Jen Bailey

Last year, inspired by movement leader Mia Birdsong, we found ourselves returning to a question: How do we plant seeds in toxic soil?

It was a question shaped by the realities our partners were navigating: political backlash, climate instability, burnout, funding uncertainty, and growing pressures on young people and communities across Middle Tennessee. But it was also a question about hope and about what it means to keep investing in people, community, and possibility even in difficult conditions.

Over the last year, through conversations with nonprofit partners, funders, organizers, and community leaders, a second question began to emerge for us: How do we help those seeds take root and grow together?

That question sits at the heart of the Maddox Fund’s new 2026–2029 Strategic Blueprint. The Blueprint reflects an evolution in how we understand our role as a funder and partner in this region. Over the next three years, we will deepen our commitment to trust-based philanthropy, long-term partnership, and community leadership.

Some of this will look tangible and practical: shifting to two-year general operating grants through our biennial RFP process, expanding responsive funding opportunities, creating more spaces for nonprofit leaders across Middle Tennessee to gather and learn together, and launching a new Root Partners cohort for deeper organizational support. We also anticipate returning to participatory grantmaking in 2027, a year when we will pause our traditional open RFP before reopening the process in 2028.

These shifts are rooted in what we heard consistently from partners across the region: organizations need not only funding, but steadier partnership, greater flexibility, and support that recognizes the humanity of the people doing the work. Again and again, leaders spoke about the need for spaces to learn together across issues, sectors, and communities at a time when so many forces are working to isolate, exhaust, and divide us.

The Blueprint is also grounded in a broader commitment to Advocate, Cultivate, and Tend: advocating alongside communities, cultivating relationships and collaboration, and tending to the long-term sustainability of leaders, organizations, and movements.

We know the challenges facing our communities are real. But we also believe deeply in the wisdom, creativity, and resilience already present across Middle Tennessee. We are grateful to the many partners, former partners, and peers who helped shape this next chapter, and we look forward to continuing to learn and grow together in the years ahead.

There are moments in the life of an organization when you can feel something opening. New capacity, new energy, new possibility. This is one of those moments for us. I’m so glad to share that Shun Ahmed has joined the Dan and Margaret Maddox Fund as our new Senior Program Associate.

Shun is a Nashville native and a graduate of Metro Nashville Public Schools, whose work has been deeply rooted in the communities we serve. Over the past several years, she has contributed her leadership and care to organizations that many of us know and love, including several Maddox partners. In each of these spaces, she has built programs, strengthened systems, and walked alongside young people and families across Middle Tennessee.

She brings a rare combination of technical skill and relational depth. A graduate of Vanderbilt University in Engineering Science, Shun has consistently worked at the intersection of data, community engagement, and equity. She has led efforts to build data systems that help organizations better understand and communicate their impact, while also ensuring those systems remain grounded in the lived experiences of the communities they serve.

In her leadership at ADROIT, Shun has directed a growing statewide program engaging hundreds of young people in hands-on learning, leadership development, and innovation. Across her roles, she has helped steward programs, manage complex grant processes, and build partnerships that expand access and opportunity.

What stands out most is how she approaches this work. Shun brings a participatory spirit, creating space for young people and community members to shape the solutions that affect their lives. She has facilitated dialogue and collaboration across lines of difference, always with a deep commitment to belonging, dignity, and shared ownership.

At Maddox, we often say that our work is about more than grantmaking. We are tending to relationships. We are cultivating trust. We are learning alongside our partners as we seek to better the lives of young people and protect the natural environment across Middle Tennessee.

Shun will play a vital role in that work. She will help steward relationships with our partners, support our grantmaking processes, and strengthen how we learn from and alongside the communities we serve. Her experience working within partner organizations gives her a unique perspective, one that will help us continue to grow as a more responsive, relational, and community-rooted funder.

As a small team, each person shapes not just what we do, but how we do it. Shun’s presence already feels like a gift, bringing both rigor and warmth, thoughtfulness and action.

I’m especially excited for our partners to get to know her in the months ahead. Please join me in welcoming Shun to the Maddox community.

With gratitude,

Jen

As 2025 draws to a close, I find myself holding both the weight of this year and the possibility of what comes next. This has been a season of transformation not only for the Dan and Margaret Maddox Fund, but for Middle Tennessee as a whole. Our region continues to grow and change at a rapid pace. Nonprofit partners are navigating unprecedented political and economic pressures. Young people and the lands that sustain us are facing challenges that require courage, creativity, and care.

In the midst of all of this, Maddox has been listening deeply.

Over the past six months we engaged sixty-five partners across listening sessions, check-ins, interviews, and community conversations. Youth-serving and environmental organizations shared stories of resilience and innovation. We heard about expanded programming, new collaborations, advocacy victories, and leaders investing in long-term sustainability. We also heard about exhaustion, funding instability, and the urgent need for philanthropy to show up with humility, clarity, and consistency.

This listening affirmed something core to who we are becoming. To meet this moment well, Maddox must continue leaning into trust-based philanthropy, an approach rooted in transparency, partnership, and the belief that communities are best positioned to know what they need. Trust-based philanthropy asks funders to reduce burdens, share power, and invest in people and relationships over the long term. It asks us to listen first, to move resources more flexibly, and to honor the wisdom and leadership already thriving in Middle Tennessee.

These commitments sit at the heart of our renewed vision.

Early next year we will share our refreshed Strategic Blueprint rooted in the voices of our partners and aligned with our North Stars for youth, community, and environmental flourishing. It will outline not only what we fund, but how we accompany movements, leaders, and organizations with greater intention.

Looking Ahead: A Refreshed RFP in Q1 2026

One of the most exciting pieces of this next chapter is a refreshed RFP that we will launch in the first quarter of 2026. This new approach reflects everything we heard in our listening process. It will offer:

• Clearer guidance for applicants
• Streamlined processes and expectations
• Better alignment with the rhythms of community work
• Expanded pathways for partnership beyond traditional grants
• Deeper alignment with trust-based philanthropic practices

We cannot wait to share more in the months ahead.

As We Grow, We Are Hiring

To support this work, we are growing our team. The Maddox Fund is currently hiring a Senior Program Associate, a role that will serve as a relational anchor for our community partners and an essential thought partner in our youth portfolio and data operations.

This position was previously called a Community Manager, but following our compensation study we refined the title to better reflect the level of responsibility and leadership. The role remains rooted in relationship building, strategy, and supporting the day-to-day rhythms of grantmaking.

If you or someone in your network is passionate about youth, community, and environmental stewardship, and is energized by trust-based philanthropy, we encourage you to apply and share widely.

Gratitude for Our Partners

As we close 2025, I want to express my deep gratitude for the partners who guided, challenged, and inspired us this year. Your honesty helped us sharpen our purpose. Your courage reminded us what is at stake. And your vision continues to push us toward a future where all young people and communities can thrive.

We are stepping into 2026 with renewed clarity, renewed commitments, and renewed hope. Thank you for being in this work with us.

This year at the Maddox Fund, I’ve found myself returning to an image offered by futurist and pathfinder Mia Birdsong: seeds planted in toxic soil. What does it mean to cultivate hope when the ground beneath us feels depleted, stripped by years of systemic injustice, environmental degradation, and philanthropic practices that too often extract more than they restore?

What we have learned again and again from our grantee partners is this: in even the most desolate landscapes, healing is possible. Like native plants that remediate poisoned ground, our partners are doing the slow, steady work of restoration. They are transforming harmful conditions into ecosystems where justice can take root and hope can grow.

In a philanthropic landscape marked by volatility, scarcity, and shifting priorities, we chose a different path. This year, the Grant Committee made the intentional decision not to consider new proposals. Instead, we deepened our investment in the organizations already in partnership with us. In an unstable environment for nonprofits, we saw this as a practice of sustainability—a way of nourishing the roots rather than constantly seeking new growth. This is what trust looks like in practice.

Our North Stars, guiding us toward a world in which people and planet flourish together in regenerative systems free from oppression and threat, remained at the center of every discussion. Our funding areas of youth and the natural environment also held steady. And in the spirit of transparency, we continue to make five years of past grantmaking decisions available on our website.

We believe transparency is a necessary condition for cultivating authentic relationships.  So that data can become knowledge that transforms our actions, we offer this analysis of our 2025 grants to date:

At Maddox, we believe that liberation is only as permanent as our practice. We are committed to continuing the internal work required to ensure that equity, justice, and liberation are not just values we name but truths we live.

As we look to the horizon, we’re excited to announce that we will release a refreshed Request for Proposals (RFP) in the first quarter of 2026. This new RFP will reflect lessons learned from our current partners, emerging needs in the field, and our refined grantmaking priorities. What will not change is our unwavering commitment to our North Stars and to the communities who inspire us every day with their courage and creativity.

To our partners: thank you for being the ones who transform poisoned soil into sacred ground. Thank you for teaching us what it means to hold fast to hope.

Let us keep planting, even when the ground feels unsteady.

For quarterly updates on the Maddox Fund, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter!

It is with great joy and deep gratitude that I step into the role of Executive Director of the Dan and Margaret Maddox Fund. As I embark on this new chapter, I am honored to continue the Fund’s legacy of investing in transformative change for Middle Tennessee’s young people and the ecosystems that support them.

I want to extend my deepest appreciation to my predecessor, Kaki Friskics-Warren for her  leadership, dedication, and vision. Her unwavering commitment to justice and liberation helped shape the foundation of the Maddox Fund, and I am honored for the opportunity to build upon the legacy of her work as we move forward together.

At Maddox, we seek a world in which people and planet flourish together in regenerative systems free from oppression and threat. It is a vision of hope for the future. In our current landscape, I am aware that it can sometimes feel like that future is just beyond our grasp. I step into this role during a time when our nonprofit partners are facing unprecedented challenges. Economic uncertainties, shifting philanthropic and policy priorities, and the growing needs of our communities require us to be more adaptive, resourceful, and collaborative than ever before. Despite these difficulties, I firmly believe in the power of community and that solutions to some of our most pressing challenges will be found by following the wisdom and leadership of those most proximate to the pain. 

In this constantly shifting world, one thing that will remain constant at Maddox is our commitment to you, our community partners. We are here to support you—we see your work, honor your leadership, and remain committed to walking alongside you.

In the months ahead, I look forward to listening and learning from our grantees, community leaders, and partners. Your insights, experiences, and wisdom will be invaluable as we continue shaping a shared vision for the future. 

In the coming weeks, we are curating two types of opportunities for connection: 

• Attend a Listening Meeting: Beginning on February 19th, Maddox will be hosting a series of Listening Meetings as we look for early guidance in our strategic planning process.  A good candidate to attend is a person in leadership who knows the external forces at work in the organization as well as the internal challenges ahead for the organization’s programs, staff, board and program participants. You can sign up to attend here.
• One on Ones: In addition to listening meetings, I welcome the opportunity to connect one on one for a 45 minute conversation. You can sign up for a time here.  I’m happy to meet either in person or virtually – whatever is most convenient for you!

Please feel free to reach out, introduce yourself, and share what inspires you about the work we are doing together.

Thank you for welcoming me into the Maddox Fund community. I am excited about the work ahead.

With gratitude,

Rev. Jen Bailey
Executive Director
Dan and Margaret Maddox Fund