Dirk A. Butler

President and COO, Center for Policing Equity. Dirk A. Butler has more than 20 years of strategic management and leadership experience within the public and private sectors, building successful and sustainable programs and policies for children, families, and communities throughout his career. Butler joins CPE from the United Way, National Capital Area where, as Vice President of Community Engagement and Impact, he developed the organization’s overarching strategic vision and oversaw the management of programming.

Prior to that, Butler held a senior role at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and served as a senior policy director in the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Obama Administration. Earlier in his career, Butler and his wife founded The Opportunity Institute, a Chicago-based research and consulting firm that served as a conduit between academic research institutions and vulnerable communities.

Butler is completing a Ph.D. in Social Service Administration and Research from the University of Chicago. He received his Master of Social Work degree from Clark Atlanta University in Georgia, and his bachelor’s degree from Hunter’s College, CUNY, in New York. He lives in Maryland with his three children.