerships that improve the lives of young people and further wildlife conservation.

Values:

• We believe education and knowledge are transformative
• We champion just and equitable systems and policies
• We manage our resources with integrity and transparency
• We honor the voices of marginalized communities
• We engage our work with humility and curiosity
• We celebrate courageous leadership
• We embrace the shared responsibility to better our community and protect our wildlife habitats