Our Mission
On a foundation of Christian faith, the 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, the 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 aims to be:
Since 1894, we have 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 James A. Cayce Homes, a federal public housing project, where we expanded services for children and adults.
The Top Floor, our first high school-based Academic Student Union, opened at Stratford STEM Magnet 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. It quickly helped Stratford more than double its college going rate and opened up similar programs at Maplewood and Hunters Lane High Schools. Since opening, the ASUs have assisted thousands of students in enrolling in post-secondary education, and ASU students have received more than $160 million in grants and scholarships.
After 18 months of co-developing a vision for the Martha O’Bryan Center’s family supports through human centered design, we opened the Family Success Network (FSN) as 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. MOBC received the Center for Non-Profit Management’s 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, we organized and launched the Tennessee Alliance for Economic Mobility, a public-private collaborative, to work together to reimagine the 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 one of the nation’s largest benefits cliff pilots.
Under the leadership of the Martha O’Bryan Center, the Tennessee Alliance for Economic Mobility (TAEM) began enrolling 900 families in the TDHS funded program called Our Chance TN. 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 to mitigate the impact of the benefits cliff and incentivize economic advancement.
We expanded our family service model to additional Middle Tennessee counties through the Tennessee TANF Opportunity Act. This 30-partner demonstration builds an economic bridge around the benefits cliff and ultimately will provide data for how public benefits are distributed in Tennessee and across the nation.
We launched our Career Pathways program to provide specialized education, training, and credentialing in four high-demand fields: Hospitality, Healthcare, Construction, and Information Technology. To explore these fields and determine the best fit, participants begin with industry bootcamps that introduce the necessary education and training options within each pathway. These bootcamps also help assess participants’ interests, strengths, and abilities. Following this, participants select the pathway that aligns best with their goals. They then receive free training from instructors at Nashville State Community College and Tennessee College of Applied Technology, earning industry-recognized certifications.
Our service model has grown within Davidson County to 10 sites with the latest headquarter campus investments in Cayce Place Homes being a $24M K-8 school, the Explore! Community School, and a $16M new two-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.
More than 131 years after our founding, we continue to serve low-income 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 economic mobility.