ABOUT DENNIS MAURICE
“I have travelled through education, social justice, arts, religious, CDFI, and transportation industries with one mission: To be a lighting rod for equitable & inclusive community development...
If I do this right, my life will be washed in the light I shine.”
- Dennis Maurice
Dennis Maurice Dumpson is a focused leader. His vocation is planted in Inclusive Community Building; Pro-Black strategy development; Antiracism; Building Capacity for Communities in Need; and Flattening Anti-Black Narratives and Cultures.
Professionally, Dennis has been an external affairs and fundraising leader in the public sector and is credited with securing $38MM in funding throughout his 15 year career. Nearly his entire portfolio has been intentionally directed toward BIPOC and economically disinvested communities. Moreover, Dennis is a skilled communicator having managed nonprofit communications programs with reach nationally and in Central America and previously served as an adjunct public speaking instructor, a fellow, and a lecturer at Community College of Philadelphia at various points between 2007-2020.
Dennis has dedicated his life to promoting racial justice, equity, and inclusion through a variety of mediums. He is the author of What My Colored Eyes See, a book of poetry and short stories that centers coming of age in a Black body. In 2021, Dennis published Black Washed, A Collection of Essays, Poems, Dreams, and Letters Addressed to Black Folk through Very Black Books. Black Washed includes elegant forewords confidently curated as an anthology by Black women. In 2011, Dennis produced and directed (with Gala P. Godwin Productions) a documentary, Journey to RAHA, that focused on a Black woman’s journey of evolution after losing her job and love for dance. Building community models has always been important to Dennis and in 2018 he co-created—with movement maker & social worker, Erica Campbell—a community gathering, Melanated Movie Night, where communities come together to support Black owned restaurants and watch & critique Black film. In all he does Dennis is centering Black identity, BIPOC communities, and antiracist community building models.
Currently, Dennis is leads a consultancy and philanthropy, #InvestBLK. #InvestBLK’s services are broad but all lead to vitiating anti-Blackness in nonprofits and government. In addition, the company invests 75% of its profits into lives of Black folk. After more than 15 years working and leading in philanthropy, Dennis seeks to create a new model for antiracist investments and giving programs that betrays capitalism. You can also see Dennis’ intellect consulted and featured in The Washington Post, Socialist Worker, CBS Moneywatch, Medium and others. He has also been featured in the Philadelphia Tribune as one of the 10 Most Influential African American Philadelphians under 40.
Dennis is an alumnus of the nation’s first Historically Black College or University (HBCU), Lincoln University. In addition, he earned graduate certificates in Nonprofit Executive Leadership from Bryn Mawr College and Critical Race Theory from the African American Policy Forum at Columbia University. He also earned his MBA in Global Finance & Organizational Leadership from Saint Joseph’s University with corporate residency in South America. Dennis was born, raised, and currently resides in Philadelphia, PA and enjoys cooking and producing his videocasts, No More Chains and FRANK (coming soon) about Black life, race, politics, queerness, and culture.
Professionally, Dennis has been an external affairs and fundraising leader in the public sector and is credited with securing $38MM in funding throughout his 15 year career. Nearly his entire portfolio has been intentionally directed toward BIPOC and economically disinvested communities. Moreover, Dennis is a skilled communicator having managed nonprofit communications programs with reach nationally and in Central America and previously served as an adjunct public speaking instructor, a fellow, and a lecturer at Community College of Philadelphia at various points between 2007-2020.
Dennis has dedicated his life to promoting racial justice, equity, and inclusion through a variety of mediums. He is the author of What My Colored Eyes See, a book of poetry and short stories that centers coming of age in a Black body. In 2021, Dennis published Black Washed, A Collection of Essays, Poems, Dreams, and Letters Addressed to Black Folk through Very Black Books. Black Washed includes elegant forewords confidently curated as an anthology by Black women. In 2011, Dennis produced and directed (with Gala P. Godwin Productions) a documentary, Journey to RAHA, that focused on a Black woman’s journey of evolution after losing her job and love for dance. Building community models has always been important to Dennis and in 2018 he co-created—with movement maker & social worker, Erica Campbell—a community gathering, Melanated Movie Night, where communities come together to support Black owned restaurants and watch & critique Black film. In all he does Dennis is centering Black identity, BIPOC communities, and antiracist community building models.
Currently, Dennis is leads a consultancy and philanthropy, #InvestBLK. #InvestBLK’s services are broad but all lead to vitiating anti-Blackness in nonprofits and government. In addition, the company invests 75% of its profits into lives of Black folk. After more than 15 years working and leading in philanthropy, Dennis seeks to create a new model for antiracist investments and giving programs that betrays capitalism. You can also see Dennis’ intellect consulted and featured in The Washington Post, Socialist Worker, CBS Moneywatch, Medium and others. He has also been featured in the Philadelphia Tribune as one of the 10 Most Influential African American Philadelphians under 40.
Dennis is an alumnus of the nation’s first Historically Black College or University (HBCU), Lincoln University. In addition, he earned graduate certificates in Nonprofit Executive Leadership from Bryn Mawr College and Critical Race Theory from the African American Policy Forum at Columbia University. He also earned his MBA in Global Finance & Organizational Leadership from Saint Joseph’s University with corporate residency in South America. Dennis was born, raised, and currently resides in Philadelphia, PA and enjoys cooking and producing his videocasts, No More Chains and FRANK (coming soon) about Black life, race, politics, queerness, and culture.
“We must get to the other side of inequity in this life and I hope my work is one of the bridges that gets us closer to freedom, justice, equity, and honesty.”
-Dennis Maurice
PORTFOLIO
Throughout my career I have raised $38MM in capital and developed programming and initiatives that support the sustainability, transformation, and racial & social equity of communities across the country. My work as a fundraiser has led to significant partnership development and has always been driven toward ensuring that communities are valuable partners, not just recipients of good will. My contribution has been and continues to be driven by an defining an equitable narrative for communities with unmet needs.
Developed the funded concept for the Opportunity Fellows Program at Opportunity Finance Network in partnership with BBVA Compass. This program convened diverse leaders in the CDFI industry to learn about facilitating and leading systemic change (i.e., change in practices, norms and values).
Initiated Opportunity Finance Network’s partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) initiative to shape their work providing capacity to organizations dedicated to racial equity.
Secured $50,000 in funding from Sanofi-Aventis to support 30 youth (96% people of color) to be trained as community mappers and diabetes awareness educators. The high school and college students were paid a livable wage to develop programming to educate Promise Zone communities in Philadelphia (particularly the Frankford section of the city that, at that time, had the nation’s 2nd highest poverty rate). They also worked with a community health agency to test more than 140 people for diabetes, in a community that is 64% Black and Hispanic and 28% White, which acknowledges disparity. They took all this information and presented it to Philadelphia’s City Council to shift their work toward policy changes.
Developed the Roots Matter Campaign to build insight and community with LatinX artists in Philadelphia.
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Developed a hiring strategy to recruit applicants for temporary employment and internships from underrepresented communities at the Philadelphia International Airport. This hiring program included building relationships with HBCUs, Hispanic Serving Institutions, nonprofits that serve economically disinvested neighborhoods, and community colleges, which led to increasing the hiring of BIPOC communities by more than twenty-five percent. Moreover, these opportunities, while entry level, were assigned a livable wage of $12.20 per hour. This was valuable because traditionally interns are predominantly white and Asian, from Ivy League or top-tier schools, and/or hand picked by members of council, which excludes large populations of students from underrepresented communities. Moreover, we searched intentionally for graduate students from a larger community’s catchment.
I am a published author centering my writing on Black lives, the construct of race, gender and sexuality, community, and spiritual health. My latest book, Black Washed, is a collection of essays, poems, dreams, and letters addressed to black folks, which will be released this year. My first book, What My Colored Eyes See, was released in 2009 and is available through most online retailers.
Produced & Directed an episodic documentary about the life of a Black woman who lost her job and love for dance.
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Get In Touch
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