What’s the Plan for the Moody Foundation’s Texas-Sized Pledge to Lone Star State Students?

The Moodys are no strangers to big giving. Photo: Felix Mizioznikov/shutterstock

There is no question that the Moody Foundation — and the family behind it — have made their mark on Texas. The foundation is known for large, capital-purpose gifts, and the family name adorns buildings across the state, including at the University of Texas, Rice University and Southern Methodist University. The Moodys have backed art institutions like Austin’s Moody Rooftop at Contemporary Austin, Moody Theatre and Moody Amphitheater. And that’s not all: There’s also the Moody Planetarium in Lubbock, and Galveston’s Moody Mansion, Moody Gardens and Moody Neurorehabilitation Center.

A foundation tagline reads, “All over Texas, we’re here to help.” And, indeed, the Moody Foundation is also all over education in the state. Along with support for Texas colleges and universities, over the last decade, it has provided $24 million for the Moody Scholars Program and $55 million to the Generation Moody Education Initiative, which supports education programs in Galveston. In the field of early education, the Moody Early Childhood Center in Galveston offers sliding-scale tuition and provides wraparound services.

This week, the Moody Foundation made an even larger commitment to young people in its home state, pledging $1 billion “to transform education in Texas by 2035.” The initiative, which Moody is calling the M-Pact Fund, will target children on both ends of the education spectrum, providing funding for early learning and postsecondary success, two of the foundation’s strategic priority areas. It aims to support yet-to-be-determined education institutions, university endowments and nonprofits working in those two areas. The foundation will issue a request for proposals next year.

For the Moody family, education has always held particular value as the pathway to a more promising future. “Our commitment encompasses a comprehensive approach to the Foundation’s education grantmaking to support students from cradle to career and help them overcome barriers along the way,” trustee Ross Moody said when the $1 billion pledge was announced. “We believe the classroom is a launching point for positive change and hope this promise fuels a new generation who will continue to carry forward our vision of a bigger, brighter future for all Texans.”

A laser focus on the Lone Star State

The Moody family has deep roots in Texas. William Lewis Moody Jr. studied law at the University of Texas, and after working in his father’s Galveston cotton business, started a bank. Over time, the family expanded into ranching, hotels, newspapers and insurance. Moody and his wife Libbie started the Moody Foundation in 1943, and today, it is headed by their great-granddaughter, Frances Moody-Dahlberg, great-grandson Ross Moody, and his daughter, Elle Moody, who are all trustees. 

The foundation is laser-focused on its home state. It describes its mission as “empowering Texas communities to thrive and prosper.” As of 2022, the Moody Foundation’s assets stood at around $2.9 billion. But the foundation’s resources have been growing lately: Last year, Ross Moody oversaw the sale of American National insurance company, and a sale of National Western Life is pending. As Moody told Forbes, “After the sale the foundation is in a fortunate position to have the ability to give away additional tens of millions in gifts a year.”

Within the borders of Texas, the foundation’s funding areas are wide ranging, and include arts and humanities, community and social services, education, health and science (see our overview of the Moody Foundation’s grantmaking from last year).

“Areas of greatest need”

Asked how the foundation settled on its priority areas for the M-Pact Fund, Ross Moody told me via email, “We identified early learning and postsecondary success as the areas of greatest need and where philanthropy can make the deepest impact. These two pillars also build on our foundation’s history of giving in the education field.” He continued, “Our ultimate goal is for every Texan to have access to a high-quality education. Our strategic support of early learning will help Texas children achieve milestones for kindergarten readiness and literacy. Whether they pursue higher education or choose to enter the workforce at that time, we’re committed to removing barriers and helping kids thrive.”

Within these two broad categories, the foundation will be considering a wide range of research and evidence-based programs. “We really want to take an opportunity to learn from the community and from the state about what the needs are and what's really working, and then go from there,” said Courtney Rogers, the foundation’s director of education strategy and impact.

Rogers did offer a few specifics. In terms of early learning, the foundation sees the Moody Early Childhood Center as a model for the types of funding goals it’s considering. In addition to offering sliding-scale tuition, the Moody Early Childhood Center has a health and wellness center for both students and families, and extended hours. “We’re thinking more holistically about the needs of families beyond just the traditional school day,” Rogers said.

For postsecondary success, the foundation will be considering programs that support first-generation and under-resourced students. “We’ll be looking at success and completion coaching and other comprehensive supports,” she said. “In K-12, we’ll be looking at what kind of programs best prepare kids — early college high schools are a model, for example. And we’re interested in programs that offer workforce and career exploration — even starting in middle school or younger — to expose students to different kinds of high-need careers that provide a living wage.”

Education in rural areas will also be a priority. “Texas has the highest number of rural students anywhere in the country, so that will certainly be a focus area for this work: figuring out how we can provide rural schools and districts with the resources they need,” Rogers said.

Power shift 

More dollars for education are a good thing, but investments on the scale of this $1 billion commitment from the Moody Foundation prompt questions about philanthropy’s role when it comes to public services that are traditionally overseen by government. My colleague Mike Scutari pointed this out after the Moody Foundation stepped in to cover the debts of the Dallas Performing Arts Center back in 2017. As Scutari wrote, “This seemingly innocuous bailout is another example of a growing shift in who has power in American society — with strapped government agencies taking a step back and philanthropy taking a step forward.”

Scutari suggested that such bailouts might be the “new normal” in many places, especially with fiscally conservative Republican governors in control in so many U.S. states. Texas is a good example of a state where government is taking a step back when it comes to school funding. In fact, it’s downright stingy, as Texas Public Radio observed in a recent report, which also spotlighted inequities in the system: “Texas consistently ranks in the bottom 10 to 12 states for education spending per student,” according to the report. “Texas hasn’t increased school funding since 2019.”

Texas public education advocates believe the shortage of public school funding in the state, and the inequities around it, are being used by conservatives, including Gov. Greg Abbott, to fan public dissatisfaction with public schools and increase support for education vouchers. (A proposal that would have both introduced vouchers and raised education funding was recently defeated in the Texas legislature.)

As long as lawmakers seek to starve government budgets and refuse to recognize essential services, including education, as a public good, philanthropic investments like the Moodys’ fill an important gap. But they also highlight larger questions about our priorities as a society when we have to rely on hefty private commitments to educate our children.