Earlier this month, I stepped into the new role of President & Managing Director here at Elevate. In this new position, I am responsible for overseeing the work of our Executive Team and supporting cross-departmental collaboration in service of our top goal – consistently high-quality services for clients that leads to long-term partnerships.

While this role is new to me, I feel very lucky that I am already deeply familiar with Elevate, our phenomenal company leaders, and many of you, our clients. This September, I celebrated my 11th anniversary with Elevate and, while a lot has changed, so much has also remained the same. 

As I step into this new role, I would like to highlight a few of the reasons why I remain deeply dedicated to our work: 

• We have a remarkable founder and CEO. Alayna founded Elevate to help nonprofits win more grant funding and help nonprofit leaders clarify and refine how they will achieve their missions. Her approach was uniquely pragmatic – provide the expertise, capacity, and structure that all grant programs need and the revenue will come. She challenges anyone who works with her – staff, clients, and partners – to look at problems objectively, make decisions grounded in data, and always take the right next step to achieve progress over the long-term. I feel very lucky that she remains the strategic leader for the company as we grapple with a period of deep uncertainty in the sector.
• Our team is committed, super talented and, frankly, fun! Elevate staff care deeply about how their work supports the success of their clients and colleagues. Our clients get to see their excellent attention to detail, persuasive writing, and strategic thinking every day; I also get to see how they learn from each other, come up with creative new ways to solve old problems, and teach all of us in leadership a thing or two at least weekly. Finally: I rarely go a day without laughing – genuinely laughing – in a routine meeting. 
• We get to support smart, hard-working nonprofit leaders. Every role I’ve had – from Grant Writer to Director to Supervisor to Vice President – has involved digging into the tough, complicated, and often messy part of nonprofit fundraising and leadership. It turns out that I prefer operating in the spaces where the revenue potential is unclear, the systems are constantly in need of updates, and the community needs always seem to grow instead of shrink. I think the reason is that these complicated spaces are where really amazing nonprofit leaders also find themselves. 

So, while there are a few changes that come with a new role and new structure to our Executive Team, there are also a lot of things that remain constant. I look forward to building on the parts of Elevate that make us who we are – and continuing to work with leaders, staff, and clients who have set the standard for me over the years.

About the Author:

Kelsey Roebuck Neilson

President & Managing Director