About Southwest Key Programs

Southwest Key Programs is a national nonprofit organization providing transformative education, innovative safe shelters and alternatives to in-carceration for over 6,000 youth each day, while creating opportunities for their families to become self-sufficient. The inspiring youth and parents we work with are seeking the American dream: equality, education, and a higher quality of life. At Southwest Key, we simply open the doors to opportunity so they can achieve these dreams.

Southwest Key Programs is one of the largest Hispanic-led nonprofits in the country, employing a creative and diverse staff of over 1,100 employees. Because of Southwest Key’s work, thousands of youth have been diverted from prisons, jails, and institutions, enabling them to stay at home with their families and out of trouble. Southwest Key has reunified thousands of immigrant children with their families and provided these unaccompanied minors with 24-hour care and education. Southwest Key is one of only three nonprofits in Austin to be accredited by the Council on Accreditation, the nation’s leading human service accrediting body.

From the start, a cornerstone of all of our programs has been culturally-relevant education. For 12 years we have refined our model by operating leading alternative schools throughout Texas, preventing hundreds of youth from dropping out of school by providing them with individualized education in a therapeutic setting. Our innovative educational model was fully realized with the opening our charter middle school, the East Austin College Prep Academy, in 2009.

Just as we help our families to become self-sufficient, Southwest Key is taking innovative steps toward greater self-sufficiency itself. We operate two small businesses: Southwest Key Maintenance & Janitorial and Café del Sol. These social enterprises serve a double bottom line creating jobs for low income residents while bringing in funds to support the nonprofit mission. Our Social Enterprise Complex, creating over 100 jobs and housing these and other workforce development initiatives, will be first of its kind in the country when construction is completed at our East Austin Headquarters in 2011.

Southwest Key’s national headquarters is located at the East Austin Community Development Center in Austin, Texas. Southwest Key completed construction on the $8 million facility in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood in 2007 to be a launching pad for increasing the educational attainment and employability of residents, leading to higher paid employees, increased tax revenues and civic and economic engagement of residents. The Center is home to a Boys & Girls Club, GED and ESL classes, the AMD Community Technology Center, an outdoor amphitheater and Latino arts program, and a variety of educational programs and rec-reational facilities.

Southwest Key founder and current CEO, Dr. Juan Sánchez, is proud to have built one of the most diverse nonprofits in the country, where over 90 percent of Southwest Key’s employees, including most top managers and board mem-bers, represent the youth we serve.

Southwest Key Fast Facts

• Founded: 1987
• Legal Status:   Nonprofit, charitable 501(c)(3) Social Service & Community Development Organization
• Staff: Over 1, 100 nationwide, ~960 in the field
• Programs: Southwest Key operates 55 juvenile justice and family programs, safe shelters for immigrant children, alternative schools, and community building initiatives
• Number Served:   Approximately 6000 youth daily
• Headquarters:   Austin, Texas
• Locations:   Texas, California, New York, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Louisiana
• FY 2008: $58 million
• Funding: Grants and contracts by U.S. federal, state, and local government, foundations, and corporations; special events; private contributions
• Social Enterprises: Southwest Key Enterprises, Southwest Key Café del Sol, Southwest Key Maintenance, Southwest Key Properties

Download Southwest Key Fact Sheet (pdf)

Download 2007 Annual Report (5.5 MB pdf)