NASHVILLE, Tenn. — My Brother’s Keeper Nashville (MBKN) has been selected to join the Obama Foundation’s Accelerator Program, a two-year, $200,000 grant initiative supporting communities working toward measurable, population-level impact for boys and young men of color. MBKN’s goal under the grant: every MNPS student reading on grade level by the end of third grade, the second milestone of the national My Brother’s Keeper framework.
MBKN joins My Brother’s Keeper alliances in San Antonio, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; the Bronx, New York; and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as one of five cities in the Accelerator’s inaugural cohort.
The organization operates as a public-private partnership through a blended backbone of six organizations: the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, the Urban League of Middle Tennessee, United Way of Middle Tennessee, the Davidson County Juvenile Court Clerk’s Office, Metro Nashville Public Schools, and the Mayor’s Office.
MBKN’s delegation recently traveled to the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago for a convening of the Accelerator’s five cohort cities, where Nashville presented on the local trends shaping academic achievement, opportunity, and economic mobility for its students.
“The question is not whether Nashville has talented young people. The more pertinent question is whether our systems are organized well enough to recognize that genius, nurture it, and create the conditions for it to thrive,” said Marc Anthony Peek, Executive Director of My Brother’s Keeper Nashville.
MBKN will also serve as Tennessee’s nominating body for the Oprah Winfrey leadership scholarship this year, putting forward four MNPS students for consideration. Details on that nomination process will follow in a separate release.
