Our Mission
On a foundation of Christian faith, Martha O’Bryan Center empowers children, youth, and adults in poverty to transform their lives through work, education, employment, and fellowship.
On a foundation of Christian faith, Martha O’Bryan Center empowers children, youth, and adults in poverty to transform their lives through work, education, employment, and fellowship.
Striving to confront root causes and solve complex social issues, MOBC works to be:
Since 1894, Martha O’Bryan has been working for the prosperity and well-being of Tennessee families. Founded by Miss Martha O’Bryan and her friends from First Presbyterian Church (now Downtown Presbyterian) with a mission to “share the love of Jesus Christ by meeting the [physical] needs of women and children”, we were organized as a part of the nationwide Settlement House movement to serve the poor. Miss Martha started the first kindergarten, ran a boarding house for young factory girls, started a clinic for women and taught young women employable domestic skills, such as sewing.
In 1948, the Martha O’Bryan Center moved from north Nashville to the “new” community of Cayce Homes, a federal public housing project, where we expanded services for children and adults.
The Top Floor, Martha O’Bryan’s first high school based Academic Student Union, opened at Stratford High School. It was designed to increase high school success and post-secondary matriculation at one of Nashville’s most historically low-performing high schools. The program quickly helped Stratford more than double its college going rate and opened up sister programs at Maplewood and Hunters Lane High Schools. Since opening, the ASUs have assisted more than 2000 students in enrolling in post-secondary education and students have received more than $140 million in grants and scholarships.
After 18 months of co-developing a vision for Martha O’Bryan’s family supports through human centered design, MOBC opened its Family Success Network (FSN). The FSN is a dynamic and thriving “third space” in which community members come together for fellowship and recreation while accessing the childcare, employment, education, and family supports needed to pursue stability and self-sufficiency. Martha O’Bryan received the Center for Non-Profit Management Team Building award for its person-centered design process and the Family Success Network has been recognized by the Kresge foundation and Aspen Institute for innovation.
Building on the success of the FSN, Martha O’Bryan organized and launched the Tennessee Alliance for Economic Mobility, a public-private collaborative, to work together to reimagine with Tennessee safety net. The collaborative quickly grew to include 30 partners representing 7 Middle Tennessee counties and secured a $25 million grant through TDHS to launch the nation’s largest benefits cliff pilot.
Under the leadership of Martha O’Bryan, the Tennessee Alliance for Economic Mobility began enrolling 900 families in the TDHS funded program called Our Chance Tennessee. The initiative aims to increase family stability and upward economic mobility through family-centered coaching, rapid education and training, strategic resource navigation, and a first of its transitional benefit that mitigates the impact of the benefits cliff and incentivizes economic advancement.
In 2023, we expanded our family service model to six additional middle Tennessee counties through the Tennessee TANF Opportunity Act. This seven county, thirty partner demonstration site builds an economic bridge around the Benefits Cliff and ultimately will provide data for system change of TANF and other benefits and how they are distributed here in Tennessee and across the nation.
Martha O’Bryan launched its Career Pathways to provide specialized education, training, and credentialing in four high-demand fields: Hospitality, Healthcare, Construction, and Information Technology. To preview the fields and evaluate fit, participants attend industry bootcamps that outline the required education and training options available within each pathway, and assess participant’s interests, gifts, and abilities, along with. Participants then choose a best fit cohort, in one of the four pathways, where they receive free training from Nashville State Community College and Tennessee College of Applied Technology instructors and earn industry recognized certifications.
Today, our service model has grown within Davidson County to ten sites with the latest headquarter campus investments in Cayce Place Homes, being a $24M K-8 school, Explore Community School and a $16M new 2-Generational community and employment center. In all places we serve, we seek to build equitable opportunities and redress where historical class and race injustices have limited the futures and dreams of families.
130 years after our founding, we continue to serve low wealth families and children, striving to provide educational and economic opportunity for those who live at the margins. Guided by faith and the strength of those we serve, we advocate for federal and state systems change where policies work against the upward economic mobility of low wealth families.