Education

Promoting equity in educational opportunities

From kindergarten to college, from afterschool programs to summer learning, from literacy to teacher pipeline, the Maddox Fund partners with education initiatives that advance student achievement because knowledge and education are transformative.

Check back in Fall 2022 for more information about our grant applications.

PENCIL reading clinic

Did you know?

Dan and Margaret graduated from high school, but college was economically out of reach for them. They understood how education creates paths to opportunity and wanted to create a way for low-income youth to realize their dreams.

Featured education partners

Pencil logo
Grant Year
2018
Grant Amount
$40,000
More info
Program Area
education
Program Description

To support programming and general operations.

FIND design logo
Grant Year
2018
Grant Amount
$10,000
More info
Program Area
education
Program Description

Both Empowered to F.L.Y. and its summer extension program, Rebuilt to F.L.Y aims to overcome risk factors that lead to a loss of classroom time due to attendance/disciplinary issues and social anxiety. This is achieved through social-emotional development in the form of mentoring, training, parent and community engagement, and advocacy.

Grant Year
2018
Grant Amount
$75,000
More info
Program Area
education
Program Description

MOBC Academic Student Unions provide academic case management and college preparation services for underserved high school youth at Stratford and Maplewood High, assisting youth with life-planning, ACT preparation, and college attainment activities, helping build support networks and patterns of success. Students in college access Post-Secondary Success persistence support in college.

Belmont logo
Grant Year
2018
Grant Amount
$50,000
More info
Program Area
education
Program Description

The Presidential Scholars program is a merit-based scholarship and leadership development program intended to produce future generations of community leaders. Presidential Scholars will engage in an intense, four-year service-learning and leadership development experience that partners them with a Middle Tennessee agency currently supported by the Maddox Charitable Fund.

Grant Year
2018
Grant Amount
$15,000
More info
Program Area
education
Program Description

PtS educates and empowers Nashville’s under-resourced students through hands-on, garden-based learning in partnership with MNPS and public libraries. Our curriculum aligns gardening to language, literacy, math and science standards, as well as social-emotional learning. Students and teachers work side-by-side in the garden, fostering a strong sense of community and connection.

Grant Year
2018
Grant Amount
$25,000
More info
Program Area
education
Program Description

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Tennessee has been supported and sustained by Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation (GBBF) since 2004, ensuring that all Tennessee children, birth to five years old, have access to receive one age-appropriate book monthly, at no cost to the family and regardless of income.

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: jen@maddoxfund.org