photograph by jon w. sparks
Tomeka Hart Wigginton
It’s hard to imagine anyone better prepared to seize the challenge of running the United Way of the Mid-South. Tomeka Hart Wigginton took on the job in December as president and CEO of the nonprofit powerhouse and brings with her a long résumé of achievement.
The organization was led for many years by the Rev. Dr. Kenneth S. Robinson, who served nearly ten years as president and 25 years as a board member and volunteer. For his successor, it’s a summons to an endeavor with high expectations and one that, in a way, she’s been preparing for her entire life.
“I’ve done quite a few things in my life, and early on I would think, there must be something else,” says Wigginton. “It wasn’t that I was always looking for a new adventure. What I really wanted was something with this kind of purpose and impact. It’s always been about helping the community.”
A native Memphian, Wigginton says, “I grew up around the same kind of families and communities that I’ve been trying to serve for all of my career.” The proud graduate of Trezevant High School soon realized that the Memphis school system couldn’t match what high schools in other cities offered.
While earning a bachelor’s degree in education at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, she says, “I met friends from other schools there and thought, oh, they had different opportunities than I had.” She knew all along she wanted to be a teacher, but her mission gained clarity in college. “I wanted to help students who came from communities like mine who, through no fault of their own, are under-resourced. But it takes adults in those communities to help those students, and that led me to be a teacher.”
Photograph courtesy united way of the mid-south
Tomeka Hart Wigginton
Even then, she was intent on getting more involved in the big picture. “I wanted to teach and practice law, and be a business leader — all these things,” she says. “I had a teacher once tell me, ‘You live a lifetime, you can fit it all in.’ So I was always open-minded about change. After teaching for five years in Georgia, I came back to Memphis and fell back in love with my city.”
While attending law school at the University of Memphis, Wigginton engaged in community affairs, volunteering at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis. After graduation, she worked in employment law and admits she appreciated the opportunity, but felt that it was not her true life’s purpose.
While living in Georgia, she earned an M.B.A. from Kennesaw State University. She used her background in education and business doing training for corporate clients in areas such as diversity and avoiding sexual harassment. “I was serving people, but there was still something missing,” she says. She kept thinking, “This is not really the issue that I’m trying to wake up every day and solve.”
She felt that she needed to refocus on education, but not in the classroom. “It took me a couple of years and I decided to run for the school board after complaining — like everybody else — that we needed people to get involved,” she says. “But I had no idea what it meant to run for any office.”
Even so, she won election to the Memphis City Schools board in 2005 and served for eight years, including a term as board president. The experience opened her eyes to how a public position worked. “It was about people, about community, doing the hard work, and getting cursed out at school board meetings because you’re trying to do the hard work,” she says.
In 2007, she stopped practicing law and became president and CEO of the Memphis Urban League, a position she held until 2012. There she was able to serve the community as the leader of a nonprofit. It also was something of an introduction to the United Way of the Mid-South, which had the Urban League as one of its client organizations.
“I started my CEO journey under the watch of United Way and it shaped what I know about leadership,” she says. “I learned what it means to be a community leader at the institution level and understanding that I didn’t have to figure out everything. There are other organizations around the corner trying to figure it out too. I learned that through the United Way.”
Wigginton developed that national view of leadership at the Urban League and further refined it later when she was senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she managed grants related to education policy and advocacy. “At Gates, they take their grantees under their wing,” she says. “And I learned how to transform systems.”
With a national view of how philanthropy operates, she continued to plumb how to do larger work in public policy, innovation, and the community. As she dug deeper, she realized, “I’m supposed to be in philanthropy, but it needs to be community-facing.”
Over time, she became further involved in related organizations, building on her knowledge of systems and organizations. She was managing director at Blue Meridian Partners dealing with philanthropic investment and later founded her own consulting firm, the HarWigg Group.
As Wigginton puts it, she was doing her heart’s work, but was still thinking there was something more, a way for her to put her well-learned experiences to the best use. “And then the beloved Dr. Robinson sent an email last year announcing his retirement and my heart said, ‘That’s it.’”
Tomeka Wigginton is half of one of the city’s most prominent power couples. Her husband, Dr. Russell Wigginton, is president of the National Civil Rights Museum and deeply experienced in philanthropy, education, and executive management as well. When considering the position, she told him, “I recognize every opportunity that’s ahead for United Way. I’ve been there. I also see every challenge and those are what excite me.”
She ran it all through her mind. “Philanthropy is tough,” she says. “I know it because I spent eight years in big philanthropy. But I know how to pierce philanthropy because I know what philanthropy is looking for.”
And Wigginton got up to speed on United Way of the Mid-South as well, studying financial reports and doing the research. “Something said to me, this is it. It’s the opportunity of this 100-plus-year-old organization, the resilience, right through its ups and downs. It’s still here. It serves at the right level because it touches every piece of this community, from people who grew up here like me: the working poor who just need assistance, but also the opportunity to work at the systems level.”
The organization has partnerships galore, not just with client agencies but at all levels, including municipal governments and eight counties in a three-state area. She was so ready to take on the challenges. And there are plenty of them.
“We can make life easier for the people who need it. If a family that’s suffering from food insecurity also suffers from housing insecurity, they may not have all the support they need for their children to go to school. It could be clothing, it could be something else like health issues. So what Driving the Dream does is coordinate the partners and the agencies that serve in those multiple facets.” — Tomeka Hart Wigginton
“With philanthropy, the pendulum swings,” Wigginton says. She points out that the Covid pandemic allowed philanthropic organizations to open up and make it easier to provide funding. There was an emphasis on understanding outcomes focused on impact and responsiveness. And there was an eye to addressing poverty comprehensively.
But post-pandemic, some of those funding streams began to run dry. Furthermore, with a new administration coming into Washington, both givers and receivers of grants must remain nimble to adapt to future uncertainties.
“The challenge is that it’s harder to get the flexible dollars that you need to do innovative and strategic work,” she says, “but the pendulum always swings. And the opportunity is for philanthropy and organizations like the United Way to have a path to scale. We are not just serving a classroom or one singular community. We’re in three states; we’re in eight counties. And the fact that we already have the infrastructure creates an opening for philanthropy to see us as a viable partner.”
Wigginton notes that the United Way has been raising funds in this community for a long time and is acutely aware of the importance of innovation and awareness. The latest annual report shows that the group offered financial support to 81 nonprofit agencies, helping more than 275,000 people across the Mid-South.
“People understand that it is not just about funding organizations separately, but the connectivity, the collective impact that we can have,” she says. “That’s the wave for where philanthropy is headed around place-based partnership, and we’re driving the dream.”
In fact, her predecessor, Kenneth Robinson, had conceived an initiative called just that — Driving the Dream — to reach the needs of the community more completely. Wigginton describes the initiative as a collective impact strategy where the United Way works to coordinate with multiple organizations.
“We can make life easier for the people who need it. If a family that’s suffering from food insecurity also suffers from housing insecurity, they may not have all the support they need for their children to go to school. It could be clothing, it could be something else like health issues. So what Driving the Dream does is coordinate the partners and the agencies that serve in those multiple facets.”
Or put more plainly, “We move people from where they are to where they dream to be.”
Founded in Denver in 1887 as the Charity Organization Society, the local organization, originally called the Memphis Community Fund, began here in 1923. As one of 1,800 United Ways worldwide, its longevity and global network provide a variety of resources that enhance its work. With such a strong structure, Wigginton sees opportunities in coming years.
“We are focused on a set of distinct outcomes,” she says. “And I really want us to be known as the premier organization that’s building the social and economic mobility infrastructure in the region. It will take us meaning we’re smarter about data, we’re smarter about accountability, we’re smarter about the outcomes that we’re seeking, and we are the organization where people are coming to say, how do I do this?”
She has a definite goal path in mind. “I want us to be able to say that we’re not just serving people, we’re making an actual dent. Their economic mobility went up because the United Way did these things. And that’s where we’re headed.”
“The challenge is that it’s harder to get the flexible dollars that you need to do innovative and strategic work. But the pendulum always swings. And the opportunity is for philanthropy and organizations like the United Way to have a path to scale. We are not just serving a classroom or one singular community.”
