Lindsay Gebhart
Lindsay Gebhart has been a frontline nonprofit fundraiser for more than 15 years, raising tens of millions of dollars, and serving at a number of New York’s more prominent and prestigious nonprofit institutions (Sheltering Arms Children and Family Services, Hale House Canter, St. John’s Bread and Life, Arab American Family Support Center, and Junior Achievement of New York). She is a nonprofit Development visionary, never comfortable with the status quo, and is skilled in all facets of nonprofit as a fundraising generalist. Her specialties include creating holistic giving opportunities, cross-team collaboration, and crisis fundraising strategy.
She is a proud alum of Kent State University’s School of Media and Journalism and received her Master of Public Administration with a concentration in non-profit management from Baruch College, serving as a Hearst Fellow in 2011. She was born and raised in Hamilton, Ohio, before making Brooklyn her home.
Lindsay has three children, two of whom were adopted from the NYC foster care system. Through her experience as a mother and a foster parent, she has gained a unique skillset in navigating difficult conversations and explaining complex topics with tact and kindness.
Additionally, she is a survivor of stage 2 HER+ breast cancer then, subsequently, Breast Implant Illness #goingflat
In her free time, she gleefully collects new hobbies and then wistfully casts them aside, much to the headshaking of her husband, who KNEW she would never use that pottery wheel she asked for in 2019.
Leya Burns
Leya Burns is a frontline fundraiser who specializes in complex project management and cross-department innovation and improvement. She began her career in the finance sector before moving to the nonprofit space where she flexed the breadth of her writing skills to produce highly successful proposals that utilized a combination of her exceptional narrative and technical writing skills.
Hailing from Charlottesville, Virginia, she graduated from Loyola University Maryland with a double major in Writing and French, where she was inducted into the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa society as a junior. When not hard at work creating and optimizing products for Accelerate Fundraising, you can find her rock climbing, playing video games, knitting, or playing with her cat.