Leading With Intention: Meet The Fountain Fund’s New Site Director, Aaron Morin

There’s a lot of momentum behind Aaron “Ace” Morin as he steps into his new role leading The Fountain Fund Boston. GreenLight Fund first invested in The Fountain Fund in 2023, to provide justice-impacted individuals with access to capital and resources that traditional financial systems too often deny them. The Fountain Fund accomplishes this by offering low-interest loans, financial support, and long-term partnership to people returning home from incarceration.

In his role, Ace brings lived experience, program-development expertise, and a deep, personal commitment to the returning citizen community he continues to serve. We recently sat down with Ace to learn more about his interests, what brought him to The Fountain Fund, and his vision for the Boston site.

Tell us a little about yourself and your background.

Everybody knows me as Ace — I recently found out that nobody knows who “Aaron” is. I’ve led with Aaron in professional spaces, and people are like, “Who is that?” It was a real challenge when The Fountain Fund went to check my references in the community — nobody knew Aaron; everybody knew Ace.

I returned home last year after serving 16 years. On the inside, I worked with at-risk youth through Project Youth and built a dog training program for the prison that’s still running ten years later. I’ve trained over 70 dogs and placed them with veterans who’ve served our country, and trained over 30 incarcerated men to be professional dog handlers. It’s a big passion of mine, and one of my goals now is to create a pathway for returning citizens who trained dogs behind the wall to get recognized and employed for that work.

But after 16 years away and 10 years as a trainer, I came home with nothing to show for that background professionally. I started with a nonprofit called UTEC working with youth, then transitioned to The Fountain Fund to focus on the returning citizen aspect and providing capital for justice-impacted individuals like myself. And in Boston, I’m trying to bring more unity to the returning citizens’ culture.

How were you introduced to The Fountain Fund’s work?

One of my friends got a loan through The Fountain Fund, which is how I first heard about the organization. Through networking and the spaces I was in, I met the previous site director, and people had told me I could get a loan through The Fountain Fund to get my dog business started.

This work is dear to me because it’s my community — this isn’t just a job where I serve a certain population, this is my population. When you do 16 years in prison, you’ve lived with some of these men longer than you’ve lived with any relative. We’ve grown together, gone to college together, and created programs and done a lot of good despite our circumstances. There’s no better feeling than being the person who helps a friend when they’re coming home. Both loans I closed yesterday were for guys I did years and years with.

The Fountain Fund has very specific core values. How do those resonate with your leadership style?

The number one value here is “Check on love on.” That’s so important to me. The Fountain Fund is very intentional with language — we call the people we serve our Client Partners, not our clients, because there’s a level of engagement where we check on them months down the road to make sure they’re stable and supported. 

As you lead the Boston site, what’s your vision for its future?

I have three main goals:

• Extended Support Awareness. I want people to know we aren’t here just in the moment you first come out. We’re here five years down the road when you still have a felony and face barriers. This isn’t a resource you get and move on from; it’s lifelong support.
• Vehicle Lending Infrastructure. This is the number one ask and the number one need. Other Fountain Fund sites do vehicle lending, but as a new site, Boston’s launch phase priorities are traditional loans. As we continue to get settled in Boston, my goal is to build the infrastructure so we can get vehicle loans to our Client Partners in the future.
• Community Awareness. I want the community to keep our name in conversations — passing the resource along to family and friends, so people understand the full scope of what we can help with, not just what applies to the one person I’m talking to.

You’ve received some significant professional recognition recently, specifically from MIT. Can you tell us about that?

I received an “Excellence Award” from the MIT Sloan School of Management during the “Leading with Impact” Fellowship. The program instructors awarded it to me, since they were so impressed at the impact I’ve been able to make so shortly after my release from prison. They told me, “You are what this coin represents.” It was a very genuine, moving moment.

What’s your go-to Dunkin’ order?

I can’t really drink them anymore because they don’t sit well, but the Iced Dunka Latte with two or three mocha swirls is the most delicious thing. It has an espresso shot and is very intense, but it tastes amazing.

What’s a book or podcast that’s inspired your thinking lately?

A Boston College professor teaches a class specifically for returning citizens — I’ll actually be presenting at his class this year representing The Fountain Fund. We recently read First Pitch by Debi Kleiman. It’s about money, mentors, and how to structure your entrepreneurial venture and first pitch, and it really teaches you to focus on your audience and what to say. 

To wrap up, what’s the philosophy that drives your work in re-entry?

Prison doesn’t have to be what everyone thinks it is. You have to meet people where they’re at, and that takes a level of engagement. I relate everything to dog training because there’s so much overlap in “habituation.” If you put a dog in a cage and leave it there, it doesn’t learn — it just becomes aggressive. Humans are the same. We’re born innocent, and our circumstances change us. The current system claims to be about rehabilitation, but it doesn’t really offer it. It’s the people behind the wall who are fighting for resources and doing the work of transforming ourselves. We traded in our shanks for laptops, and we are changing the culture of what re-entry looks like.

Please join us in welcoming Ace to his new role leading The Fountain Fund Boston. His story, his work, and his vision embody exactly what The Fountain Fund represents — and we can’t wait to see what he builds next.