Statements

Mission

The mission of Stand Up Nashville (SUN) is to invite the community into the conversation, listen, and amplify the voices of Nashvillians to create lasting change and influence the decisions being made that impact our city and its citizens.

Background

SUN formed in 2016 as a strategic partnership of community, faith and labor groups focused on making economic development more equitable, inclusive, and democratic in Music City. SUN was created by dynamic organizers from some of the most influential organizations in Nashville. Our diverse leadership brings a wealth of skills, experience, local and national knowledge, and strategic community relationships to the table that exponentially increase our chances of creating institutional change. SUN's leaders have deep roots in Nashville's African American communities and congregations, the local labor movement, activist networks, and in immigrant and refugee communities.

Impact

SUN fights alongside the people of Nashville and empower the working class and the marginalized to stand up and speak out against racial inequity, economic inequality and injustice. We work towards our vision of a city where the common good is rooted in equality, dignity and the opportunity for all people to enjoy a better quality of life. Together we challenge powerful individuals, ideas and policies in our community and don't back down from the hard questions. We relentlessly fight for what's right! We do that by listening and co-creating solutions and organizing and advocating for policies and systems that benefit our community.

In the past several years, we have achieved several major campaign goals in addition to growing and establishing the organization on firm footing. In 2018, we passed The "Do Better" Law, which gives Metro Council an effective tool to determine whether the common good is being served by the incentive under consideration, as well as a way to suspend or end an incentive agreement if the company fails to hold up its side of the bargain. We then successfully got the city to support our historic efforts to get the ownership group to sign a legal binding document that would return investment to the people of Nashville and the community directly impacted the most with the development of this stadium. This Community Benefits Agreement is the first to ever be signed in the state of Tennessee and considered to be one of the strongest community benefits agreements in the country. Several years later, we fought (and won) a Moral Budget in Nashville that funds our schools, builds our infrastructure and invests in our people in 2020.

Needs

SUN's most pressing need is unrestricted contributions to support our mission. To learn more, follow us on social media and sign up for our email list, where we send out regular updates about ways to get involved, events and opportunities to take action, our current campaigns, and our on going needs.

Service Categories
Primary Category:	Public & Societal Benefit  - Alliances & Advocacy
Secondary Category:	-
Tertiary Category:	-

Areas Served

TN - Davidson