Bio

Dennis Serrette serves as Senior Vice President & Chief Development Officer for the National Urban League. In this capacity, he leads the team whose focus is the strategic planning and execution of the organizational fundraising plan. Dennis brings more than 20 years of success in fund development, strategic planning, and sales management.

Prior to joining the League, Dennis served as Vice President, Corporate Development at United Way of New York City where he was responsible for overall management and growth of their $65 million annual campaign. In addition, played a pivotal role in the fundraising administration and donor relations for the September 11th Fund which raised over $506 million. During his tenure, Dennis took great pride in knowing that his team at United Way of New York City realized consistent increases in their local campaign each year. Prior to working for United Way, he served as Director of the New York City office of Prudential Preferred Financial Services, where for each year of his leadership, won Prudential’s prestigious President’s Citation for Masters Production and for the effective launching of new representatives.

Dennis is a graduate of Pace University in New York City with a degree in Business Management. He has served on the Housing Court Advisory Council of the Civil Court of the State of New York for the past 3 years which is responsible for the appointment of new judges and the reappointment of existing judges that serve the housing courts throughout the state of New York.

Dennis’s commitment to fund development came out of his childhood experiences that saw wonderful effective community based organizations have to close their doors because they lacked the appropriate tools and personnel to find the funds necessary to maintain their programs. “Too many times, I’ve seen organizations with wonderful visions and missions, the best program designers and implementers, with passion to really serve their communities fail because they lack the skill set to raise, maintain, and grow funds. My role is to never let that happen”.