Grantmaking

2026 Request for Proposals

The Dan & Margaret Maddox Fund is now accepting applications for our 2026 grant cycle, with a deadline of Friday, March 20. This Request for Proposals reflects an important moment in Maddox’s evolution. Over the past year, we engaged a strategic listening and planning process — conversations with grantee partners, community leaders, peers, and advisors across Middle Tennessee — to help shape our next chapter. What we heard was clear and consistent: organizations are navigating complex, shifting conditions and need flexible, multi-year support grounded in trust, relationship, and shared purpose. Our 2026 RFP is one response to that call.

start an application

Things to check out

Responsive Grantmaking

Responsive Grants can be requested throughout the year.  The first step for these grants is contacting a Maddox Staff member.  These grants will be reviewed on a monthly basis or quicker when rapid response is needed.  For responsive grant requests related to youth programs, email jen@maddoxfund.org.  For requests for environmental organizations, contact joseph@maddoxfund.org.

Emerging Needs

These grants support programs and organizations that are aligned with Maddox’s target grant priorities. For 2026, these grants will fund organizations supporting LGBTQ+ youth, immigrant and refugee youth, the environment, and youth civic engagement.

Get Outside

Get Outside Grants are focused on developing new partnerships and opportunities for young people to be outside. These small grants will go to youth organizations so that they can implement environmental programming or to environmental organizations to engage young people.

Capacity & Care

Care and Capacity Grants recognize that nonprofit organizations are greater than their outcomes. These grants help partners develop their organizations, care for their staff, and internal systems to advance their mission. This may include things like funding consultants, executive searches, staff care, or sabbaticals.

Improving the Lives of
Young People

Learn more »

People and Planet

Learn more »

Where We Fund

The Dan and Margaret Maddox Fund serves 41 counties of Middle Tennessee listed below. Programs must operate within this geographic area.

Bedford, Cannon, Cheatham, Clay, Coffee, Davidson, Dekalb, Dickson, Fentress, Franklin, Giles, Grundy, Hickman, Houston, Humphreys, Lawrence, Lincoln, Macon, Marion, Marshall, Maury, Montgomery, Moore, Overton, Perry, Pickett, Putnam, Robertson, Rutherford, Sequatche, Smith, Jackson, Stewart, Sumner, Trousdale, Van Buren, Warren, Wayne, White, and Williamson

Eligibility

Check if your organization can apply for funding
Click Here

Partnership Priorities

See how we prioritize our grantmaking
Click Here

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