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 an author, thought leader, strategic consultant, and racial equity practitioner. He is Founder and Principal Consultant of #InvestBLK, a boutique racial equity & strategic planning consulting firm specializing in strategy development, training, and coaching for nonprofits and leaders. Dennis is also the Chief External Affairs Officer of Let's Get Ready (LGR), a national nonprofit focusing on college access & success and near peer coaching. Prior to #InvestBLK and LGR, Dennis served as a Diversity Teaching Fellow & Lecturer with Community College of Philadelphia.
Previously, he served as the first Director of Community Engagement & Outreach at the Philadelphia International Airport; Managing Director of Development & External Impact at KIPP Philadelphia Schools; and Vice President of Development at Opportunity Finance Network. Currently, Dennis' client list (past and current) includes Philadelphia250, Arts & Business Council of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, La Salle University, Lincoln University, Montgomery Child Advocacy Project, CORA Services, KIPP Philadelphia Schools and others.
As a thought leader, Dennis has been consulted and published widely on the topics of racial equity, justice, and anti-Blackness, including articles in the Washington Post, Socialist Worker, CBS Money as well as his books: What My Colored Eyes See (2009) and Black Washed: A Collection of Essays, Poems, Dreams, and Letters Addressed to Black Folk (2021). He will soon release his forthcoming book, Other Side of Soil: Our Journey through Mud and Magic (Very Black Books, 2022). Previously, he served on the Board of Directors for the Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, YMCA — Columbia North, and Arch Street Preschool.
Dennis holds a BA in Philosophy (concentration in English Literature) from the nation's first degree granting HBCU, Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, and earned an MBA in Global Finance with fellowship & residency in Santiago, Chile and São Paulo, Brazil from Saint Joseph’s University. He is currently a Ph.D. student studying Social Justice Education at the University of San Diego.
Previously, he served as the first Director of Community Engagement & Outreach at the Philadelphia International Airport; Managing Director of Development & External Impact at KIPP Philadelphia Schools; and Vice President of Development at Opportunity Finance Network. Currently, Dennis' client list (past and current) includes Philadelphia250, Arts & Business Council of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, La Salle University, Lincoln University, Montgomery Child Advocacy Project, CORA Services, KIPP Philadelphia Schools and others.
As a thought leader, Dennis has been consulted and published widely on the topics of racial equity, justice, and anti-Blackness, including articles in the Washington Post, Socialist Worker, CBS Money as well as his books: What My Colored Eyes See (2009) and Black Washed: A Collection of Essays, Poems, Dreams, and Letters Addressed to Black Folk (2021). He will soon release his forthcoming book, Other Side of Soil: Our Journey through Mud and Magic (Very Black Books, 2022). Previously, he served on the Board of Directors for the Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, YMCA — Columbia North, and Arch Street Preschool.
Dennis holds a BA in Philosophy (concentration in English Literature) from the nation's first degree granting HBCU, Lincoln University of Pennsylvania, and earned an MBA in Global Finance with fellowship & residency in Santiago, Chile and São Paulo, Brazil from Saint Joseph’s University. He is currently a Ph.D. student studying Social Justice Education at the University of San Diego.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
“Those that want to see the other side of inequity in this life must pave those roads today and I hope my contributions build one of the bridges that gets us closer to freedom, justice, equity, and honesty.”
-Dennis Maurice
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.
Produced & Directed an episodic documentary about the life of a Black woman who lost her job and love for dance.
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.
While I did not develop the initial partnership that built www.venturize.org, a platform to educate small business lenders on their options for accessing safe, responsible loan capital to build businesses. The initiative was first developed with a $3.6MM grant from Sam’s Club (SC) and the SVP of Small Business Initiatives and I supported the program by securing an additional $1.6MM in funding SC. This is important to the lens of racial equity, because the fintech industry targeted people of color and business owners with low net worth for loans with interest rates of up to 250%. The initiative is now run by Small Business Majority.
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).
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.
OFN's CEO named me project lead for this relationship with Woodforest National Bank (Woodforest), which in partnership with Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) created the CDFI Community Investment Fund, LLC (created by community finance loan officers). The fund provides cost effective, flexible, subordinate long term investment capital for Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). The fund is an equity equivalent (EQ2) investment with an initial funding commitment of $5 million, with an option to increase the commitment up to $20 million over the next four years. The fund will provide patient capital to CDFIs financing small businesses and other community development projects in affordable housing, economic development, and neighborhood revitalization & stabilization throughout Woodforest's footprint.
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.
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