District 2
Natalie McKinney is the co-founder and executive director of Whole Child Strategies, Inc. (WCS), a neighborhood/place-based community-led efforts interim nonprofit in Memphis, TN. Founded in 2017, WCS was conceived as a demonstration of the impact of government investment in neighborhoods and resident leadership. WCS is arguably the only nonprofit in Memphis that focuses on out-of-school barriers to educational attainment by organizing, mobilizing, engaging, equipping, and supporting community stakeholders to identify and directly address the root causes of these barriers in the streets, neighborhoods, and networks where they arise with long-term sustainable solutions through policy, systems transformation, and public resource reallocation. An example includes facilitating the collaboration between the local public transportation system and the community to support the community-led initiative that customizes weekly bus routes to transport community residents residing in a food desert to community-identified food and basic needs.
McKinney’s extensive career includes law, education policy, and juvenile justice advocacy. As Policy Director for Shelby County Schools and legacy Memphis City Schools, she led the policy development for the largest school district merger in American Public Education history. McKinney also founded and served as the Inaugural Director of the Juvenile Law Clinic, as an adjunct professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law, and practiced law at two large law firms.
McKinney was a part of the inaugural fellows’ class of the Mosaic Fellowship with the Tennessee Educational Equity Coalition, a transformational strategy to develop and connect education leaders of color to enact change and elevate their voices to ensure equity and excellence in education in Tennessee. Additionally, McKinney participated in the fourth cohort of the Complete Tennessee Leadership Institute Class of 2020, served on the Civil Service Commission for the City of Memphis for approximately three years, and serves as a member of the Shelby County Juvenile Justice Consortium.
McKinney receives the SisterReach Reproductive Justice at the Intersection Award, the Dr. Toni Bond Award, 2023-2024, and the 2021 Thomas Briggs Foundation Community Service Award.
McKinney holds a JD from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, a Master of Public Affairs from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Spelman College.
McKinney lives with and loves her husband of 28 years, Dr. Charles W. McKinney, Jr., a Rhodes College professor, and has two phenomenal sons, Ayodele, a 2023 magna cum laude graduate of Xavier University, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Chioke, a current honors Howard University student, Class of 2026, both graduates of MSCS.
