Out-of -State Leftist Organizations Working to Influence Metro Council

by Davis Hunt, The Pamphleteer, June, 5, 2025- ... Two organizations had an outsized presence at Tuesday’s council meeting: the SEIU, a public sector labor union, and the Southern Movement Committee, a “local” nonprofit whose stated mission is to organize “for racial justice and human rights.”

Similar to the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition and Stand Up Nashville, whose funding sources we previously reviewed, the Southern Movement Committee receives much of its funding from large, out-of-state NGOs.

In 2022, SMC raised a flat $400,000, $125,000 of which came from the CCP-linked Chinese Progressive Association. In addition to the lavish grant from the CPA for “black organizing innovations,” the so-called local nonprofit received $60,000 from Borealis Philanthropy in Minneapolis, $100,000 from New Profit Inc in Boston, and $50,000 from the New Venture Fund in Washington D.C. among others.

In total, for the year 2022, 86 percent of the group’s funding came from large, out-of-state NGOs.

In 2023, they raised $572,000. Borealis Philanthropy upped its grant to $200,000, and the Public Welfare Foundation out of D.C. chipped in $132,000 among others.

In total for 2023, 69 percent of the group’s funding came from large, out-of-state NGOs.

What makes SMC different from TIRRC and Stand Up is that they came to the meeting on Tuesday with a specific ask: $10 million for expenditures related to restorative justice, which they call the “Varsity Spending Plan.”

NewsChannel 5 produced a glowing profile of the group after Tuesday’s meeting. "We want to see those that program and that restorative justice, conflict resolution increase throughout Nashville," Erica Perry, executive director of the Southern Movement Committee, told the station.

Last year, the council granted SMC’s request for $1 million to create the Office of Youth Safety. The office is tasked with “taking a proactive, evidence-based, people-informed approach to youth safety and well-being.” In the mayor’s statement on the creation of the new office, he explicitly thanked the Southern Movement Committee and councilmember Delishia Porterfield, among others.

Over the past four years, we’ve witnessed the rapid growth of supposedly local nonprofits that receive lavish funding from groups like the Bay Area-based Tides Foundation, the D.C.-based New Venture Fund, and most interestingly, the CCP-linked Chinese Progressive Association. Who do these groups represent? What do they want for the city? 

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