Portfolio
Featured Clients
R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation
The Who We Are Project
Asurion
The UPS Store Cool Springs
Nashville Teacher Residency
Teach For America Nashville-Chattanooga
NAACP Nashville
Vanderbilt University Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center
National Community Reinvestment Coalition / Hope Policy Institute
Indiana University Office of Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs
University of Kentucky Center for Innovation in Population Health / Praed Foundation
Scott Tift for Chancery Court Judge, Division II
Christiane Buggs for Metro Nashville School Board District 5
University of Tennessee College of Social Work
Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)
The Equity Alliance
The Equity Alliance Fund
Nashville Justice League PAC
Power of 10 PAC
Megan Barry for Congress
Luis Mata for Tennessee House District 49
Kyonzte Toombs for Metro Council District 2
Angie Blackshear Dalton for Criminal Court Judge
Kent Roberson for Maryland At-large Democratic Central Committee
Courtenay Rogers for State Representative District 63
Logo Design
Charlane specializes in crafting unique and impactful logos that capture the essence of your brand. With a proven track record of designing logos for nonprofit organizations, community awareness campaigns, and political candidates, Charlane brings a deep understanding of how to convey a message visually for my clients. Whether you need a logo that inspires action, fosters community spirit, or promotes a political vision, she is dedicated to creating designs that resonate with your target audience. From concept to completion, I ensure each logo is a perfect blend of creativity, strategy, and purpose, tailored to elevate your brand’s identity and make a lasting impression.
Communications + Public Relations
Tennessee Voter Guides
The Tennessee Voter Guides® are the premiere voter education publication read by thousands of Tennessee voters and distributed by trusted community partners. Charlane is the brainchild behind the creation of the Tennessee Voter Guides, a free, nonpartisan, public resource to help voters make an informed decision in the voting booth on Election Day.
Launched in 2018 as the Nashville Voter Guide®, the guide was created to ensure communities of color had accessible, digestible and accurate information to vote with confidence at the polls during early voting and on Election Day, consisting of unbiased candidate profiles, definitions and roles for each elected position, polling locations and hours, voter ID requirements and much more.
Since its inception, Charlane oversaw the production of the guide each election cycle from conception through release day. Charlane led the logo creation, site design, marketing and outreach, and project management with vendors, creatives, partners, and staff. Additionally, Charlane secured the guides’ copyright and trademark intellectual property rights for The Equity Alliance.
As a testament to Charlane’s vision and impact, the Tennessee Voter Guides® have since expanded to four cities, including Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga and Clarksville, and is now translated in Spanish.
Project Register
Launched in 2018, Project Register was a nonpartisan and bipartisan community initiative created by former U.S. Congressman Jim Cooper and former State Senator Steve Dickerson aimed at increasing awareness of the state’s new online voter registration tool in Middle Tennessee.
Charlane was hired to lead Project Register and develop a recruitment strategy that attracted businesses, nonprofits, neighborhood associations, community organizations, universities, government agencies and entertainment venues to participate in the campaign by incorporating nonpartisan online voter registration information into their employee onboarding process.
Charlane created an integrated communications plan, including brand and logo design, communications toolkit, social media and creative assets, launch events, media kit, press events, media outreach, and community engagement. That year, Project Register proved to be the most successful voter registration effort in Congress, recruiting more than 215 Middle Tennessee companies – including Nashville’s top 25 employers – and boasting the state’s highest voter turnout in Davidson County.
Williamson County Mobility Week
In 2017, Charlane was awarded one of 12 Grand Awards for Communication Excellence from the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives for her contributions to Williamson County Mobility Week. Spearheaded in 2016 by the Williamson County Chamber of Commerce, also known as Williamson, Inc., the chamber aimed to spark a community conversation around transit and mobility in the leadup to Governor Bill Haslam’s passage of the IMPROVE Act. Williamson County, a suburb of Nashville and home to Nissan North America headquarters, was the fastest growing county dealing with growth challenges spilling over from Nashville’s “It City” boom.
Williamson County Mobility Week launched as a community-wide awareness campaign focused on providing practical, everyday alternative solutions to help reduce traffic congestion through a series of daily activations.
Charlane solely led and executed the week-long communications plan and strategy, consisting of media outreach, graphic design, message development, event support, website management, and social media management.
Strategy + Engagement
Our Fair Share Nashville COVID-19 Community Needs Assessment
While Black and Latino Tennesseans were dying from the coronavirus at three times the rate of their white neighbors, Charlane noticed that Black and Latino were being overlooked by government officials in their Covid-19 emergency response. When Metro Nashville received $121 million in federal C.A.R.E.S. Act funds to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Charlane mobilized to ensure Black and brown communities received their fair share. She was appointed to Mayor John Cooper’s CARES Task Force to provide spending recommendations, being the lone community-centered voice on the committee.
Subsequently, the Mayor tapped Charlane and The Equity Alliance to lead a bilingual campaign called the Our Fair Share COVID-19 Community Needs Assessment. As the project lead, she created the campaign’s name, branding, developed the grassroots organizing strategy, and managed a diverse coalition to collect 8,000 surveys from Nashville’s most affected zip codes in six weeks. Her efforts – and the data findings from the assessment – resulted in Metro Council approving a combined $22 million in relief for Black and Latino residents, people experiencing homelessness and food insecurity, and minority small businesses.
Nonprofit Leadership
The Equity Alliance
Charlane co-founded Tennessee’s leading grassroots organization for building Black electoral and economic power. Under Charlane’s visionary leadership, she leveraged $250 of her own money to build The Equity Alliance, from the ground up, into a $2.5 million-dollar powerhouse organization in just five years. In her roles as the founding Board Chair, Executive Director and former Co-Executive Director, she scaled the team to as many as 12 employees with three chapters across the state, established innovative and scalable programs and advocacy campaigns, and orchestrated the nonprofit’s inaugural three-year strategic plan.
Nashville Teacher Residency
The Nashville Teacher Residency (NTR) recruits and trains diverse, passionate, and local teacher candidates to become high performing middle and high school math and English teachers serving traditionally underserved communities in Middle Tennessee’s district and charter schools.
Charlane was hired to develop the organization’s first-ever strategic plan since its founding in 2016. NTR recently transitioned from its founding director to the appointment of a new Executive Director. The new ED desired to foster a three-year strategic plan that honored all voices, cultivated a diverse cadre of educators into the Nashville public education ecosystem, and aimed to have a focused lens on equity and inclusion throughout all levels of the plan.
Work With Charlane
Guiding others to find the light within themselves as their own sources of inspiration and drive, Charlane is available for consulting for political candidates, community leaders, and organizations that are looking to inspire change. She is also available for speaking engagements, guest lecturing, and panel discussions as well.