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The Phil Hardin Foundation's goal is to be a catalyst for educational opportunity and community improvement in Mississippi. Our 60-year history is replete with examples of innovative leadership and productive partnerships that have strengthened the capacity of our community, region, and state to meet their educational challenges.
In the past decade alone (2015 through 2024), the Hardin Foundation has paid out $32 million in grants to improve student achievement; make educational and enrichment opportunities more available and equitable; increase understanding of Mississippi arts, culture and history; and build community capacity. Since the foundation's creation in 1964, our investments toward these goals total $73 million.
The Hardin Foundation remains a principal leader in philanthropic efforts to overcome our state's historic legacy of poverty and discrimination that makes sustainable educational improvement such a daunting challenge. We also continue to be firmly committed to a strong philanthropic and nonprofit sector in Mississippi, which is critical to improving education at all levels.
We are about improving education, but for what purpose? In addition to being a foundation that focuses on education, Mr. Hardin stipulated that we practice what today is called "place-based philanthropy," with Mississippi being our place and Meridian and the surrounding area its heart. That means we seek to improve education as a means to an end in a particular place at a particular time, and that end is a better, more fulfilling life for our people and a stronger, more cohesive and more prosperous community and state. Mr. Hardin valued education as a springboard to broader opportunity, better life outcomes, and stronger communities, and that is the vision that continues to guide the foundation's work.
We can sometimes get frustrated with the pace of change in our state and community. But we are in this for the long haul, and we approach our work with that view in mind. The circumstances that have historically put Mississippi at or near the bottom in so many indicators, including education, are intertwined and literally centuries in the making. These long-festering problems will not be solved overnight. But if we fail to see improvement in systems at the rate and pace we seek, we must never lose sight of the fact that countless lives are still being changed for the better – even completely turned around in some instances – because of the work being done by our partners.
And as Mr. Hardin would remind us, we must never stop trying, nor yield to discouragement. At the very first meeting of the Hardin Foundation board in June 1964, Mr. Hardin had a message – recorded in the minutes – that echoes forward to us today. "We have a wonderful opportunity," he said, "but we should not start if we expect everything we try to be successful because it will not." The message was not to be careless in what we support and initiate, but rather not to be afraid to be bold in charting a course that may sometimes involve risk.
We still have a "wonderful opportunity" before us. What could be more worthwhile and meaningful than continuously seizing that opportunity through education to change the trajectory of individual lives and transform our community and state?
