A Cabal of Corruption: The Dream Keeper Inner Circle

When the Dream Keeper Initiative (DKI) launched in 2021, it was marketed as one of San Francisco’s proudest commitments — a $120 million promise to invest in Black communities after the murder of George Floyd.

Four years later, that same program has become a case study in how political and friend networks, blurred lines, and City Hall dysfunction can turn good intentions into an epic scandal. This blog takes a look at the key individuals and organizations that made it all possible, and what has been done to ensure it cannot happen again. 

Sheryl Davis and James Spingola: The Fallen Power Couple at the Center

At the center of it all is Sheryl Davis, the former Executive Director of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) — the department charged with administering DKI. Davis had come up through the nonprofit world herself, leading an organization called Collective Impact from 2011 to 2016 before being appointed by Mayor Ed Lee to head the HRC. When the city launched the Dream Keeper Initiative, Davis’ department became the hub through which tens of millions of dollars would flow to community nonprofits — including, as it turns out, the same one she once ran.

The line between Davis and Collective Impact was supposed to have been cut when she became part of city government. Instead, it was buried and exploited. 

Davis’s longtime friend with whom she had a questionably close relationship with, James Spingola, ran Collective Impact while Davis administered DKI. Between 2021 and 2024, Spingola’s group took in roughly $7.5 million from DKI alone — the second-largest payout of any organization in the entire program.

Investigations by the Chronicle, Standard, and City Attorney later found that Collective Impact paid for Davis’s travel, her podcast “Sunday Candy,” her son’s UCLA tuition and even first-class flights to promote her book. The nonprofit also held a corporate credit card in her name and continued listing her as a bank signatory while she ran the city department meant to oversee it.

When confronted, Spingola offered a hilarious quote we think ought to be infamous:

“How do you bribe somebody? I don’t know what bribing is.”

The City Attorney clearly disagreed — formally blocking Collective Impact from future city funding in March 2025 and launching a debarment case. Yet in a recent stunning decision, a hearing officer ruled the city hadn’t proven intent, meaning the nonprofit could continue doing business with San Francisco. That decision is now under appeal. 

Spingola has since resigned from his role and Davis is currently under criminal investigation.

London Breed: The Mentor Turned Enabler

Former Mayor London Breed is woven through every thread of this story. Breed co-launched the Dream Keeper Initiative with Supervisor Shamann Walton. Breed was a longtime ally of Davis’s. And, Breed touted DKI’s success— right up until its implosion.

When reporters from both the SF Standard and the Chronicle revealed that Davis was living with Spingola and had taken payments from his nonprofit, Breed publicly expressed shock, ordered an internal investigation, and told Davis to resign.

But by then the damage was done: millions misspent, funds frozen, and Breed’s political brand tied to a program that had become synonymous with insider corruption. She went on to lose her 2024 re-election to now-Mayor Daniel Lurie — and DKI’s was without doubt partially to blame.

Saidah Leatutufu-Burch: The Protégé

Below Davis sat Saidah Leatutufu-Burch (also known as “Dr. Sai” on TikTok), who led the DKI program itself from 2021 until she departed without saying why in October 2024 as things got ugly.

She came to the role in 2021 after working in Breed’s Mayor’s Office and earlier for Young Community Developers (YCD) — another DKI recipient tied to Walton’s political base in the Bayview. Importantly, she is married to Percy Burch, Walton’s legislative aide—they met while working at YCD. In her role as the director of DKI, she was responsible for developing grant strategies - including the grant-making that funneled funds into Spingola’s Collective Impact.  

When Davis resigned, Leatutufu-Burch followed suit, but she never retreated from the spotlight. She later promoted a campaign defending Collective Impact from debarment and even confronted Mayor Lurie at a June 2025 town hall — captured on a viral video blasting his administration for freezing funds. Her continued activism shows how deeply the original DKI leadership network still influences San Francisco’s politics.

Shamann Walton: The Co-Founder 

As the Supervisor representing District 10, Shamann Walton was DKI’s co-founder and its most visible political champion. Before joining the Board of Supervisors, Walton spent nearly a decade running Young Community Developers, which later received Dream Keeper funds.

He also had close ties to Dwayne Jones, a City contractor later charged with bribery, who founded the nonprofit Urban Ed Academy, which both received DKI money and famously gifted Davis a painted portrait. 

In other words, many of the key players — Walton, Jones, Davis, and Spingola — moved in the same small orbit of interconnected nonprofits and City Hall influence.

Collective Impact and the Human Rights Commission: The Institutions

At the organizational level, Collective Impact became the scandal’s poster child — an example of what happens when personal relationships override procurement rules. City investigators found the nonprofit used public funds for travel, luxury lodging, first-class airfare, and payments to city employees — all violations of city law.

Meanwhile, Davis’s Human Rights Commission — the City department itself — became the other half of the story. An audit released in September 2025 showed that under Davis’s leadership, the department spent $4.6 million improperly, including on events with alcohol, luxury hotels, and even massages at a “healing” retreat. Auditors concluded she “knowingly violated city purchasing rules” and set an “unethical tone” for the department.

Today, the HRC has new leadership, merged with the Department on the Status of Women, and is attempting to relaunch DKI under Mayor Daniel Lurie with stricter guardrails and reduced funding — just $36 million over three years.

How It All Connects

Every name in this scandal is tied to another. Davis once ran Spingola’s nonprofit. Spingola’s nonprofit paid Davis while she oversaw its grants. Breed fueled Davis’ political ascent, Walton co-founded DKI and Walton’s aide Percy Burch is married to Saidah Leatutufu-Burch, the woman Davis chose to run it. Each person sat somewhere along a feedback loop of influence — one that blurred the line between community empowerment and self-enrichment.

DKI was conceived as a promise of racial equity. What it delivered instead was a cautionary tale about what happens when friendship networks meet weak oversight.