Kelli Crawford has spent her career entirely in the non-profit sector with a focus on providing inspiring and impactful educational experiences through volunteerism. Prior to joining the Ready Ready team in 2022, Kelli served as the Director of Impact at Junior Achievement of the Triad. In that role, she built relationships with school districts, educators, and volunteers across five counties in order to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy. She piloted new virtual program implementation methods that equipped students with financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship skills.
Kelli also worked at the Greensboro Science Center for a decade, where she progressed from intern then part-time educator while receiving her MA in History and Museum Studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Upon graduation, she became the full-time Volunteer Coordinator and Curator of Collections. During her tenure, volunteers devoted almost 300,000 hours to the organization. The volunteer program was honored as the Non-Profit Volunteer Program of the Year by the Volunteer Center of the Triad in 2015 and with the Volunteer Engagement Award from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in 2019.
Much of Kelli’s work has centered around helping individuals connect their skills and interests to missions they care about. She has been an advocate for volunteer management, serving on and later Co-Chairing the Volunteer Management Committee of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums from 2015-2021 and the Board of the Association of Leaders in Volunteer Engagement (AL!VE) from 2019-2021. She was awarded the Governor’s Medallion for Volunteer Service in 2016.
Kelli is married to her high school sweetheart, Steven. They have four fur babies, including two cats – Eva and Merlin, and two dogs – Luke and Leia. Kelli enjoys camping, hiking, and photography.
She earned her BA in History and American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.