2016 Spring Revue Honorees Announced
2016 Spring Revue Honorees
Ellen Lehman is convinced — and has taught others — the power of philanthropy is that it is a two-way street: those who receive need support and those who give deserve the joy and grace that comes from giving. As a result, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, under her leadership, has sought to empower those on both sides of this vital philanthropic equation.
The Foundation has grown from an idea in 1991 to more than $350 million today, helping people realize their charitable passion and bringing newcomers to the philanthropic table. In the 25 years since The Community Foundation’s creation, over $779 million has been reinvested in nonprofit organizations providing direct services to people in need in Middle Tennessee and beyond.
When Ellen moved home to Nashville in 1987, she noticed an unequal playing field in Middle Tennessee’s philanthropy. It wasn’t true that parents loved their sons more than their daughters, but it was true that funding disparities between the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and between the YW and the YM were glaring. Ellen assembled a Steering Committee to create The Women’s Fund of The Community Foundation which ensures there are, and will always be, charitable dollars to invest in the lives and the futures of Middle Tennessee’s women and girls. Already 326 grants to 111 nonprofits totaling over $1.16 million have been donated from the Fund to that work.
Rosetta Miller-Perry is founder and publisher of the Nashville African American newspaper – The Tennessee Tribune distributed in Nashville, Jackson, Memphis and Chattanooga. She is a multitalented community leader, civil rights activist, publisher, volunteer and friend to many.
A native of Coraopolis Pennsylvania, Rosetta joined the U.S. Navy in January 1955 after graduating from high school, and worked for an admiral in the Pentagon and for the Adjutant Generals’ Office in Germany. In the early 1960s, as a staff member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Rosetta participated in the Civil Rights Movement as a federal observer in Memphis and monitored all civil rights activities in the city involving the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and African American community before and after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Rosetta relocated to Nashville in 1975, when she became the Nashville-area director for the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Retiring from government service in 1990, she founded Perry and Perry Associates, publishing Contempora, a Tennessee focused African American magazine, and soon after, The Tennessee Tribune to focus on issues such as health, education and voter registration and suppression. In 1998, she established the Greater Nashville Black Chamber of Commerce to revitalize and advocate on behalf of the African American business community.
Laura Tidwell is Vice President – General Counsel for Nashville Electric Service (NES), the eleventh-largest municipally-owned electric system in the United States. A legal and management professional with over twenty years experience, Laura currently oversees NES’s internal and external legal matters, local, state and federal government relations, compliance, claims, strategic planning, business continuity planning, and community involvement activities. She has provided legal representation to NES in connection with a number of high-profile issues, including a federal class action, FMLA and Governmental Tort Liability litigation, condemnation, defined benefit and defined contribution plans and associated trusts, and bond issues.
Active in the Nashville Bar Association, Laura served as an officer on the organization’s Board of Directors in 2004, 2005 and again in 2009, and she was named a Nashville Bar Foundation Fellow in 2010.
Laura is a seasoned nonprofit leader with diverse experience in communications, fundraising, governance and change management. She currently serves on the boards of the Center for Nonprofit Management, Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee, Urban League of Middle Tennessee, and The Women’s Fund. She is the 2015 chair of Authors in the Round, a part of the Southern Festival of Books, and 2016 chair of ATHENA.
