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

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

Summer 2018 scholars will be taught using the Children’s Defense Fund literacy curriculum. They will also engage in enrichment activities led by Nashville area video/web professionals and create a live-to-tape video broadcast and podcasts for presentation via Nashville Freedom Schools’ website and Facebook page, featuring firsthand interviews with Civil Rights giants living in Nashville, with scholars’ contributing original scripts, music, poetry, commentary and spoken word.

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

Friends Learning in Pairs (FLIP) matches adults age 55+ with struggling students in grades k-4 for one-on-one tutoring intervention in math and reading. FLIP operates in 30 schools in Williamson and Davidson Counties. FLIP is a volunteer placement within FiftyForward’s Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP).

kings daughters logo
Grant Year
2018
Grant Amount
$10,000
More info
Program Area
education
Program Description

For more than five decades, KDCDC has offered an excellent and affordable pre-Kindergarten program to families in our community who need it most – the ‘working poor’. Our staff works hard to ensure each child has the academic and social/emotional readiness skills they need for success in school and beyond.

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.

Grant Year
2018
Grant Amount
$8,500
More info
Program Area
education
Program Description

Book’em wants and is being asked to expand our Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) program to some of MNPS’ pilot schools as part of the Blueprint/Literacy Collaborative. Our request: fund one new school (or equivalent) for RIF and support a fund development position on a short-term basis to build our capacity.

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.

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