leah ray
CHIEF Strategist

Nonprofit fundraising professional Leah Ray has successfully built sustainable revenue and high-performing development teams for large local and national organizations. Her experience runs the gamut: direct response, mid-level and major individual giving, planned giving, foundations, corporate giving and cause marketing. Since joining Social Capital, Ray has served as chief strategist to leading nonprofit and foundations, including Americares, Catholic Charities USA, Feeding America, FoodCorps, The Global Foodbanking Network, Easterseals, Enterprise Community Partners, Make-A-Wish America, March of Dimes, National Trust for Historic Preservation, United Way Worldwide and YMCA of the USA.

Earlier in her career, Ray built and led transformational fundraising teams at Greater Chicago Food Depository, Feeding America and United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. As senior vice president of development for Feeding America, Ray led the organization’s fundraising efforts with corporate partners and major donors and was responsible for annual revenue goals in excess of $80 million. During her tenure, Feeding America launched the Give a Meal initiative, which has raised more than $5 million to date, and grew cause fundraising from $4 million to more than $20 million.

Ray led external affairs at the Greater Chicago Food Depository, where she grew annual fundraising from $10 million to $20 million over a three-year period through the expansion of corporate and foundation partnerships and individual giving. At United Way, Ray led a board task force to reimagine the organization’s positioning of its impact in Chicago’s neighborhoods and raised several major gifts.

Ray earned a bachelor’s degree at Grinnell College and a master’s certificate in nonprofit management from North Park University.