Andrea Estes, Principal Consultant, is pursuing an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University, has her BA from the University of Washington in Anthropology, and is the founding principal of AE Consulting. AE Consulting originated in 2009 out of a passion for supporting the social good.

Her nonprofit career started in 2007, when hired at the C.A.S.T. for Kids Foundation as their Operations Manager to update the administrative infrastructure and augment overall development to support growth and sustainability. Some of her highlighted accomplishments included developing a program evaluation tool in partnership with the UW Sociology Department and developing their grants strategy from scratch. In effect, C.A.S.T received over $100,000 in grant funding within the first year and now has fluid internal processes in place to support continued expansion and growth.

Andrea works with several other clients across Washington State. She has solid experience managing the full lifecycle and seeks to utilize the grants process to build organizational capacity. Andrea has been described as having excellent communication, being highly organized, and tenacious. Read more testimonials through her LinkedIn profile.   

Andrea and Nicole initiated, developed, and launched a local capacity building conference for all 501(c) organizations, the Inland Northwest Nonprofit Conference. The February 2013 event will mark its third year and continued efficacy as an educational and professional development event attracting speakers and attendees across Washington and some from Idaho (see Conference tab for more info).

Interesting tidbit on Andrea: "Most unique job I've ever had was as a wheat truck driver for three summers in southeast Washington as a teenager!"

Nicole Ferrell, Editor and Creative Contributor, has her Bachelor of Arts degree in Technical Communications from Eastern Washington University, where she studied in the areas of technical writing, journalism & marketing, and graphic & web design. She has been with AE Consulting since January of 2010 and is responsible for editing, designing marketing materials, and managing AE's blog.

Nicole has over seven years experience working in a law firm where she has fine-tuned her writing and editing skills. She is passionate about editing because she loves bringing out the writer's full potential.

Interesting tidbit on Nicole: "I love playing Scrabble, but I'm terrible at it. Winning is all about strategic placement, and frankly, I'd rather focus on playing an impressive word."