Heather Denkmire is an experienced writer (click here for a list of publishing credits) and business owner with a passion for issues of social justice. She graduated from Skidmore College in 1991 where she majored in sociology and minored in English. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Delta, the International Sociology Honor Society.

In the early 1990s, Heather worked at the National Women's Political Caucus in Washington, DC to increase the number of women elected to political office. She went on to assist in the development activities for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's department of Campus Ministry in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Heather has provided grant-seeking services for non-profit organizations across the country with extraordinary success. Since the inception of grantwinners.net, Heather's work has been helped grantwinners.net clients acquire over $500,000 in grant funds.

In 2004, Heather became the grants coordinator for York County Community College. In addition to coordinating the grants proposal process in a 4 million dollar capital campaign, Heather's work included locating and securing funding for a new Associate Degree of Science in Nursing program, a new Entrepreneurial Center, and a variety of departmentally specific projects. After just one year, Heather's proposals were instrumental in raising over $200,000 for YCCC. In September of 2005, Heather left YCCC to pursue work for grantwinners.net clients more effectively.

Since 2000, Heather has worked with internationally renowned literacy consultant Margaret Doughty to build literacy coalitions in urban areas across the country. Together, Heather and Margaret have worked in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Cleveland to create collaborative partnerships between city governments, literacy providers, and other community leaders. The results of these partnerships are citywide educational safety nets that fill gaps in educational services and ensure better access to strong and effective literacy programs through funding and training opportunities.

Heather's freelance writing assignments have ranged from regular columns for young adult magazines to corporate coverage for publications like the Houston Business Journal and Mainebiz. Her most recent work is a book entitled The Truth About Fear and Depression (Facts on File, 2004) that is part of a nationally recommended high school curriculum. Among her many community involvements, she is particularly passionate about her work with her local Time Bank. Heather lives in Saco, ME with her husband Josh and daughters Maya and Althea.

Gabrielle Gallucci has nearly 15 years of nonprofit management experience with significant expertise in program development and curriculum design, grant making and oversight, and partnership development and fundraising. After nearly 10 years with the YWCA USA as their senior Youth Program officer and special projects consultant, Gabrielle now assists clients in finding funding, designing, developing, and sustaining effective program efforts.

Gabrielle has successfully designed and implemented national programs with a combined portfolio of over $1 million, and has written grants for organizations large and small that have brought in over $500K. Recent projects include: designing, writing the curriculum, developing the training, and managing the implementation of the pilot sites in six major markets for the Project ConfidenceSM Outreach Program for the YWCA USA, CURVATION® and Queen Latifah, and grant writing, prospect research and program planning for local nonprofits and universities.
 
While at the YWCA, she designed and directed its national youth initiatives including, YWCA TechGYRLS®, an after-school program combining technology and community to empower girls to take charge of their future in over 65 locations, the YWCA/PepsiCo Girls Leadership Program, a comprehensive youth leadership program, and NetPrepGYRLS™, a training course that enabled underserved young women to be competitive in information technology. In 1996, Gabrielle was co-convener of the First National Girls Conference at the UN, a girl-led conference that created a national girls platform for action. She co-authored Preventing Teen Pregnancy: Youth Development and After-School Programs, a publication that grew out of the organization-wide evaluation she designed of YWCA adolescent pregnancy prevention programs.

Gabrielle started working with youth while attending Oberlin College, co-creating Students for Students, providing local children with quality after school programming facilitated by college students. She is an active board member for Platform Shoes Forum, a nonprofit that builds safe and educational online technology programs for youth, and is a member of the Girls Action Group focusing on improving the situation of girls in the juvenile justice system in Maine. She currently lives in Southern Maine with her husband and young son.

Jeff has presented 100-plus workshops and courses on virtually every facet of grant writing. Since his career began in Portland 20 years ago, he has won competitive grants for K-12 education, social services, healthcare, and other purposes. His hundreds of proposals have sought and secured funding from scores of federal, state, and foundation programs, with a 75% success rate. They have benefited thousands of children, youths, and adults of all ages in urban and rural communities in Maine, Oklahoma, and elsewhere.

Rebekah Hayes is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, with a Bachelor of Arts in Writing. She has been in fundraising and development for two years, working primarily for a California-based educational and environmental nonprofit agency. Last year, Bekah brought in more than $50,000 in grant funding from independent foundations. She also co-authored a federal grant, which will bring $8.5 million to the agency over five years.

Bekah's fundraising specialty is in education, but her areas of interest include arts/humanities, environmental issues, human rights and social services. She has a varied personal and professional resume, which includes working directly with adolescents with severe Autism, graduate work in spirituality/religion at Wake Forest Divinity School, and a musical career, both as an independent singer-songwriter, as well as a member of the Portland, Maine-based rock band isobell.

Bekah holds certification from the Southern California Center for Nonprofit Management.

Courtney specializes in strategic planning, communication and public relations. Her experience, from various perspectives including in-house, agency and as a journalist, results in being able to look at a company and its grant needs from every angle to provide solutions.

She creates tailored, well-researched, client-specific communication and marketing plans for a number of multi-national corporations.
Courtney’s work on short- and long-term strategies includes campaign development, product launches, industry mapping, consumer and
corporate event management, and social media.

Previously an in-house Communications Director for an American NGO, the role was PR intensive and involved establishing media relations
with outlets including Time, MSNBC, USA Today, New York Times and Associated Press. She wrote the majority of the company
communications, from product launches, e-newsletters and press releases, to web content, media training materials and event
invitations.

Her writing background, stemming from a BA in English from the College
of Charleston, SC, also extends to journalism where she was deputy
editor for two different publications. She currently contributes
monthly articles on a wide range of consumer topics for a Belgium
newspaper.