Alayna Buckner

Founder & CEO

Hometown: Clarke County, VA

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Alayna has been a grant writer and nonprofit consultant for twenty years. She founded Elevate in 2013 to work with a team of grant writers and to make the highest-level development expertise accessible to nonprofit organizations around the country. She is proud that Elevate remains women-owned and women-led. Since 2013, Alayna has overseen Elevate’s growth to one of the country’s leading grant writing firms, serving hundreds of nonprofits since its founding, and employing dozens of staff around the country. Today, Alayna sets the organization’s vision and purpose and supports its brand awareness and marketing team. She also works closely with the Executive Team to develop new services that will improve nonprofit’s impact in their communities.

Alayna graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Philosophy and Public Policy and Honors in Ethics in Society in 2006. In 2015, she became a licensed consultant by the Standards of Excellence, was named ‘40 under 40’ by Leadership Arlington, and became a member of EO (Entrepreneurs’ Organization), the global thought leader on entrepreneurship. Alayna is also a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and American Grant Writers Association.

Alayna loves dogs and especially her rescue pitties. She is a chess player, a poker player, an avid baker, reader, vegetarian foodie, soccer superfan, theatre-lover, and podcast aficionado. She can most often be found at one of DC’s local coffee shops.

What’s your biggest grammatical pet peeve?

Meaningless sentences. So many words…so little content. Life is too short not to commit to saying something real.

What punctuation mark would you be and why?

I would be the exclamation point (!!!) because I am just very emphatic. Not to mention generally upbeat.

What’s your favorite way to spend a Sunday afternoon?

It depends on the weather: if it is nice outside, I'd say sleeping in, having brunch, getting a pedicure, and then doing some 'urban hiking', which is walking from coffee shop to coffee shop doing a little window shopping along the way. If it is cold or rainy, then I want to be inside cozy with my rescue doggie, reading whatever young adult fantasy novel is en vogue.