09/10/2026
"Same problems, different zip codes."
That was the title of the morning plenary at ThinkTennessee's Policy Forum in Nashville, and it may have been the truest sentence spoken all day. From Carter County to Madison County, from Montgomery to Williamson, county mayors described the same pressures United Ways see every day in the lives of the families we serve: growth that outpaces housing, jobs waiting on workers, and workers waiting on child care.
Leaders from seven United Ways were in the room together: United Way of Greater Nashville, United Way of the Mid-South, United Way of Greater Chattanooga, United Way of East TN Highlands, United Way of South Central Tennessee, United Way of the Ocoee Region, and United Way of West Tennessee. We came from Memphis to the mountains, and we listened to conversations that go straight to the heart of what keeps a Tennessee family steady: funding the pipeline from child care to career, meeting the housing need, keeping power affordable as demand grows, and building the roads that carry people to work.
At lunch, we were reminded of the longer story: Tennessee's place in our nation's civic life as America turns 250. And the day closed with former Congressmen Jim Cooper and Zach Wamp modeling something every community could use more of: finding common ground.
Thank you to ThinkTennessee for convening leaders across county lines and party lines. The problems may be the same in every zip code, but so is the resolve to solve them.
