Jill Stalnaker
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Jill Stalnaker is the Founder and Board President of The WOMAN Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping women recognize their inherent value while advancing initiatives that strengthen women, families, and communities through education, advocacy, research, policy, and creative programming.
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Her passion for this work is deeply personal. Jill married young and spent fifteen years as a full-time homemaker and homeschooling mother before navigating a divorce with no college degree and little traditional workforce experience. Rebuilding her life challenged her to redefine her own identity and worth beyond a résumé or paycheck. That experience continues to shape her conviction that every woman possesses inherent value - regardless of her career, education, income, or season of life.
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Jill was raised by parents whose work and interests profoundly influenced her perspective: a federal criminal defense attorney, a philosopher, and a poet. Their example instilled in her a deep appreciation for justice, thoughtful dialogue, and the power of ideas to shape culture, ultimately drawing her toward nonprofit leadership and systems-level change.
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Shortly before her divorce, Jill founded a music booking agency, building the business from the ground up. Through advocating for artists, developing partnerships, and helping cultivate the local music community, she discovered a passion for community development, strategic relationship building, and creating opportunities for others. Those experiences continue to influence her leadership and inspired one of The WOMAN Initiative's many initiatives, HER Song, while reinforcing her belief that meaningful change happens by bringing the right people together around a shared purpose.
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Jill's own healing journey eventually led her into the recovery community, where the principles of the Twelve Steps transformed her life. That experience inspired a commitment to improving addiction recovery and mental health systems. She first served with Tennessee Voices and now works as the Regional Outreach Coordinator for Cumberland Heights, while continuing to collaborate with organizations and community leaders across Tennessee to strengthen behavioral health systems and expand access to care.
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Jill is also the founder and host of The WOMAN Podcast, serves on the board of Independence Again, and on the Innovation Board for TN Voices, and is the proud mother of five children - one son and four daughters- whose lives continually deepen her commitment to building a future where women and girls are valued, supported, and empowered to flourish.
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WOMAN is deeply personal to me.​ At 34 years old, I went from being a full-time homemaker and homeschool mom to divorced with no job, no college degree, and no traditional “workforce” experience. To say I had to reinvent myself is an understatement. I immediately shifted into survival mode - determined to build a career, grow the small business I had started, and prove that I could make it. I threw myself into entrepreneurship and pushed forward with everything I had.
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But there was one thing I held back: my past. I didn’t want people to know that the “only” thing I had done was raise my children. That I had spent years managing a home, educating my kids, planning meals, coordinating schedules, and holding together a family through incredibly difficult seasons. I didn’t want people to know how much I had carried emotionally, mentally, and physically all while showing up every day as the best mother I could be.
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Sound familiar?
So many women undervalue themselves. We’ve been conditioned to believe that what we’ve done doesn’t “count” - that caregiving, motherhood, and the realities of living in a woman’s body somehow make us less valuable in the world.
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But the truth is the opposite.
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Being a woman is not a limitation. It’s a qualification. The physical and mental strength it takes to live in a woman’s body - to navigate cycles, pregnancy, birth, recovery, and the ongoing demands of caregiving - is unmatched. We learn resilience early. We learn how to push through. We learn how to show up, even when everything in us is exhausted.
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That is not weakness. That is power.
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And when you take that same strength into the workforce, into leadership, into community - you have someone who knows how to build, sustain, and get things done.
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WOMAN was born out of this realization. It’s about redefining value. It’s about helping women see themselves clearly - not through the lens of what they lack, but through the truth of what they already are. Because when a woman understands her value, everything changes.
And when enough women understand their value, we change the world.