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FROM CHARITY TO JUSTICE
Meet The Team
Dorian Burton
Managing Partner/CEO
Dr. Dorian Burton, Ed.L.D., is currently the Managing Partner/CEO of FundONE and the Southern Reconstruction Fund (SRF), social impact funds committed to strengthening the American South by transforming communities most affected by racial injustice and systemic inequity into beacons of health and prosperity. Prior to leading SRF Dr. Burton served as the Chief Program Officer and Assistant Executive Director at the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust in Chapel Hill, NC, a foundation that supports building healthy and whole communities. He was formerly the Co-Director of The TandemED Initiative for Black Male Achievement and Community Improvement at Harvard University Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice and was the Wasserman Foundation Fellow in the Doctor of Education Leadership Program at Harvard. Prior to that to Harvard, Dr. Burton worked as an independent consultant with various non-profits and school districts between Harlem, NY; Houston, TX; and Newark, NJ. In his role as a consultant, Burton worked to provide strategic support to Newark Public School principals in the launch of their Renew School Turnaround initiative. In addition, he worked in a special projects role to develop external partnerships for the Harlem Children’s Zone College Success Office.
Dr. Burton started his professional career working for the National Football League and also served as the founding Program Director of the Education Pioneers Houston Office, the Houston Director of Stand for Children, and the Chief Strategy Officer for TandemED. In addition to his doctorate degree from Harvard, Burton is completing his MBA from Oxford University’s Said School of Business, and holds a Master’s degree in higher education from the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University and a Bachelor’s Degree in sociology from Pennsylvania State University, where he also was a member of the varsity football team.
During Dr. Burton’s tenure at Harvard as a Wasserman Family Fellow, he was selected to the Dean’s Committee on equity and diversity, served as a Teaching Fellow for Lani Guinier at Harvard Law School and was awarded the International Marshall Memorial Fellowship from the German Marshall Fund. Additionally, Dr. Burton was a Gordon Ambach Fellow with the National Governors Association Education Division and The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, as well as a non-Resident Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.
Dr. Burton currently resides in Durham, NC. He is deeply driven by his faith and is the proud son of two wonderful scholarly parents, the father of four great children, and brother to three older sisters who serve as his inspiration, comic relief, and confidants.
Online: In 2019 Dr. Burton was selected as one of the 2019 Black Enterprise Modern Man of Distinction and honored by The Root 100 as one of the 100 most influential African Americans in the country. Dr. Burton was also selected to the Boston Business Journal’s “40 under 40” list. He has his own blog on Huffington Post and tweets frequently @Dorian_Burton.
He has also been published in the Boston Globe, and Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Dr. Dorian Burton, Ed.L.D., is currently the Managing Partner/CEO of FundONE and the Southern Reconstruction Fund (SRF), social impact funds committed to strengthening the American South by transforming communities most affected by racial injustice and systemic inequity into beacons of health and prosperity. Prior to leading SRF Dr. Burton served as the Chief Program Officer and Assistant Executive Director at the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust in Chapel Hill, NC, a foundation that supports building healthy and whole communities. He was formerly the Co-Director of The TandemED Initiative for Black Male Achievement and Community Improvement at Harvard University Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice and was the Wasserman Foundation Fellow in the Doctor of Education Leadership Program at Harvard. Prior to that to Harvard, Dr. Burton worked as an independent consultant with various non-profits and school districts between Harlem, NY; Houston, TX; and Newark, NJ. In his role as a consultant, Burton worked to provide strategic support to Newark Public School principals in the launch of their Renew School Turnaround initiative. In addition, he worked in a special projects role to develop external partnerships for the Harlem Children’s Zone College Success Office.
Dr. Burton started his professional career working for the National Football League and also served as the founding Program Director of the Education Pioneers Houston Office, the Houston Director of Stand for Children, and the Chief Strategy Officer for TandemED. In addition to his doctorate degree from Harvard, Burton is completing his MBA from Oxford University’s Said School of Business, and holds a Master’s degree in higher education from the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University and a Bachelor’s Degree in sociology from Pennsylvania State University, where he also was a member of the varsity football team.
During Dr. Burton’s tenure at Harvard as a Wasserman Family Fellow, he was selected to the Dean’s Committee on equity and diversity, served as a Teaching Fellow for Lani Guinier at Harvard Law School and was awarded the International Marshall Memorial Fellowship from the German Marshall Fund. Additionally, Dr. Burton was a Gordon Ambach Fellow with the National Governors Association Education Division and The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, as well as a non-Resident Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.
Dr. Burton currently resides in Durham, NC. He is deeply driven by his faith and is the proud son of two wonderful scholarly parents, the father of four great children, and brother to three older sisters who serve as his inspiration, comic relief, and confidants.
Online: In 2019 Dr. Burton was selected as one of the 2019 Black Enterprise Modern Man of Distinction and honored by The Root 100 as one of the 100 most influential African Americans in the country. Dr. Burton was also selected to the Boston Business Journal’s “40 under 40” list. He has his own blog on Huffington Post and tweets frequently @Dorian_Burton.
He has also been published in the Boston Globe, and Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Napoleon Wallace
Managing Partner/Chief Investment Officer
Napoleon Wallace is the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer at FundONE and the Southern Reconstruction Fund. Napoleon is a serial impact finance entrepreneur, co-founding Activest, the fiscal justice research and investment advisory firm and Partners in Equity, a $50 million real estate private equity fund focused on supporting owner-occupied commercial real estate purchases for diverse-owned businesses.
In his most recent venture, the Ownership and New Equity Fund (FundONE), and its philanthropic beneficiary, the Southern Reconstruction Fund, Napoleon is working as part of an all-star team to finally fulfill the promise of Reconstruction by catalyzing novel models of ownership and development across the American South. The $250 million fund of funds strategy has a simple impact-alpha thesis: the returns on Restorative Equity (i.e. patient, flexible and affordable equity) invested in highly-capable but historically under-capitalized impact funds, projects and coalitions across American South. This work will be bolstered greatly by the tailwinds of ESG internalization and cultural shifts around race and gender, producing shared prosperity and profits for investors and the communities in which they invest.
Most recently, Napoleon served as the State of North Carolina’s Deputy Secretary of Commerce responsible for economic and workforce development efforts with a staff of 600. Prior to this appointment, he led the turnaround of two troubled, cooperatively-owned Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), served as Social Investment Officer of the Kresge Foundation, Executive Staff at Self-Help, one of the nation’s largest and most impactful community development financial institutions and a Fixed Income Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, expanding markets for high-yield energy bonds.
Napoleon’s roots are in rural Eastern Carolina, where generations of his African American ancestors worked in community development ---in sawmills, making moonshine, preaching and pig farming. A graduate of North Carolina Central University and University of North Carolina’s Kenan--Flagler Business School MBA program, Napoleon currently serves as a board member and strategic advisor to leading impact investors including the Mary Reynolds Babcock
Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Kate B Reynolds Charitable Trust, Adasina Social Capital, the Association of Black Foundation Executives, ResilNC.org and the NC A&T Real Estate Foundation. He recently produced the industry setting “The Values Proposition” for Nathan Cummings Foundation and was featured in the New York Times' Dealbook.
Napoleon Wallace is the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer at FundONE and the Southern Reconstruction Fund. Napoleon is a serial impact finance entrepreneur, co-founding Activest, the fiscal justice research and investment advisory firm and Partners in Equity, a $50 million real estate private equity fund focused on supporting owner-occupied commercial real estate purchases for diverse-owned businesses.
In his most recent venture, the Ownership and New Equity Fund (FundONE), and its philanthropic beneficiary, the Southern Reconstruction Fund, Napoleon is working as part of an all-star team to finally fulfill the promise of Reconstruction by catalyzing novel models of ownership and development across the American South. The $250 million fund of funds strategy has a simple impact-alpha thesis: the returns on Restorative Equity (i.e. patient, flexible and affordable equity) invested in highly-capable but historically under-capitalized impact funds, projects and coalitions across American South. This work will be bolstered greatly by the tailwinds of ESG internalization and cultural shifts around race and gender, producing shared prosperity and profits for investors and the communities in which they invest.
Most recently, Napoleon served as the State of North Carolina’s Deputy Secretary of Commerce responsible for economic and workforce development efforts with a staff of 600. Prior to this appointment, he led the turnaround of two troubled, cooperatively-owned Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), served as Social Investment Officer of the Kresge Foundation, Executive Staff at Self-Help, one of the nation’s largest and most impactful community development financial institutions and a Fixed Income Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, expanding markets for high-yield energy bonds.
Napoleon’s roots are in rural Eastern Carolina, where generations of his African American ancestors worked in community development ---in sawmills, making moonshine, preaching and pig farming. A graduate of North Carolina Central University and University of North Carolina’s Kenan--Flagler Business School MBA program, Napoleon currently serves as a board member and strategic advisor to leading impact investors including the Mary Reynolds Babcock
Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Kate B Reynolds Charitable Trust, Adasina Social Capital, the Association of Black Foundation Executives, ResilNC.org and the NC A&T Real Estate Foundation. He recently produced the industry setting “The Values Proposition” for Nathan Cummings Foundation and was featured in the New York Times' Dealbook.
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