Honoring Gamechangers
Kicking off with a celebration of Black Philanthropy Month and running through GivingTuesday, CFMT is recognizing 21 Nashville Gamechangers—visionary leaders who have made significant contributions to the community. These individuals, ranging from nonprofit leaders to business executives, have demonstrated unparalleled creativity, courage, and commitment to enhancing the well-being of Nashville’s Black community.
Kia Jarmon’s purpose is to live and lead an impeccably designed life, and model that experience for others. She believes life should be full of hearty laughter, taking up all the space your arms can touch, and celebrating freedom her ancestors couldn’t always enjoy. It is in these experiences that Kia learned her identity is more than labor but is instead measured by how much peace she can experience and share with others. She shares that peace in a variety of ways that mostly all revolve around love and liberation. Her sentiments follow those of Audre Lorde’s, “…I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.“ Her days are spent wearing multiple hats: she leads boutique communications and community engagement consultancy, MEPR Agency; she is the founder and visionary for the Nonprofit Equity Collaborative; and she serves as philanthropy advisor of the Black Philanthropy Initiative in Middle Tennessee. She’s won many awards and has made many contributions and yet her greatest joy and gift to the world is her ten-year-old son, Teddy, who also doubles as her personal photographer and comedian.