Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Downey.
Hi Ryan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
For a large part of my childhood, I was a latchkey kid in the south suburbs of Atlanta. In fact, I lost my house key so many times and found myself locked out and waiting on the porch for my mom to get home from work frequently enough that she had me start wearing it on a necklace. Essentially, this means that I learned a lot about self-direction from a young age as I would often return home to a house where I was accountable for myself after school, and in the absence of strong youth development programs like the one I lead at East Atlanta Kids Club, I leaned on my neighbors, friends, and coaches for support. They let me come over for breakfast or a snack, they would help me get to soccer games (or help with dues that keep too many kids from being able to play sports or participate in extracurriculars), and they made sure that I was looked after and well.
Too many kids and teens don’t have a community of support around them, and we look at our youth as deficits to overcome instead of as assets to our communities. That is both morally objectionable and wildly shortsighted in terms of social and economic impact to our communities and our city.
That’s why I work in youth development and am working tirelessly alongside our staff and supporters to grow East Atlanta Kids Club to be of service to more youth placed at-risk. Regardless of how fast we scale and how large our scope of work becomes, the need in our community is always going to outpace our efforts, and it takes intentional partnership and meaningful investment from folks with means to ensure that our young people and their families don’t become isolated and hopeless as they face growing inequity in every aspect of their lives.
Before I took this role as Executive Director in February of 2020, I spent nearly ten years with another nonprofit serving Opportunity Youth called Year Up. Before that, I taught poetry and writing classes anywhere we I could find folks who reminded me of where I came from – including within the Chicago Public Schools, correctional facilities, shelters, and restorative justice programs. Ultimately, I just want folks to have access to opportunity to nurture their interests and talents and to realize new aspirations for themselves and their families. It’s pretty simple, and it’s both the core of my career trajectory and core to my values and sense of self.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Leading a small and rapidly growing nonprofit is never a completely smooth road. Unlike national nonprofits with large marketing and development/fundraising capacity, organizations like East Atlanta Kids Club rely primarily on the Executive Director and volunteer Board of Directors members to raise funds and a build a broader base of support. We also don’t have a massive risk reserve or assets to fall back on, so when cashflow is poor, there is a real risk of not making payroll or being able to serve students. So far, we always manage to secure new funding or get aging receivables just in the nick of time, but we are always riding that wave. Serving the community at a local nonprofit also means that folks are always reaching out at all times of day – via email, phone, Facebook messenger, DMs on Instagram, showing up in person, and any other way you might imagine. That’s a beautiful thing because it means folks know they can turn to us for support and that we will respond, but it also makes for a lot of 60+ hour weeks. There is a paradox that local organizations are often the least well-funded by major donors but also the most accessible and responsive to folks in the community and their immediate needs, so the demand is always growing, and funding is often a lagging indicator of how well we are meeting that need.
Personally, I also want to note that most folks in this field, as with many other caring professions, experience significant secondary trauma. If you work in this space long enough, you will see more kids and teens pass away than you might have imagined; you will watch young children lose their ability to use their voice or express joy as they undergo serious trauma without having meaningful coping skills, and every now and again, you ask yourself if you did something – or failed to do something – that cost a young person their life. If you do this work long enough, you have to develop your own resilience and know that you don’t control who lives or who dies, who has a home to return to or who sleeps outside, who has a quiet space to do their homework or who lives in terror of domestic violence. We control what is in front of us each day and how we respond to provide the care and support that is within our means. We neither own the best outcomes that our kids achieve nor the most horrific ones. We are part of their runway, but we don’t do the flying for them.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Here at East Atlanta Kids Club, we are celebrating our 25th year of service to Southeast Atlanta. Since 1998, we have offered a safe, structured space for kids and teens to learn, play, and grow. We deliver year-round, no-cost after-school, summer camp, family cafes/engagement, and food security programming to kids and families placed at risk. Already in 2023, we have served 137 kids and teens for 22,904 hours of programming. Beyond that, we are on pace to put nearly $200,000 worth of food support into local households, and we will put north of $80,000 worth of toys, clothes, and gifts into the community during the holiday season. Our Family Cafes events and our larger special events for the whole community will bring thousands of neighbors through our doors, and we are thrilled to be an anchor for so many folks down here in southeast Atlanta.
While our expenses have grown by 50% since 2020, our program impact in terms of hours spent with our deserving kids and teens has grown by more than 400%. As one of the only no-cost after-school and summer camp programs in the City of Atlanta, what we strive to be known for is creating high-quality experiences for our youth that respect their needs and desires because children shouldn’t be limited to opportunity on the basis of the zip code of their birth or the numbers on their parent’s W2s. All children deserve access to opportunity and to be invited into spaces that are intentionally designed with them and their potential top of mind.
We are proud of the impact we have had over the last 25 years, and we are looking ahead to the next 25 with the hope that even more folks will join us in building this beloved community for our kids and families!
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Every now and again, someone who means well will ask me what my “real” job is. This work, while it is undervalued and undercompensated, like all caring work, is 100% our real work. Our staff have built meaningful careers being of service to kids and families in our community. We put nearly $1.2M worth of capital into our community with $623,091 worth of expenses in 2022, and in 2023, the impact and spend is trending even higher. Working for a nonprofit or a charity doesn’t necessarily mean this is volunteer work (though many organizations begin that way, and we all work more hours than the ones reflected on our pay stubs). We are running a thriving small business like all of our for-profit friends here in East Atlanta, and we face all of the same realities of any small business that is looking to scale. At the end of the day, what it means to run a nonprofit is that when I have given all of the talent and time that I can to this work, I’ll walk away the same way I came through these doors. There is nothing to sell to another owner, there’s no equity to carry forward, there is no one who will buy us out, and I’ll be back on the job hunt. We own this – every single one of us. The public owns this business, and the public needs this business, and ultimately, we will only continue to serve with the support of the public. We are ever thankful for that support, and it keeps us going strong amid all of the challenges and hard days.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://eastatlantakids.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eastatlantakids/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EastAtlantaKidsClub/
Image Credits
East Atlanta Kids Club
