Dan and Margaret Maddox

Our Founders

Dan Maddox

Dan Maddox was born on June 9, 1909, in Easonville, Alabama, and was the youngest of five children. Dan began attending Georgia Tech at the age of 16, before returning home to manage the family business after his father’s death. 

Dan later sold the family’s credit business and moved to Brooklyn, New York, to work in a branch of CIT Corporation, a pioneer in the automobile finance industry. 

In 1930, he volunteered to lead CIT’s Nashville office, then ranked last among the company’s 72 branches. The Nashville office soon became the firm’s top performing branch. In 1944, Dan went out on his own and founded Associates Capital Corporation in Nashville and led the company until it was sold to Gulf & Western Industries in 1965.

My grandparents never forgot where they came from. They looked for the underdog and wanted to create opportunity so everyone could thrive.

Margaret Maddox

Margaret Huffman Maddox was born in Nashville on December 30, 1929. Margaret graduated from East Nashville High School. Margaret was Dan’s secretary for many years and was one of the earliest recipients of the status of Certified Professional Secretary. 

Margaret was selected as Tennessee’s Secretary of the Year in 1960. She enjoyed an outstanding career in the finance industry, and, at the time of her retirement, was Financial Vice President of Associates Capital Corporation. 

In addition to being recognized as an accomplished businesswoman, Margaret was highly respected in community leadership circles, serving in various leadership capacities for a host of charitable and civic organizations.

My Darling,
Well, it's nice to be back in [location in Iran] and particularly nice to find two letters from you waiting. Such sweet letters put such a lump in my throat and made me want to see you so badly that my first impulse was to rush down to Pan-American and trade my ticket in for one home. A good hot bath and a couple of scotch and sodas built me back to the point where I can go on and carry things through [...]


Dan and Margaret Maddox married in 1969. They both loved the outdoors. They enjoyed hunting and fishing and were committed to wildlife habitat conservation. They died, in a boating accident, while on a hunting and fishing trip in Louisiana in 1998.
Dan and Margaret Maddox

Gallery

Jen Bailey is the Executive Director of the Dan and Margaret Maddox Fund, bringing her deep experience in community-based leadership, philanthropy, and movement-building to the organization.

Jen is the Founder of Faith Matters Network, a national Womanist-led organization accompanying spiritually-grounded leaders on their journey to heal themselves and their communities. Since its inception, Faith Matters Network has served over 25,000 leaders through its programs and initiatives. She is Co-Founder of The People’s Supper, a global initiative that has hosted over 2,000 gatherings in 135 communities to foster conversation and collective healing across lines of difference.

Committed to advancing social change through philanthropy and nonprofit leadership, Jen serves on the boards of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, the Fetzer Institute, and The Healing Trust, where she is the Board Chair.

An Ashoka Fellow, New Pluralist Field Builder, Aspen Ideas Scholar, On Being Fellow, and Truman Scholar, Jen holds degrees from Tufts University and Vanderbilt University Divinity School, where she was awarded the Wilbur F. Tillett Prize for accomplishments in the study of theology. Her work has been featured by On Being with Krista Tippett, CBS This Morning, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and more. She is also the author of To My Beloveds: Letters on Faith, Race, Loss, and Radical Hope (Chalice Press, 2021).

email Jen: [email protected]