Tony Richards named Executive Director of Youth Design

Tony Richards has been named the new Executive Director of Youth Design, an organization that provides youth with access to professional mentors, skill building, paid internships and support along the path toward higher education.

Richards brings a wide range of mentorship, and extensive leadership in nonprofit organizations. Previously, he was the director of the Elm Hill Family Service Center, one of the largest neighborhood sites within Action for Boston Community Development city-wide network.

While at ABCD, Inc. he created a year-round youth civic engagement program aimed at at-risk Boston youth and provided paid opportunities for them to create effective strategies to increase urban democratic participation and community engagement. In addition, he managed one of the largest SummerWorks neighborhood sites in Boston serving 100-plus low-income youth annually.

Richards is one of the founding trustees of the Grove Hall Trust, a resident-led neighborhood foundation that puts choice and control for investing grant dollars directly in the hands of the Boston’s Grove Hall community.

He serves as an Advisory Board Member at the Greater Boston YMCA Roxbury Branch where he enjoys assisting youth at an institution that contributed so much to his personal advancement.

Before his work in the nonprofit field, Richards worked in ad pitching, design and creative marketing in Atlanta, Ga. for Firstline Creative & Media, LLC, a global full-service marketing and communication company.

Richards earned a B.A in Mass Communications from Clark Atlanta University. He has also received a certificate in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from Suffolk University, Sawyer Business School, Moakley Center for Public Management.