Hilery Livengood     Senior Consultant

Armed with an HTML manual and text editor, Hilery started her eCareer in 1995, when she was hired to create websites for an Iowa media company’s daily newspaper, television station, and several subsidiaries. Four years and two Newspaper Association of America national awards later, her team had also built and was maintaining websites for the local chamber, CVB, and the University of Iowa Department of Athletics. All this WITHOUT a content management system, so Hilery fully understands the challenges of keeping wide and deep sites fresh and functional.

In 1999 she moved to The University of Iowa Foundation to revamp its web presence and establish an online giving site. During her seven-plus years at the Foundation, Hilery and her team’s work earned CASE awards and high rankings by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and Iowa’s online giving site raised nearly $5 million. Hilery’s spoken about online fundraising at many professional conferences in the U.S. and abroad, and she’s worked with numerous nonprofits as a communicator and web consultant. She’s an active community volunteer, having served on several nonprofit boards of directors and many committees, and is a former president of the Junior League of Cedar Rapids and the Cedar Rapids Metropolitan Arts Council. So far, she hasn’t taken the advice printed on cocktail napkins gifted to her by a friend: “Stop me before I volunteer again.”

Hilery holds a bachelor’s in journalism and German from The University of Iowa and a master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She also studied at The University of Vienna. Prior to her eLife, Hilery handled PR for an art gallery and wrote for several newspapers.