Scarlett Family Foundation

The Scarlett Family Foundation operates as a precision-focused, invitation-only funder with a singular mission: ensuring every student in Middle Tennessee's 40-county region accesses a high-quality education. Founded in 2006 by Joe and Dorothy Scarlett — who believed education transforms lives — the foundation moved into organizational grantmaking in 2008 and has since awarded 475+ grants to 99 distinct organizations. That concentrated grantee list signals exactly what kind of funder this is: a deep-relationship builder, not a scattershot giver.

The foundation organizes all grantmaking around four non-negotiable strategic buckets: college and career readiness, principal and teacher leadership, literacy, and mentorship. If your programs don't fit one of these buckets explicitly, this is not the right funder. The top grantees — Teach For America Nashville ($1.75M across 6 grants), Lead Public Schools ($1.67M across 6 grants), Nashville Teacher Residency ($1.1M across 6 grants) — all operate at the core of one or more of these priorities and have been funded repeatedly over multiple cycles.

The application pathway is strictly controlled. Organizational applicants must submit an online interest form through the Temelio platform; there is no open RFP, no published deadline, and no cold outreach option. The foundation reviews interest forms year-round and extends invitations to qualifying organizations. Think of the interest form as a one-page LOI compressed into a web form — it determines whether you enter the process at all.

For first-time applicants, entry-level grants may start modestly. The median grant is $5,000 across the full portfolio, though organizational investments scale significantly — the top 10 grantees average $1.28M each in cumulative funding. The relationship progression typically runs: interest form submitted → foundation review (several weeks) → invitation issued → customized proposal process → potential site visit → multi-year grant commitment. Organizations that prove their model and maintain consistent reporting become embedded in the portfolio; several grantees have received 6–10 individual grants over the foundation's history.

Geographic fit is essential. Nashville-area and Davidson County organizations receive the bulk of funding, but rural Middle Tennessee is an explicit priority — the foundation's grants page references 40 eligible counties, and grantees like Communities in Schools of Tennessee and Lawrence County Education Foundation demonstrate active rural investments.

The Scarlett Family Foundation's giving reflects a deliberate two-tier model: a high volume of smaller grants supporting emerging organizations, and a concentrated set of large multi-year investments in anchor institutions. Across 1,798 grant transactions totaling $31.4M in the historical database, the average grant is $17,453. Typical individual grant sizes range from $683 to $350,000, with a median of $5,000 — meaning the majority of individual transactions are modest, while a handful of top grantees receive transformative multi-year commitments.

Annual organizational grantmaking has grown steadily: $5.6M in FY2019, $6.5M in FY2020, $8.0M in FY2021, $8.4M in FY2022, and $7.6M in FY2023. Total foundation giving (including scholarships) stabilized at approximately $10.7M annually in FY2022–2024. Scholarship disbursements account for roughly $2.1–3.1M of total annual giving, with individual awards ranging from $2,500 to $30,000 per year, renewable for up to four years.

As of FY2024, the foundation holds $249.3M in assets — up from $154.8M in FY2020, a 61% increase driven primarily by investment returns. Net investment income reached $85.5M in FY2023, underwriting substantial future giving capacity. Officer compensation totals approximately $315,280 annually, with Secretary Tom Parrish, the senior operational leader, compensated at approximately $266,393.

Programmatically, principal and teacher leadership absorbs the largest share. Teach For America Nashville ($1.75M), Lead Public Schools ($1.67M), Lipscomb University College of Education ($1.55M), KIPP Nashville ($1.25M), and Nashville Teacher Residency ($1.1M) collectively account for $7.32M. Literacy-focused organizations — Tennessee SCORE ($1.5M), Nashville Adult Literacy Council ($260K), and Homework Hotline ($125K) — received approximately $1.9M. College access and career readiness programs (Conexion Americas $850K, Oasis Center $702K, Martha O'Bryan Center $650K) captured roughly $2.2M. Charter and high-quality school networks (Valor Collegiate Academies $950K, Republic Charter Schools $520K, Purpose Prep $660K combined) round out the portfolio.

Geographically, 95.6% of grants (1,711 of 1,798) flow to Tennessee-based organizations. The remaining 4.4% targets DC-based national advocacy organizations (8 grants) and neighboring states — likely reflecting national organizations such as 50CAN, New Venture Fund, and Relay Graduate School of Education that maintain Nashville operations.

The Scarlett Family Foundation sits in the $248–250M asset tier of private foundations — a group that includes corporate foundations, major family foundations, and institutional philanthropies with national or global mandates. What distinguishes Scarlett from its financial peers is extreme geographic and thematic concentration.

Annual giving figures for peer foundations were not available in this analysis; asset data derives from IRS filings. The comparison reveals a striking contrast: foundations with comparable asset bases typically operate nationally, across multiple sectors, with more open application processes. Scarlett's deliberate decision to concentrate $7–8M annually within 40 Tennessee counties creates both high barriers (geographic restriction) and meaningful opportunity (very limited competition from national organizations). For a Nashville-area education nonprofit aligned with the four initiatives, the effective competition pool is roughly 99 organizations — far fewer than any national funder of similar scale would attract.

The foundation's most significant 2025 development was the expansion of its scholarship program to include education majors — the first substantive eligibility change since STEM was added in 2015. This aligns the scholarship side with the foundation's longstanding organizational grants to teacher pipeline programs: Nashville Teacher Residency ($1.1M total), Teach For America Nashville ($1.75M total), and Lipscomb University's College of Education ($1.55M total). Creating education-major scholarship recipients creates a natural pipeline into the very organizations the foundation funds on the grant side.

Also in 2025, the foundation launched the Nashville Public Schools Data Finder, described on their homepage as providing 'data and details on all 162 public schools in MNPS.' This reflects the advocacy strand of the foundation's grantmaking, consistent with historical investments in the Nashville Public Education Foundation ($471,650 total) and The Education Trust Tennessee ($125,000 total).

The 2026-27 scholarship cycle accepted applications September 15 through December 15, 2025, offering $2,500 to $30,000 per academic year, renewable for four years. Since 2006, the foundation has distributed over $27M in scholarships to more than 1,000 students from 165 high schools across 37 counties. The 2027-28 cycle opens September 15, 2026.

Tara Anne Scarlett continues as President and CEO, with Tom Parrish (Secretary) serving as the highest-compensated staff member at approximately $266,393 annually — a role encompassing day-to-day grantmaking operations. The board includes Chairman Joseph H. Scarlett Jr., along with independent directors Michael Peacock and Karla Jackson. No leadership changes were publicly announced for 2025-2026.

The single most important fact about applying to the Scarlett Family Foundation: there is no open grant competition. Every organizational grant begins with an interest form submitted through the Temelio platform, reviewed by foundation staff, and followed by an invitation if you qualify. The interest form IS your LOI — make it count.

Use the four-initiative framework explicitly. Your interest form should name which priority your work addresses: college and career readiness, principal and teacher leadership, literacy, or mentorship. Don't assume the reviewer will make the connection. Top grantees like KIPP Nashville frame their work as 'principal leadership development,' mirroring the foundation's own language precisely.

Meet budget minimums before you submit. Davidson and Williamson County organizations need a $250,000 minimum operating budget; all other eligible Middle Tennessee counties require $100,000. If you're below these thresholds, do not apply yet — the foundation will not grant exceptions.

Quantify your outcomes. The foundation requires 'clear and measurable outcomes.' Cite specific metrics in your interest form: students served, reading level improvements, teacher placement rates, college enrollment rates. Vague impact language will not pass the screening.

Fund a specific program, not general operations. Nearly every significant grantee is funded for a named program: Conexion Americas' Escalera program, Oasis Center's College Connection, KIPP Nashville's Principal-in-Residence Program. Frame your ask around a discrete program with its own budget line and defined outcomes.

Demonstrate financial stability with three revenue sources. Document your funding mix clearly — government grants, earned revenue, other foundation grants, individual donors. The foundation funds program implementation, not organizational rescue.

Think multi-year from the start. Relationships that begin with a $50,000–$100,000 first grant frequently grow to $200,000–$350,000 by the third or fourth cycle. Position your interest form as the beginning of a long-term partnership, referencing your growth trajectory.

Do not cold-call. The foundation's process begins with the interest form, not a phone call or email to staff. The interest form at scarlettfoundation.org/for-grant-seekers/ is the required and only first step — unsolicited outreach is explicitly discouraged.