Dr. Michael Layton serves as the W.K. Kellogg Community Philanthropy Chair at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University. This is the first endowed chair dedicated to advancing community philanthropy in the United States.
Having worked closely with community philanthropy organizations throughout the Americas, he offers a nuanced understanding of how community philanthropy can catalyze community-led development.
His recent research advances our understanding of community philanthropy as a transformative practice rooted in local context, power, and relationships. Drawing on studies of collective giving and the emerging community foundation movement in Latin America, he examines how communities mobilize generosity and strengthen local capacity. In collaboration with Philanthropy Together and Colmena Consulting, he has co-authored a series of reports exploring the growth of collective giving, the diversity of its manifestations, and the infrastructure that supports the field. He also led a multi-country research project examining the intersection of family philanthropy and community philanthropy in Latin America, interviewing philanthropic families to identify strategies that enable community foundations to strengthen local resource mobilization. Together, these studies inform his current work to develop a practical framework defining the characteristics and observable dimensions of community philanthropy, providing researchers and practitioners with tools to understand, assess, and strengthen the field across many contexts.
He began his career as Founder and Director of the New Kensington Community Development Corporation in his Philadelphia neighborhood of origin. Motivated to better understand democracy, he pursued advanced degrees in political science. After teaching at Wesleyan and Yale Universities, he founded and directed the Philanthropy and Civil Society Project at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México in Mexico City, where he launched a research and advocacy initiative to study and strengthen philanthropy and civil society.
Dr. Layton holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in political science from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Haverford College. He is a proud graduate of Philadelphia’s Central High School.