Unique Purpose

We all have the capacity to be changemakers—a unique purpose to make a difference.

Servant Heart

The most effective changemakers are those who have a servant’s heart, caring more about the cause than the credit.

Outcome and interests Focus

A strategic focus on desired outcomes and common interests is crucial to transformational change or resolution of disputes.

Resource Alignment

Resources exist but the challenge that must be met is accessing and aligning resources.

J. Laurens Tullock consults for a select number of changemakers—leaders in business, philanthropic, nonprofit, and government entities—who desire to make a strategic difference with the resources for which they are responsible. He concentrates predominantly on the Greater Knoxville area and in Tennessee, where he has a 35-year history of making an impact.  He is an expert on strategic philanthropy, social impact investing with a particular focus on for-profit Opportunity Zone development and the creation of public-private partnerships, and Rule 31 Mediation to achieve win-win solutions and court settlements.

Background

Laurens Tullock served as the President of Cornerstone Foundation of Knoxville the entire 20 year limited life of the unique philanthropic foundation that focused on helping Knoxville reach its full potential. With an educational background of two law degrees, and leadership results as an Air Force officer, a white collar fraud prosecutor with the Justice Department, and a City official, he focused on his passion for Knoxville and Tennessee in 1997 to start Cornerstone for the private sector funder.

Laurens was recognized as a change agent in Tennessee through selection for the inaugural class of Leadership Tennessee in 2013. He was a multi-term board member of Leadership Knoxville, and a founder of the Knoxville Fellows.

He is a past Chair of the Board of Project GRAD USA, a national education reform effort, and was the original champion, convener, and alignment mediator in the creation of Project GRAD Knoxville, a public-private partnership that has dramatically improved inner-city graduation rates. He was the convener and alignment mediator of the partners that created the Great Schools Partnership (now known as the Knoxville Education Foundation), and was an organizing partner of the Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education. Both organizations are collective impact initiatives that have been catalysts for Tennessee becoming the fastest improving state in the nation on education outcomes, and Knox County becoming the only large school system ever named an Exemplary System in Tennessee. 

He was an early champion of downtown Knoxville revitalization, and over the years led numerous City of Knoxville, private sector, and philanthropic efforts to help bring that revitalization to a tipping point. Over those years that vitality was returning to downtown, he was the City point person on the development of Volunteer Landing, and later the real estate developer on behalf of Cornerstone Foundation of 4 Market Square - housing Cafe 4, the Square Room, and the Knoxville Fellows. He recently completed the development on behalf of 4th Purpose Foundation for Dogan-Gaither Flats: Valor Way, an innovative partnership to provide supportive housing to ex-offenders, which also served as a regional demonstration project of mission-related investment by a philanthropic foundation - using investment funds of the foundation to accomplish both social good and financial return at the same time.

He received significant specialized training over the course of ten straight summer sessions of the Harvard Negotiating Project, sponsored by the Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard Law School. This training focuses on “getting to yes” in interest-based negotiation and mediation - achieving win-win solutions to difficult problems. He is Court-listed in Tennessee as a Rule 31 Mediator to achieve court settlements of disputes.

It has been and continues to be Laurens' life's work to see Knoxville reach its full potential and inspire others to do the same.

Recognized Leadership Roles

• Federal prosecutor on complex white collar fraud cases (1978-1988)

• City of Knoxville award-winning leadership roles (1988-1997)

• President of Cornerstone Foundation of Knoxville (1997-2017)