The Maddox Fund recently submitted a public comment to the federal Office of Management and Budget about updating their race and ethnicity standards, recognizing the importance of adding a Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) category on the Census and federal paperwork. You can read the full comment below or submit your comment here.
…March 31st is the International Transgender Day of Visibility. Maddox celebrates the joy and resilience of our trans and non-binary siblings. Today is a good day to learn more about gender identities outside your own and here are some resources to explore:
The Maddox Fund is pleased to announce that our 2023 grant application is now available online. While our focus areas remain Youth and the Environment, our eligibility requirements and priorities have changed to reflect our racial justice commitment. The deadline for applications over $30,000 is March 1, 2023.
If you would like to discuss your organization’s work or program with a Maddox staff member, you can schedule a time to meet through the links below:
You can always provide anonymous feedback to the Maddox Fund. We are interested in your thoughts, ideas and honest critique. To keep up with opportunities, follow Maddox on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. We remain thankful to all Middle Tennessee nonprofits. You are at the heart of the community we call home.
2022 is a year of rethinking, reimagining and redesigning the Maddox Fund’s grant program.
Input from the community was essential. During the month of June, we heard from our partners through in-person design meetings, virtual gatherings and an online survey. More than 75% of our nonprofit partners participated in this crucial process. Thank you in advance for your generosity and guidance.
Maddox welcomed feedback on how we should conceptualize our grantmaking areas, youth and wildlife conservation, going forward. Participants were asked to review a draft document and rank priorities. Below are those priorities in community rank order.
Youth
Wildlife Conservation
We also asked our partners what Maddox should be asking itself. Three themes emerged:
Partners also asked Maddox to:
The work now returns to the Maddox Grant Committee to integrate community input into the 2023 grant program. We anticipate the following schedule:
If you would like to share your thoughts or provide any additional feedback, you can email Maddox staff or call the office at 615-385-1006. You may leave feedback anonymously at anytime by using this link.
The Maddox Fund has submitted a public comment on the Tennessee Department of Education’s draft rule related to the implementation of Section 51 of Chapter 493 of the Tennessee Public Acts of 2021. We believe that an understanding of our violent history is necessary for envisioning new and liberating systems and that these punitive measures create hostile work environments for educators and place undue burden on school districts. The full statement can be read below.
…Public Comment on Draft Rule, Prohibited Concepts in Public InstructionRead More »
Over the past several weeks we have witnessed the violent deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. Closer to home Jocques Clemmons and Daniel Hambrick are remembered, along with the disproportionate number of our black and brown neighbors who have died from COVID-19. These are the individual faces reflecting the oppressive systems that envelop everyone in their path—no one escapes; the only way forward is together.
Believing each of us wants to be liberated individually and to advance racial justice in our organizations, the Maddox Fund is sharing resources that we have used in our racial justice learning.
…Evolution pulls us forward to be more than we otherwise imagined ourselves to be. This has certainly been true of the Maddox Charitable Fund. After emerging from a decade-long legal struggle, this once conservative foundation wanted only to fly below the radar and assume a low profile. The original website reflected this intent with stodgy gray tones, limited information about grantmaking priorities and stern, formal pictures of our founders, making them — and us — unapproachable. The website bespoke a transactional as opposed to a visionary approach to grantmaking. Ten years later, it no longer represented who or what Maddox had become.
This is an excerpt from a featured article on Grantmakers for Effective Organizations about the principles that guided us in designing our new website. To read the full article, check it out here.
