Donnie Ausby

He knows what is at stake because he lived it.

Donnie Ausby’s mission with Dutch Development is rooted in his own life. By his account, he grew up in a community where drug dealing, money, and expensive cars were often presented to young men as signs of success and survival.

Mr. Ausby says he was first approached about criminal activity at age 13. Although he graduated from high school and went on to college, earning an associate degree, he entered federal prison at age 22 and ultimately spent more than 20 years incarcerated.

He does not use his environment as an excuse for the choices he made. Instead, he believes his responsibility now is to understand how those pressures worked on him and to help younger men recognize them before those same pressures cost them their freedom and future.

Before he was 20, Mr. Ausby says he had already been labeled a “kingpin.” In the community around him, that reputation brought attention and status that made walking away from the lifestyle increasingly difficult. What once looked like survival and responsibility to family ultimately became a path to prison.

After years of examining his own decisions, Mr. Ausby developed a clear goal: show young men that they can use their minds, their labor, and their ambition to build something legal, productive, and profitable. Through Dutch Development, he wants participants to learn that the same determination used to survive difficult circumstances can be redirected toward construction, business ownership, skilled work, and community revitalization.

Mr. Ausby understands the pressure a young man can feel when he wants to help provide for his mother, siblings, or household. He also believes that pressure can make a young man with a strong sense of responsibility sacrifice too much for what he thinks is the greater good of his family. His message is that providing for family must never require sacrificing freedom, integrity, or the future.

He strongly rejects criminal behavior and makes no excuses for his own past. His belief is that the only meaningful response to the negative influence his name once represented is to create an even greater positive influence in the same community.