Geovanny Ragsdale is the chief executive of Canoga Park-based nonprofit Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley, a role she has had since 2021. Ragsdale sat down with the Business Journal at Gasolina in Woodland Hills for a power lunch to discuss her career.
How long have you been involved in nonprofits?
My whole career, with the exception of a year and a half that I worked for KPMG in France. Mind you, I worked for them to develop their corporate responsibility initiatives and to initiate what today is the KPMG France Foundation.
What have been some of the biggest initiatives you’ve taken on at the Boys & Girls Club?
I was privileged enough to be one of the 62 leaders that MacKenzie Scott selected within Boys & Girls Clubs to give a very meaningful gift to… that has resulted in us paying off our Teen Center building (and) we have set aside a matching challenge gift of $500,000 to grow an endowment for the organization, for its future. To date, there are four individuals that have initiated private like endowments. Previous to my tenure, there had been no endowment dollars. So that’s been a big piece for me of what I’m working on. We’ve been able to expand our footprint with L.A. Unified School District because we now have the funds to be able to float the contract requirements for our reimbursements, which, in the past, we were limited on how much we could take on because we still have to make payroll. And the last big project that that funding has enabled us to do is we’re looking at a potential renovation to the Gary M. Thomas Clubhouse in Canoga Park.
What else is on the horizon for the club?
Growing the retention of the kids that we serve. For many years, the club really focused on elementary kids, and then when they went to middle school, it was like we were MIA and then we would be present again at the high school level. And so my biggest thing has been, how do we grow that retention of our youth, continuing from when they start with us through elementary all the way through graduation, and ensuring that they graduate on time and that they have a plan for their future. And then how do we better engage our alumni, those who have graduated from our program to give back to any Boys & Girls Club, wherever they may be living or working at the time.
