Leigh received her BA in English from Seattle University and her MA in Applied Sociology from Cal Poly Humboldt. Leigh has spent her professional career in Humboldt County working in the philanthropy and nonprofit world developing programs and projects that have benefitted our local community.  She started her career cultivating and directing local community resource centers as part of California’s “Healthy Start Initiative” grants and then moved on to work in the development, philanthropy, grant writing and fundraising fields. 

She helped establish and worked as the founding Executive Director for the local McLean Foundation for 12 years and was part of a leadership team of local funders and nonprofit partners who led many collaborative efforts to approach big problems in the community during that time. After her tenure at the Foundation she began work as an independent project consultant most notably with Humboldt County Public Health developing their local oral health program and assisting in securing multi-million-dollar Department of Health Care Services funding for the program. Her experience in working for Public Health and the Department of Health and Human Services included work within complex systems and research. 

Leigh has served on many local, state and national nonprofit boards and committees including: United Way, the Headwaters Fund, Access Humboldt, the Community Health Alliance, California Association of Nonprofits (CAN), Northern California Association of Nonprofits (NorCAN), Northcoast Grantmaking Partnership (Co-Founder), North Coast Funders Network, 211 Humboldt Steering Committee, Greater Eureka Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Zoos & Aquariums Development Committee. She is currently a board member on the newly created Redwood Coast Chamber Foundation as well as serving on the Board of the Humboldt Senior Resource Center and is a Soroptimist with the Humboldt Bay Club.