Welcome to Whitney Parnell’s site

Whitney Parnell is the founder and CEO of Service Never Sleeps, a nonprofit organization that serves as a resource for justice-minded individuals by providing them with the knowledge and tools to advance racial equity within their own spheres of influence. She grew up between Latin America and West Africa as a Foreign Service child. At Washington University in St. Louis, Whitney doubled majored in English and Spanish, and minored in Communications and Journalism, during which she also embraced her calling as an activist.

Whitney’s passion for social justice brought her to Washington, DC after college to serve with Americorps, and then work in the houselessness field, before founding Service Never Sleeps in 2015. With over a decade of experience in the racial justice space, Whitney is particularly skilled at training facilitation and individual coaching, and she has engaged over 12,000 people in nonprofit, philanthropic, academic, faith-based, and grassroots spaces.

Whitney is also a musician, and released a social justice album in 2022 entitled What Will You Do.

Whitney’s debut book Breathing Out: Ruminations of a Millennial Black Woman, was released in 2026 as a powerful anti-racism declaration drawn from her perspective and experiences.