Dear friends,

When I stepped into leadership at Stand Up Nashville, I was driven by SUN’s core mission: addressing racial and economic inequality through strategic research, popular education and organizing. I’ve now seen what success on that front looks like – we’ve fundamentally changed the way development happens in our city through new policies and innovative tactics like Community Benefits Agreements.

I’ve intentionally expanded our footprint to grow our power and to meet the challenges of operating in Tennessee. We are piloting new models of statewide organizing that deepen coordination among like-minded organizations, growing our reach into rural communities. We’re naming ‘state interference’ and calling out how it impacts all communities, not just Nashville. 

We are taking on corporate power: from exposing bad contractors who create dangerous working conditions and exploit workers, to holding Amazon accountable as they grow their presence in our state. Finally, we’ve launched our Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute that will train the next generation of changemakers in our city.

I don’t feel that my work at Stand Up Nashville is done, however the circumstances in the country have compelled me to take on a new challenge in public service, which means I will be taking a leave of absence at some point in 2022 to campaign for Congress.

We’ll have a well-planned transition process, and I am very confident in the future of Stand Up Nashville. We’ve intentionally built a “leaderful” organization of talented staff, board and affiliate leaders who will carry our work forward.

One of the critical roles Stand Up Nashville plays is providing a pipeline to leadership for people like me. We have seen other leaders move into public leadership, and little by little, the makeup of our civic organizations, city councils, legislatures and commissions are starting to reflect the communities they represent and prioritize the issues that working families care about most.

With deep gratitude,

Odessa Kelly

Note: Stand Up Nashville is a 501(c)(3) organization. By law, none of its staff time or resources can be used for partisan political purposes—that is, to support or oppose any candidate running for public office.