Staff: Grace Scamurra

Grace is an education and nonprofit professional passionate about supporting under-resourced communities through teaching, mentorship, and grant writing. She previously taught at an alternative public high school in Eugene, Oregon, where she provided individualized support to students and led a student-run philanthropy program that awarded grants to local nonprofits. One of those grants went to Friends of the Children–Lane County, which first introduced her to the power of the Friends model and inspired her own path into the nonprofit sector. Since then, Grace has worked with national and global nonprofits to secure funding and strengthen capacity, with a focus on long-term, relationship-centered impact and expanding equitable access to opportunity. She holds a B.S. in Journalism from SUNY Brockport and an M.A. in English Education from Western Governors University. Based in Buffalo, NY, Grace enjoys road-tripping, hiking, snowboarding, and camping in the mountains with her Jack Russell Terrier mix, Roscoe.