Board of Directors

As we build something entirely new and unique, our organization is led and operated by volunteers.

Nancy Denning-Martin

Co-Founder, Board Chair

Results-driven and innovative, Nancy is a nonprofit leader with over seventeen years of experience in nonprofit leadership, including fundraising, program development, staff development and management, partnership building, resource management, strategic planning, public relations, and advocacy. She currently serves as President and CEO of Bridges for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Nancy’s deep commitment to her community is reflected in her ongoing volunteer service which has included terms on the Board of Directors of the Mid-Cumberland Council on Children & Youth, the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, and the Davidson County Foster Review Board. She currently serves on the boards of HEAR Nashville and the Tennessee Disability Coalition, representing Bridges for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. She has also contributed her time and talents through volunteer work with Book ‘Em, Room in the Inn, and various other church and civic programs. She received a MBA from Western Governors University, an MA from the University of Memphis, and her BA from Lipscomb University. She lives in East Nashville with her husband, jazz musician and professor Danny Ray Martin, and their three children, Danielle, Jeremy, and Sophia.

Anita Reed

Co-Founder, Vice-Chair, Treasurer

Managing Director of Reimbursement at HCA, Anita is also an active community volunteer. In her active work on Transformation Nashville board, she also participated in committees tasked with revising the corporate bylaws and other aspects of governance. As Project Reflect’s Program Committee Chair, Anita oversaw the after school, summer, and family programming of the organization. Anita has also served on the board of the Fannie Battle Home, the second oldest child care provider in the U.S. While on the YWCA Board of Directors, Anita volunteered at the TryAngle House and chaired the TryAngle House program committee. Through her ongoing involvement with Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Anita serves as volunteer coordinator for the nonprofit, recruiting volunteer staff for each of the twenty-one performances of Shakespeare in the Park and sixteen performances of Winter Shakespeare. Anita tirelessly shares her years of experience and her Nashville Leaders training for the benefit of the Nashville area nonprofit community.

Mimi Fondren

Co-Founder, Secretary

With a diverse background that includes work in the fields of public relations, program management, and social work, Mimi currently serves as Director of Development for Bridges for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. She also served as a medical social worker at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Associate Director of the Hospital Hospitality House of Nashville, Membership Manager for the Country Music Hall of Fame, and Director of Public Relations for the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. She has served on the Board of Directors for Nashville Shakespeare Festival and volunteers many hours with Nashville Cat Rescue and has assisted Walden’s Puddle Wildlife Rehabilitation Center with fundraising and event-planning. Mimi received her BA from Rhodes College and a MSSW from the University of Tennessee.

Danny Ray Martin

Danny Ray Martin is an assistant professor of music with Bethel University where he designed the guitar curriculum. Martin is the former curriculum developer for guitartricks.com and former founder and director of the East Nashville School of Music. A graduate of Bethel University and Berklee College of Music, Martin continued his professional development with private guitar studies under the late Shawn Lane. Martin was called “West Tennessee’s answer to John Scofield” by The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) after the release of CD Translation with The Danny Ray Martin Quartet, and he scored the independent short “Dreams.” Martin was recognized in 2009 as a finalist for The Nashville Emerging Leader Award and was named the Bethel University Young Alumni in 2011. Active in church and volunteer work, Martin spent a year as a volunteer instructor with a K-4 charter school, providing over nearly 600 hours of instruction to 275 students who knew him as “Coach.” Martin also developed a K-12 curriculum for church studies and developed and implemented many community projects while leading Missions 101. Martin lives happily in East Nashville with his wife and three children.

Sabrina Sullenberger

Sabrina Williamson Sullenberger received her Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the spring of 2003 and joined the faculty of Belmont in the summer of 2013 after ten years at Indiana University. She is an Associate Professor in Social Work and also serves as the program director. Her practice experience includes work in family preservation and reunification, and also work in schools as an inclusion coordinator. Her research interests include the scholarship of teaching and learning, poverty, and child welfare. She and her husband Ryan have three daughters: Cosette, Ireland and Avila. They are active in children’s and outreach ministries at their church.