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Nashville Gamechanger: Destiny Patton

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.


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Destiney Patton, CFRE, is the Manager, Donor Relationships for Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee and has served the community through Second Harvest for nine years.

While she started her Second Harvest career working with the Children’s Feeding Programs, she has spent her last eight years in individual giving fundraising, facilitating philanthropy alongside generous people in our community.

In addition to her work at Second Harvest, Destiney has served as interim Executive Director and Board President for Girls on the Run of Middle Tennessee and serves as Board President for the Association of Fundraising Professionals Nashville chapter.


As someone with a primary role of facilitating philanthropy, I am committed to creating change through the following actions:

Encouraging, mentoring, and advocating for other Black fundraising professionals to keep us in the profession and growing in our roles. Unless you are working for an organization that primarily serves the Black/ African American community, it is rare to have more than one Black professional working in philanthropy-focused roles, if you even have one at all. So many of us feel like we don’t belong in our organization or profession and question our abilities to connect with others that come from different backgrounds than us. As the current leader of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, I see great opportunity to let my fellow Black fundraisers know they are not alone, they belong in this profession, and they are making a difference when they bring their authentic selves to their organization and community. Beyond that, I also feel the responsibility to share opportunities like professional development, scholarships, mentorship programs, job opportunities and more. These things have helped me tremendously in my career and sharing them with others is the least I can do to pay it forward.

Celebrate Black philanthropy at every level and encourage others to do the same. In general, people stop giving when they aren’t thanked or don’t feel like their gifts make a difference. So when we hear people say Black people aren’t your primary givers, how much of that is because the non-profit isn’t showing they value our support? How much of that is because the way our Black givers are choosing to support isn’t in line with our definition of a major supporter? So we need to recognize and celebrate Black philanthropy shown through gifts of time, talent, treasure, ties, and testimony to create an environment where Black philanthropist feel valued and are excited to invest in that cause and our community.

Continue to share about the personal joy of philanthropy. When I support a cause I am passionate about, I feel great! The more we can share about this feeling and the impact our donation or hour of volunteering made on the community, our family, colleagues, and other connections will want to experience that too. If I come across an organization that I feel will be meaningful to someone in my network, I will share that with them too. In Middle TN especially, we have so many worthy nonprofits, but there is no way for us to know them all. Simply introducing our network to nonprofits with missions important to them will drive more philanthropy.

The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.

Coretta Scott King
Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Logo

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