Whitney Fields

As the Director of Family Leadership, Whitney supports a team around NCFL’s family leadership work. Such work includes programs like Activate! Local and Activate! National, and other co-design and coalition-building work aimed at family-based leadership opportunities. Prior to joining NCFL, she worked at United Way of Central Indiana in a variety of 2Gen-type roles and most recently served as 2Gen Partnerships and Engagement Director. In that role, she led a wide array of learning-based opportunities relating to the 2Gen model, served as a support to their grantee pool of 34 community-based organizations, and started a pilot parent advisory council. Prior to United Way, she worked at a national Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI) engaging with the community around health equity and quality of life-related work. Whitney’s passion for authentic community engagement stems from her time in AmeriCorps as a VISTA member and her community organizing background in food justice-based work, as well as asset-based community development models. Additionally, as an offspring of a long line of educators, she is passionate about the upward mobility equal educational access and attainment can provide. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Family and Consumer Sciences from the University of Kentucky and a Master of Public Affairs degree from Indiana University.

While she’s been based in the Indianapolis area for 8+ years, Whitney is a Kentucky girl by heart with roots in Eastern and Central Kentucky and plans to relocate back to the Lexington area soon. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, staying active, being outside, seeing live music, collecting and listening to records, being creative, and reading.