Nichol Whiteman, CEO of the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation
While it’s been well-documented that there is still work to be done in terms of diversity on the field in Major League Baseball, behind the scenes, one woman is making significant progress in advocating for resources and opportunities that will widen the pathway for marginalized populations. Nichol Whiteman, the CEO of the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation (LADF), is a testament to the transformational power of being given access and opportunity to drive change.
Whiteman, who began her career with LADF as executive director in 2013 and was promoted to CEO in 2019, has made a measurable impact during her tenure with the organization to improve the lives of all Angelenos who live in the shadows of the Dodgers stadium. The focus is to improve LA’s most pressing issues of homelessness, education, healthcare, and social justice. Under her leadership, LADF launched several game-changing programs, including Dodgers Dreamteam (formerly Dodgers RBI), a youth development initiative serving more than 12,000 youth today. The Foundation completed its 50th Dodgers Dreamfield, created a benefit gala (megastar Jennifer Lopez headlined), and increased fundraising by 1,000%.
“I wake up every day feeling like it's my job to give back to people who I once was and sometimes people who I still am. And that's pretty powerful. Frankly, it's my job to use my story and the power of my stories to help uplift others and ensure that communities have an opportunity to thrive,” Whiteman recalled.
When given access and opportunity, there will be results
Born and raised in New York City to Jamaican immigrant parents, Whiteman was the first in her family to graduate from college. Largely due to the opportunities provided to her by organizations like the Jackie Robinson Foundation, the United Negro College Fund and A
Better Chance, Whiteman was able to attend Spelman College on a scholarship and opened the door to life-changing mentorship and networking opportunities. With a degree in Economics and a role in investment banking at a top financial institution, she soon realized that it was not what she wanted to do.
Pivoting to an unexpected lane, Whiteman landed in marketing at Essence magazine. She spent six years in publishing working for Essence and Black Enterprise Magazine before relocating to Los Angeles and having a chance to meet with the president and CEO of the Jackie Robinson Foundation at a conference in Arizona. The full-circle moment led to her second opened door - the beginning of her philanthropic career as VP, Western Region of the Jackie Robinson Foundation. Though an unexpected path, Whiteman cites her transition from economics to philanthropy as the best leap of her life. Finally understanding her calling and working within her purpose, Whiteman caught the attention of some notable figures at the Dodgers Foundation.
“At the time, I didn't know that there was a Dodgers Foundation and I didn't know that there was an executive director role open. Next thing you know, I was interviewing for two weeks with the entire ownership team - Magic Johnson, Mark Walters, Todd Bowley and Peter Guber,” she recalled the pivotal moment. “And here I am almost ten years later as the CEO of the organization. So, a lot of it was not random occurrences. It's not by chance, but a lot of hard work leading to a lot of people seeing what I was doing and saying my name when I might not have been in a room.”
Only as strong as our network
As a Black woman who found herself within spaces where people who look like her aren’t traditionally seen as often, Whiteman is committed to paying it forward. This means opening up doors to others in the same way she was granted access to unreachable opportunities in her early years. To achieve this, she focuses not only on cultivating strategic partnerships that will make an impact within LA communities, but she is also devoted to building diverse teams within the LADF organization. When she was hired as executive director in 2013, Whiteman inherited one full-time staff person. Today, she has grown the group to a full-time team of 14 people and about 70 part-time individuals on staff.
“I had the luxury of building a team. You know, being able to really put the puzzle together of individuals who are passionate about the work and individuals who aren't afraid of hard work, because this work is hard,” stated Whiteman. “We've been intentional about making sure that we're looking at diversity. The way it works out now, our leadership team is all women. And I know that they are so proud of the way we work together, the way that we lead this organization, and how we represent. It's a really amazing space when you think about philanthropy for women because I think that we bring a certain empathy to work sometimes.”
It’s more than baseball
At the helm of the foundation, Whiteman has cultivated partnerships that have resulted in more than $40 million in community investment in the form of direct programs and grant-making, impacting over 2.3 million children. Striving to be a true partner to organizations within LA communities, the LADF provides the resources and counsel required for partners to do the community-driven work they are on a mission to achieve. A great example of this is the partnership work LADF did in 2020 when George Floyd was murdered. “We had been partnering with social justice organizations here in Los Angeles well before that. But there was a certain coalition, the California Funders for Boys and Men of Color, that we decided we were going to really double down our support for,” recalled Whiteman. Her team's approach to making change during that unprecedented time was to look to the people who knew the answers to the questions everyone was searching for.
“Partnership is about making sure that you're not in it to somewhat steal the show, right? You're there to be a partner. You're there to amplify the voices of others. You're there to tell the stories of others. You're there to make sure that the organizations who are doing the work can achieve their missions. And so, with Dodger Foundation, we serve as this leader in the space who is a capacity builder,” described Whiteman.
Being a trailblazer is groundbreaking, but it also comes with a specific responsibility to further move the needle on representation and amplify the voices of all from the boardroom to within the community, “It's absolutely important for my family and me. It's absolutely important for all young families to advocate because if we want to see change, we have to be a strong voice for it. We have to talk about it. We have to make sure that it is at the forefront.”
