Dr. Layton began his career as the founder and director of the New Kensington Community Development Corporation, in the Philadelphia neighborhood where he was born and raised. He pursued his doctorate in order to better understand the history and core values of democracy in America. After teaching at Wesleyan and Yale Universities, he founded and directed the Philanthropy and Civil Society Project at the Instituto Tecnolgico Autnomo de Mxico (ITAM) in Mexico City, where he developed a groundbreaking research and advocacy program to understand and strengthen philanthropy and civil society.