PENCIL Foundation

http://www.PENCILforSchools.org

 

Mission

PENCIL links community resources to Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) to help young people achieve academic success and prepare for life. PENCIL is committed to enriching student success through active and robust community partnerships, most notably as PENCIL Partners, PENCIL Academy Partners, LP PENCIL Box Partners, and Family Resource Center Partners. We work to determine the needs of the students at each school, then provide customized opportunities for businesses and other organizations to share their skills and passion with those students to help them achieve success in school and life.

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Grants

Grant Year Amount Program Name Program Area Description
2018 $40,000 Core Mission Support education Learn more

To support programming and general operations.
2017 $25,000 PENCIL Reading Partners education Learn more

PENCIL Reading Partner volunteers are improving the skills of Metro Nashville’s Public School students in the subject of highest priority, Literacy, as a specific recommendation in the Nashville Chamber’s Education Report Card in 2016, with a priority to engage community partners to ensure early grade literacy.
2016 $25,000 Math and Reading Partners education Learn more

By mobilizing community members as Math and Reading Partners in elementary and middle schools, PENCIL is improving the skills of Nashville’s public school students in two subjects that are key to academic success and also top the list of priorities outlined in Nashville’s 2015 Chamber Education Report Card.
2015 $16,500 Reading Partners & Math Partners education Learn more

The Reading Partners and Math Partners programs enlist the participation of community volunteers as trained tutors to improve the skills of Nashville public school students in reading and math, two subjects which are key to academic success and eventual graduation.

100 Taylor Street, A-20
Nashville, TN 37208
(615) 385-1006

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©2025 Maddox Fund. All Rights Reserved.

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