Dennis Mahoney, Executive MPA '23

From an early age, Dennis Mahoney (Executive MPA ’23) was instilled with a sense of service. “My mother and father taught me that you have one life to give,” he shares. “That has really influenced my career track.” Much of Dennis’ professional experience has been in humanitarian aid through faith based organizations. He volunteers on a number of boards, and he holds a leadership role in his local Philadelphia church, Epic.

Several years ago, when he saw a need for improved collaboration between government, businesses, and non-government stakeholders in his work, Dennis decided to meet that need, build a business, and improve his leadership skills at the intersection of public, private, and nonprofit service. The Executive Master of Public Administration from Penn’s Fels Institute of Government helped him pursue that dream. “My faith really influences my desire to serve and to give back to the world,” he shares, “but Fels gave me the tools and the connections to actually serve in those capacities in much higher ways and give some teeth to the work.”

Since his undergraduate days at the University of Vermont, Dennis has been building an impressive service resume, working with refugees, developing disaster relief programs in the US and abroad, and building economic development programs. By 2020, Dennis had done extensive work in Puerto Rico working with government agencies, nonprofits, and Indigenous leaders to improve the island’s disaster resilience and preparedness while concurrently earning a Master of Science in Organizational Dynamics at Penn. His plan at the time was to pivot to a corporate consulting job. “I had been thinking that my time in service had come to a close,” he says. Then a friend reached out and offered him a role at Food for the Hungry, an international NGO.

At first, Dennis turned the offer down, but when he talked his future over with a family member, he had to admit, “I want to serve people.”

The job took him across the globe—the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Africa—organizing church mobilizations at first, then creating a new corporate partnerships program. He initially thought he would stay at the organization for a year and ended up staying for five. “They were some of the most transformational years of my life,” he says.

In the middle of his time with Food for the Hungry, Dennis recognized a challenge in his profession that he wanted to overcome. “I got the idea of starting my own firm to help folks do the types of integrated partnerships I was working on that would address: How do we set a bigger table? How do we create more access and opportunities that drive impact?” he says.

The business Dennis envisioned would break down the silos between sectors to better pool and leverage resources between government, NGO, nonprofit, and community stakeholders. Fels offered the public leadership education and experience to fulfill his vision. “If you want to make a change or want to be connected to the people who are making a change,” Dennis shares, “Fels is the place you go.”

It wasn’t easy to fit school into his schedule. “Time is our most valuable resource,” he points out, “and my job is very global.” The Fels executive program format, however, allowed Dennis to continue working full time while pursuing his degree. “I was taking some of the classes in Dubai or Malaysia at all hours,” he remembers.

Stand-out courses in the program included Public Management, which provided valuable budgeting experience, and Negotiations which helped Dennis hone his people skills even further. “I use strategies from class all the time in my work,” he says. And infused with every element of the Fels experience is networking. “When the program started, we were asked what our goals were, and I said I wanted to have 100 actionable connections by the time I graduated,” Dennis says. “I had about 300 by the time I left.”

Through the Fels Mentor Program, Dennis was matched with the former under secretary of the US Army and former congressman Patrick Murphy, who brought Dennis to the Democratic National Convention. “I wanted to work with a former elected official,” he says, “so to get that kind of mentorship was fantastic.”

The faculty and other students, too, Dennis adds, served as valuable connectors to open doors for boards and other service opportunities in the region. Dennis is currently serving as a Committee of 70’s Buckholz Fellow, for example, thanks to the encouragement and support of his Fels network.

One of the most valuable elements of the curriculum for Dennis was the culminating capstone project. “I designed my capstone to build my business model and test it,” he says. His international development project involved a public-private partnership between a Fortune 500 cell tower company and Food for the Hungry that addressed digital inequity in Uganda. “Digital connectivity spreads through every piece of our lives,” Dennis explains, from access to banking and credit, education, and beyond. “The digital divide is the biggest wedge between the haves and the have-nots. Bar none.”

Through strategic tower installations, the project brought broadband access to 11 schools and tens of thousands of people. After one success, the project was replicated in other regions in need, too. Dennis even presented his project at South by Southwest. “Fels was the incubator for my business,” he says. “Once I decided to go on my own, I had a proven model that I could take to the market.”

Dennis completed his Executive MPA in May 2023 and recently launched AOI Solutions, a disaster relief and international development organization based on his capstone. “Our work focuses on access, opportunity, and impact—that’s the AOI in the name,” he says. Projects have included building emergency housing in Ukraine and aiding relief efforts by African American and Hispanic houses of worship in communities affected by Hurricane Beryl, Hurricane Helene, and Hurricane Milton. “Fels helped me build a business that I feel is serving as a blessing to so many people in the world right now,” he says with gratitude.

His life of service to others circles back to the Fels program, too. “Being able to give back to Fels through mentoring or speaking to a class and influencing the next generation of leaders is one of the biggest gifts I’ve received,” he says. “Fels feels like family.”

As Dennis continues to broaden and deepen his positive impact on the world (including a possible future in politics), he offers some insight to prospective students. “‘Why Fels?’ is pretty simple: Fels will give you a tribe of people to contend with on the world's hardest problems. It will give you relationships that will last a lifetime. The problems that we face as a world will always change, but Fels will give you the toolkit and the tribe to take on those challenges.”