Torrie Dunlap was working as education director at San Diego Junior Theater in 1998 when she was confronted with a new and unexpected challenge. A mother who wanted to enroll her 10-year-old son explained at the end of the conversation that he had Down syndrome.
Dunlap, with a background as a theater major at San Diego State University and no experience directing kids with disabilities, remembers being “clueless and pretty scared.” But she “really wanted this to work” and reached out to a San Diego organization specializing in children with disabilities called d Kids Included Together (KIT).
“They helped me, modeled for me,” she said. “What happened was life changing for me, for the child, for the other kids in the class, helping us all to be inclusive.”
Today, Terra is CEO of KIT, a non-profit sponsored by Sage Executive Group that has grown to provide training on how to include kids with disabilities in traditional educational programs and classes. Its operations extend to 48 states and 13 countries with a $3.5 million budget with 30 employees. Since 1997, KIT has trained over 100,000 individuals and impacted the lives of more than 5 million children. About 96 percent of the budget is earned revenue for programs and training and about four percent comes from donations.
Terra held several different program positions at the non-profit before being named CEO in 2012 and discovered an “entrepreneurial streak, some business acumen that I was able to uncover.” She was helped along the way by executive training programs at Stanford and Harvard universities.
She acknowledged running “into quite a lot of resistance” initially to the organization’s inclusionary philosophy and said that “no research shows that keeping kids separate benefits either group.” She added that attitudes are changing, and the public interest in diversity and inclusion has dramatically increased since the early years of KIT.
Her goal is “to reduce the stigma” of disabilities that are a natural part of life and to help teach practical skills to child and youth development professionals.
Sage Executive Group, in its sponsorship of about a dozen non-profits, provides a place for Terra in the Integrus Forum and she credits the monthly meetings with CEOs of major businesses with helping her deal with the financial and personnel issues of running a non-profit.
Terra, 51, readily admits to being a “happy workaholic,” spending rare spare time with her husband and Labradoodle and working to restore their Craftsman bungalow built in 1916.