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Dan Ryan is InspireMSP’s founder and our fall fashion icon.
Dan Ryan founded InspireMSP with the primary goal to create pathways for young people of color to enter and thrive in creative industries. By offering mentorship programs, workshops, field trips and networking opportunities, InspireMSP aims to break down barriers and provide essential resources that are often inaccessible to marginalized communities. The Edina resident reveals his blind spots as a way of admitting that he’s stronger as part of a team, especially a team of people with different life experiences than him.
The mission of InspireMSP is, “Connecting the power of imagination with the practice of exploration to create boundless opportunities that change lives and communities.” When asked how the organization applies that mission day-by-day, Ryan quoted legendary Minneapolis high school basketball coach Larry McKenzie, saying, “You can’t be what you can’t see.”
“Kids will say they don’t care about the opera, don’t like it, have never seen it, but then they see the welders and painters and costume designers at the opera center and walk out having had a great time,” he says. Talk about career dreams unlocked.
Ryan is wearing a Stenströms White Dress Shirt, which pairs well with the Meyer Char Twill Trouser. The look is finished with a Samuelsohn Blue Check Jacket, accented with an Altea purple pocket square. The outfit is completed with Cameron Sneakers in Whiskey by Martin Dingman, a luxury men’s leather goods brand.
While at St. Norbert College, Ryan volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Once a week, he’d pick up his little brother, Macario, and they’d mostly “kick it around campus,” Ryan says. At his college graduation, Marcario’s mother told Ryan that the best thing he did for her son was show him that there was more beyond high school. “That literally sat with me for 20 years,” Ryan says.
Decades later, Ryan was craving something more. The timing of a project at Paisley Park—a campaign to drive attention to creative industries—and the centuries-old demands that emerged in 2020, lined up in front of Ryan.
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InspireMSP’s extended mission involves delivering “extraordinary experiences for historically excluded students by utilizing creative professionals, organizations and a collection of supportive resources to champion career pathways,” according to its website. The nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization currently works with students between 6th and 10th grades, and its partners include the Minnesota Opera, the Minnesota Twins, Target Center, KARE 11, Dunwoody College of Technology, First Avenue and many more.
Ryan learned that Minnesota’s creative industry is one of the top in the nation, and it’s growing. He also learned that only 13 percent of the creative industry’s workforce is made up of people of color (2019 Creative Minnesota Report). “When you think about what creativity is, it’s the fabric that shapes the emotion in the community, the engagement, expression of that community. It’s very important to understand whose voices are making up that fabric,” Ryan says.
Dan Ryan is wearing the Serge Lightweight Tech Chino from Cala 1789, the Liam Sweater Polo from Marine Layer and the outfit is complete with the Marseille Cotton Jacket from Les Deux. Accessories include Ryan Pinto Sunglasses from Oscar Deen.
When Ryan and his colleagues talk about the creative industry, they point out two things: place and role. There are places that are inherently creative, like theaters and museums. Then, there are roles that are creative, like designers and writers. You can be in a creative role at a place like Target, a nonprofit or even in government work. InspireMSP aims to expose young people to the endless world of creative pursuits and acknowledge that there are many paths along that same road.
“It can’t become us trying to guide students who have way different lived experiences than we do down the same path that we took. That’s just not something that we can expect from those who we work with,” he says. “If we are really trying to drive change, if we don’t build it with those that we are trying to unlock those opportunities for, then it doesn’t truly become a system change.
“The way that we do that is by constantly trying to be in community—by being on the bus with the students, talking with them,” he adds.
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During an early trip to First Avenue with some students, Ryan remembers playing a Prince song and asking if anyone knew who was singing. A single hand was raised, and Ryan realized that they needed to integrate more relationship-building into InspireMSP before heading straight to an experience with different expectations of impact than the students on the bus. “We now always go into the classroom to build that trust and awareness of where we’re going and to understand where the students are at … so that we can help to provide that context, a sense of security, and feeling of welcome and belonging before they go into that space,” Ryan says.
InspireMSP is currently in 18 Metro schools and with Big Brothers Big Sisters. There’s a waiting list of hundreds of students and more partners who want to be involved than InspireMSP has capacity to handle. The future is bright, and Ryan wants it to grow in the right direction. “As we continue to grow, we are making significant efforts to make sure that those leading the organization are empowered to develop it to represent similar lived experiences as those that we’re working with,” Ryan says.
Ryan is wearing Relwen’s Lightweight M-51 Pant and Windzip Jacket, paired with the Lightweight Fjord Flannel Shirt and R1 Air Zip-Neck from Patagonia. The look is complete with the Phoenix Sneaker from Oncept, an eco-conscious shoe line that only produces five styles per season.
Ryan’s work is best captured in his stories. InspireMSP took a group of 7th graders to Dunwoody College of Technology. After the visit, one of the students went home and talked about it at the dinner table with his family. His older brother got excited and applied.
Another cohort visited Target Field. They went up to the scoring booth and down onto the field—covetable experiences for just about anyone. The group virtually met a Minnesota Twins professional in a conference room—a favorite part of the experience for one of the students. She’d seen those spaces on TV but never thought she’d actually be in one.
“We often get so derailed by measuring what we’re creating that we lose sight of the impact that we’re actually generating,” Ryan says.
Ryan is modeling a Meyer Cord Winter White Pant with a Robert Barakett T-Shirt in Dover Blue, an essential layering piece that doubles as a dressy T-shirt. The look is completed with a Maurizio Baldassari Overshirt in Navy, which can be worn in the place of a blazer, as a light outerwear option, on top of light sweater or T-shirt (as pictured).
InspireMSP is about expanding the world. When surveyed, 100 percent of educational professional partners believe that InspireMSP significantly impacts long-term career decisions and long-term belief of what students have access to (as careers or patrons).
“It’s really cool when you leave a place and you know that the place you went is equally as impacted as the students we brought there,” Ryan says.
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