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In 2018, Stand Up Nashville (SUN) made history when it won the first-ever Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) in the south, establishing the First Source Hiring Program in partnership with Nashville Soccer Club to connect local workers to livable-wage jobs at Geodis Park.
Nashville Living Wage launched in 2021 as an employer certification based on the United Way ALICE Report’s survival budget. In 2026, Stand Up Nashville formally adopted the NLW program under its Good Jobs Nashville initiative, where it serves as the bedrock of GJN’s broader network of good employers committed to creating a more just economy in Nashville.
Good Jobs Nashville exists so opportunity here isn’t determined by ZIP code. Our mission is to connect local workers with thriving local businesses and to promote the employers offering good jobs and livable wages. Together we are creating a movement of workers and local businesses determined to create a thriving, just economy in Nashville.
We envision a Nashville where economic growth is rooted in community wealth and wellbeing, not corporate extraction. We envision a local economy built on livable wages and dignified jobs for workers and thriving, steadfast business for good employers.
Our mission is to connect local workers with thriving local businesses and to promote the employers offering good jobs and livable wages. Together we are creating a movement of workers and local businesses determined to create a thriving, just economy in Nashville.
Director of Workforce & Employment
Nathaniel Carter has served as Director of Workforce Development for Stand Up Nashville since 2021. Previously, Nathaniel worked as a Journeylevel Wireman for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 429. Nathaniel is a Nashville native and proud alum of White’s Creek Comprehensive High School. Since graduating from IBEW 429’s apprenticeship program, Nathaniel has been a passionate advocate and community liaison for the skilled trades, bringing over 200 people into apprenticeship programs and the Union building trades since 2017. He has traveled the country as a Journeylevel Wireman, working in California and Kentucky as well as his home state of Tennessee.
As Stand Up Nashville’s Director of Workforce and Employment, Nathaniel has expanded his vision to include creating new opportunities through grassroots organizing and political coalition building and bringing these opportunities to Nashville’s working-class communities. Nathaniel is the plug to jobs and careers. He runs the First Source Hiring Program for MLS soccer stadium jobs and coordinates the Music City Construction Careers program.
Strategic Campaigns Coordinator
Isaac was born and raised in Gallatin, Tennessee. When he wasn’t at his mother’s work, Isaac spent his youth running along hay bales in country pastures on his aunt and uncle’s farm. Having observed how employers took advantage of his parents and how financial instability affected relationships within his own family growing up, he came to understand workers’ rights and economic wellbeing as foundational to social justice. A first generation college graduate, Isaac graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University in 2021, having received Highest Honors from the Sociology Department for his research. His personal experiences and education taught him how systems of oppression interact with class to replicate racial and economic injustices. These lessons continue to guide his organizing work, bridging historical and contemporary divides across communities in Tennessee. Isaac has experience in mutual aid, labor contract negotiations with the Southeast Laborers’ District Council, and community organizing for sustainable development in Nashville. Isaac is a strategic researcher at Stand Up Nashville and led the We Decide Tennessee coalition, mobilizing local elected officials across the state against state overreach. In his free time, Isaac enjoys baking and meadmaking.
We can build a city where employers hire with purpose, where workers earn wages they can actually live on, and where local businesses thrive.
That’s the Nashville we’re fighting for.
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