The Los Angeles Dodgers have once again made the playoffs, nabbing the regular season top seed in the National League. The pandemic deprived the City of Angels of the communal joy of celebrating the 2020 World Series championship, but maybe this year will be another Dodgers year.
Aside from being a beloved home team among Angelenos, the Dodgers also have an active philanthropic presence in the nation’s second-largest city. The Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation (LADF) has committed more than $40 million in programs and grants since its 1995 founding. With a social justice lens, the foundation tackles education, healthcare, homelessness and youth development across the Greater Los Angeles Area.
Foundation leadership includes CEO Nichol Whiteman, who has helped spearhead some of LADF’s most impactful programming, including Dodgers Dreamteam, a youth development initiative serving more than 12,000 youth. We recently connected with Whiteman to find out about how she came to LADF, how the foundation works to level the playing field in Los Angeles, and the state of sports philanthropy. Here are some excerpts from that discussion, which have been edited for length and clarity.
So tell me about your background and how you came to work in the world of philanthropy.
It’s an interesting story. So I’m a New York native. I’ve been in Los Angeles about 21 years. I’m a first-generation immigrant. My parents migrated here from Jamaica. I excelled academically and my eighth grade counselor told my parents about a program called A Better Chance that places young people of color in boarding, day and public schools. I ended up at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, thanks to them and that was the beginning of nonprofit organizations and mentors having such a powerful impact on my life.
I then went on to Spelman College, where I got an economics degree with a minor in management and organization. I wanted to go back to New York to work on Wall Street, where I planned on being an investment banker for the rest of my life. So I took a job with JPMorgan Chase right after college, but ultimately decided that this wasn’t what I wanted to do. I also engaged in a lot of networking and met the director of marketing for Essence magazine. I worked in publishing for them for about six years and then at Black Enterprise, which is when I moved to Los Angeles. One day, I was approached by the president and CEO of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, who essentially invited me to set up the L.A. office.
I actually received a Jackie Robinson Scholarship that allowed me to attend Spelman College. So everything came full circle. And I eventually became the vice president, western region officer for the Jackie Robinson Foundation. I always say to people that I sort of got a doctoral degree in nonprofit management on the job. And from that moment, I never looked back.
Why did you join the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation? And what are you most proud of during your tenure?
Well, I was at Dodger Stadium in a fluke meeting, when they asked if I wanted to be executive director of the Dodgers Foundation. I had no idea there was a Dodgers Foundation or that they were looking to hire. From that meeting, it probably took about two weeks to meet the ownership group — Magic Johnson, Peter Guber — and 10 years later, here I am. I was promoted from ED to CEO in 2019. My role here has always been to lead the philanthropic arm of the team.
I’m proud of a lot of things. I’m most proud of this opportunity to build something. To really take a mission and a vision and say, I’m building a team, and I’m building relationships and partnerships — whether that be with funders, beneficiaries, program partners, our players, or the Dodgers front office, our ownership group. This is an opportunity to whip together all of these assets that can really help make a difference in Los Angeles. I’m also truly proud of being able to lead an organization where every single day, I wake up and I think about how I was the child that we serve, and how as a first-generation American, and as a first-generation college graduate, I know better than most that access and opportunity is all that our youth and families really need to be able to thrive.
I’m also proud of the team and staff. In 2020, we were awarded the ESPN Sports Humanitarian Award. And that was during the height of the pandemic. A crazy time. But I think this showed that we are leading in the space. And it’s been the motivation that we need to continue to do what we’re doing, which is creating a replicable model. There’s Los Angeles, but it’s also making sure that it’s something that people see that you could probably do anywhere else.
Do you see athletes using the Dodgers Foundation as a way to get their feet wet in philanthropy? And do you find that they then go on to launch their own charities?
Nine years ago, my answer to this would have been a little bit different. When I first came on board, I think that a lot of our team members were either in two different buckets. On one side, you have players who come to the team already with an established foundation or causes that they knew they want to support. But there’s also a whole lot of players on the other side, who basically were like, “I’m too young, I’m fresh on concentrating on baseball, that’s not my thing.”
But now, we’re in a place where a lot more players have started foundations that partner with the Dodgers Foundation, or if they don’t yet have a foundation, we’re working hard at helping players and their agents understand what philanthropy looks like and more ways they can get involved. We point them in the direction of donor-advised funds or recommending nonprofits. We work with players in a vast way. I think we have some of the most generous players in Major League Baseball. And I think that we, the foundation, have set a precedent for them that to be a part of this club is also to be in relationship with the foundation.
What causes do you find players are particularly drawn to?
One thing is baseball and softball participation in underserved communities. So play equity is a really big deal. Another thing that is sort of at the forefront, especially on the heels of this pandemic, is food insecurity. This is a major component of the homelessness pillar of our foundation. Also, players seem drawn to education initiatives.
One of the other devastating things that happened during the pandemic, as we all know, was George Floyd’s murder. And it was an opportunity for the foundation to take a leadership role with the players, once again helping them to understand, kind of, what the issues were and what was happening during a crazy season with no fans. So we were able to essentially give the players avenues in which they could participate. For instance, we conducted listening sessions between our players and social justice organizations throughout Los Angeles on Zoom.
Tell me about Dodgers Dreamteam.
I want to say this is like my baby. So we launched Dodgers Dreamteam in 2014, really in an effort to make baseball and softball much more accessible to Black and brown communities throughout Los Angeles. We knew that if the Dodgers could sustain a program that helps eliminate barriers — like expensive equipment and uniforms that are required for baseball and softball, lack of coaches — that we really could get something going here. We now operate at eight different locations across Los Angeles, serving more than 12,000 youth. We provide education, health resources and other wraparound services including fitness and nutrition programs, college-to-career success, LA Reads, and parent workshops. So Dodgers Dreamteam is bigger than baseball.
How did you become a mentee of Rachel Robinson, Jackie Robinson’s widow, and what have you learned from her?
So back when I was a Jackie Robinson Scholar, there were far fewer scholars than the foundation supports today on a national basis. And so the scholars there during my time were much closer to the family. So I became very close to Rachel and her daughter Sharon, which continued when I went to work for the Jackie Robinson Foundation. It’s an amazing relationship. For me, I feel like this legacy of Jackie has sort of been looming in my life throughout, from my scholarship days to being CEO of the Dodgers Foundation. I like to call the Dodgers Jackie’s team.
Rachel has been there every single step of the way, a guardian angel, even now at 100 years old. She was in New York just a few weeks ago, cutting the ribbon of the Jackie Robinson Museum. It’s just so inspiring. Over the years, Rachel has literally whispered in my ear on many occasions that I could do it, that I needed to keep doing it, and that she was proud of me, and that she saw that I was doing the work that she knows her husband would ultimately want to see done.
The Dodgers made the playoffs again! What sorts of things do you plan on doing at the foundation during this time? (Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted before the playoffs started.)
So even before we start our first National League Division Series game on Saturday, October 7, we’re breaking ground on our 59th and our 60th Dodgers Dreamfields. To date, we’ve built 58 baseball and softball fields in the Los Angeles community. And so in the city of Inglewood at Edward Vincent Park and Robinson Jr. Park, on Saturday, we’ll do a shovel ceremony. The grand opening is set for March of 2023. I can’t believe we’re going into 2023. I’m very excited about that project and it sort of shows people that, yes, an offseason is coming, and hopefully we will win this World Series, but there’s no offseason for the Dodgers Foundation. It’s 365 days a year.
What would you say your biggest hope is for your philanthropy now, going forward?
So I’m most excited about massive change. And so when I think about our vision, and this idea that every Angeleno should have the opportunity to thrive regardless of zip code, or neighborhood, that is my biggest hope. This idea of increased possibilities, increased confidence, and strengthened communities. It’s kind of the three-prong way that I look at it. There are communities that I often say are living in the shadows of Dodgers Stadium. And I think they do deserve access, they do deserve resources, they do deserve services, and we have an opportunity with the massive brand that we have to provide those, to amplify their voices so that those outcomes are possible.