About

Darius Graham is an executive, board leader, and lawyer with experience building impactful programs and organizations, deepening relationships with a range of stakeholders, leading teams, and helping organizations achieve transformational change.

Darius currently serves as the Managing Director of Community Investment at the Greater Washington Community Foundation. He oversees the foundation’s grant programs, strategic initiatives, policy and coalition-building portfolio, and learning and evaluation efforts with the goal of building equitable and thriving communities across Washington, DC; Montgomery County; Prince George's County; and Northern Virginia. He leads the Community Investment department and serves on the foundation’s executive leadership team.

Darius is a Civil Society Fellow with The Aspen Institute and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He also serves as Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees and Chair of the Governance Committee at the Baltimore Museum of Art, an institution with more than 97,000 works of art, 200 employees, and a $22 million annual budget. He previously co-chaired the search for the museum's new executive director. As an adjunct professor at the University of Denver and Goucher College, he teaches graduate courses on social entrepreneurship, public sector innovation, and nonprofit leadership.

Previously as Program Director for Baltimore at The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Darius helped guide the distribution of over $30 million in grants annually to nonprofits working across the areas of housing, health, workforce development, and education in Baltimore and beyond. In this role, he also developed and led strategic initiatives such as the Greenmount Life, Opportunity, and Wellness (GLOW) Initiative — an award-winning, multi-year, place-based strategy that unites residents and a network of over 30 nonprofits to ensure all residents of four central Baltimore neighborhoods can access and utilize comprehensive healthcare services, nutritious food, and enriching opportunities for youth. Darius also developed a fund, seeded with $1 million, in partnership with Enterprise Community Partners to invest in neighborhood development efforts in historically under invested neighborhoods.

Previously at Johns Hopkins University, Darius was the founding executive director of two university-wide innovation and entrepreneurship programs (the Social Innovation Lab and FastForwardU) where he helped students, faculty, and local residents transform novel ideas and new technologies into viable ventures. The Social Innovation Lab has supported 110 ventures that have gone on to raise $80 million, create 280 jobs, and make a meaningful impact on the lives of many both locally and abroad.

Darius previously served as board co-chair of Community Law In Action where he led an executive search, a merger, and an increase in net assets. He has also served as a mentor in the TechStars accelerator program for mission-driven startups, steering committee member for the Young Families Success Fund (Baltimore's guaranteed income pilot program), and advisory board member for My Brother’s Keeper (a collective of public and private sector leaders committed to improving outcomes for boys and young men of color).

Darius' work and insights are highlighted in two books, Becoming a Changemaker: An Actionable, Inclusive Guide to Leading Positive Change at Any Level and In the Business of Change: How Social Entrepreneurs Are Disrupting Business as Usual. He has been a speaker at SXSW, SOCAP, Mission Investors Exchange, and Startup Champions; published in The Baltimore Sun, Inside Philanthropy, and more; and received honors from Ebony magazine, Baltimore Business Journal, and was recently named a GameChanger by Baltimore magazine. Darius is the author of Being the Difference: True Stories of Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things to Change the World.