Amanda Heidel, Choice Words Ithaca Manager
Amanda came to Choice Words in 2020 after six years of working in advertising and marketing for Viacom Media Networks. She recently moved to Ithaca from the Hudson Valley and is spearheading the development of Choice Words’ new office in Ithaca. In 2019, she helped Choice Words develop the Small and Emerging nonprofit grants program. Her background in marketing dovetails with grant writing to create an innovative framework for guiding emerging nonprofits who often need diversified funding streams to get on their feet. She is also an artist, educator, and co-founder of Mushroom Shed, a fiscally-sponsored community mushroom education project.

Jennifer Leao, Grant Writer
Jennifer Leao has over 12 years of experience as a non-profit administrator and capacity builder. She specializes in post-award management and governmental grant proposals at all levels. Jennifer has worked in supportive housing and homeless services, legal services, and university community-based initiatives and research projects. Born and raised in the Los Angeles area, She has lived in New York, NY for over 15 years.

Cyndi Guy, Grant Writer
Cyndi worked for the leading international non-profit literacy organization, ProLiteracy, for 18 years, serving as Marketing Coordinator in its publishing division, New Readers Press, and then as Membership and Marketing Director for their US Program Division. Following that, she worked as a Hospitality brand manager with Marietta Corporation managing projects between Premier Beauty companies and fine hotel chains. She then worked for her alma mater SUNY Cortland as a Community Outreach Coordinator. For the last ten years, she has also worked as a freelance consultant doing content writing, campaign management, fundraising, and PR. Her greatest joy has been working for CNY Film studio, American High, since 2017, evaluating and reviewing movie scripts. Cyndi lives in Homer with her three dogs and partner Richard Burke, and volunteers and serves on several boards in her local community. She also loves and supports artistic expression in all forms.

Elizabeth Gabriel, Grant Writer
Elizabeth has decades of experience in nonprofit leadership, grant writing and administration, justice, and sustainable farming. As Executive Director for six years, her collaborative approach led an all-white farmer training organization to dismantle internal supremacist structures, increase its diversity and make concrete steps toward equity and accountability. She also doubled the organization’s annual budget during her tenure. She is passionate about food production, equitable food access, land sovereignty, and working together. Elizabeth has navigated dozens of public and private grants, led project development and evaluation teams and is a graduate of multiple anti-racism trainings, she is a Soul Fire Farm Speakers Collective member, facilitates Talking Circles on Race & Racism, and holds a dual MA from American University. She runs Wellspring Forest Farm, an agroforestry farm, with her family in the Finger Lakes, on land originally stewarded by the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ Indigenous people who still reside here today south of and surrounding Cayuga Lake.

Rebecca Morgan, Grant Writer
Rebecca Morgan has spent her career between international human rights projects and farm and food system development work. Her international work included consulting with Human Rights Watch in Kosovo and with the United Nations Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Guatemala. In food system work she led the National Immigrant and Refugee Farmer Initiative for Heifer International’s USA Country Program prior to being the executive director for the Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship in New York State. Rebecca has been growing food her whole life and currently lives in Upstate New York with her husband and their four children.

Aaron Fumarola, Grant Writer
Born and raised in the Finger Lakes town of Homer, NY, Aaron is a 2007 graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he studied political science and philosophy. In 2010 he completed a Masters of Professional Studies in Environmental Policy from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY. After working for three years as Development Coordinator for Lime Hollow Nature Center in Cortland, NY, he transitioned to Teatown Lake Reservation in Ossining, NY, where he worked for nearly two years as the organization’s sole grant writer. With a lifelong enthusiasm for the arts and humanities, he joined Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in 2015, where he was responsible for cultivating and soliciting donations from new and existing donors in support of arts and education programming. In April of 2017 he transitioned to Choice Words on a part-time basis to research and write proposals on behalf of a number of our clients.

Briana Maloney, Vice President
Briana Maloney has been grant writing for twelve years and has won nearly $30M for Choice Words’ clients. She is a research and information specialist with experience in social media and web design. She previously worked as an academic librarian at Rockland Community College, Mount Saint Mary College, and at the New York State Library as a public information advocate where she sought funding for various statewide public education programs. She is on the board of the Rondout Valley Education Foundation, serving as chair of the grants committee and is a member of the Music Institute of Sullivan and Ulster Counties’ High Strung Orchestra. She currently resides in Kerhonkson, NY, with her two kids, husband, and adorable mutt.

Steve Densmore, President and Founder
Steve Densmore has spent the last 25 years working as a communications professional in the Hudson Valley. An award winning writer and journalist, Steve spent much of that time working in the trenches for several weekly newspapers and magazines, serving as a reporter, editor and publisher (sometimes all at the same time!) Steve’s career path evolved substantially in 2005 when he began working as a communications consultant for several Hudson Valley nonprofit organizations. This grew to include the Dyson Foundation and the Walkway Over the Hudson nonprofit organization, where he has spearheaded public relations and grant writing for the last several years. Steve launched Choice Words in 2010 in response to an increasing call for supportive communications services among Hudson Valley nonprofits. He has served on various boards of directors during his career including the New York Press Association, the Vassar Warner Home of Poughkeepsie, the Barrett Art Center, and the environmental advocacy organization, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. He lives in Montgomery.