Welcome!
I’m Riley Mulcahy. I’m a writer, community-builder, and the Executive Director of The RILEY Project, a nonprofit focused on creating spaces where neurodivergent youth and their families feel seen and supported.
My work lives at the intersection of storytelling, education, and social impact. On any given day, I’m developing partnerships, planning events, shaping fundraising strategy, writing essays, or helping organizations think about how to build programs that actually serve people. At the heart of it all is a simple idea: people thrive when they feel like they belong and have real choices.
Let’s Collaborate
I work with schools, nonprofits, community groups, and mission-driven businesses on things like:
fundraising and donor communications
storytelling and messaging
event and community-building strategy
program design
strategic planning
nonprofit and social-enterprise structure
I also take on a small number of consulting projects and welcome conversations about partnerships, advisory roles, or board service.
You can reach me at riley [at] therileyproject [dot] org.
Explore My Work
I write regularly on Substack and LinkedIn about community, belonging, neurodiversity, and what it means to build systems that support people. This site is a place to collect my writing, highlight organizations doing great work, and share ongoing projects.
A Project I’m Building: Gather San Mateo
Right now I’m developing Gather San Mateo, a community-centered space that brings together families, nonprofits, and local partners who support the neurodivergent community. It’s part coffee-shop energy, part learning hub, part gathering space — a place where people can get resources, connect with others, and feel grounded.
It comes from a question I keep returning to: what would it look like if belonging had a physical home?
If you want to follow along, I share updates and essays twice a week on my Substack.
