Avery Belyeu came to Lambda Legal from the Education Development Center, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit where she focused on suicide prevention strategy with the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. In this role, she worked with senior leaders in the private and public sectors to advance suicide prevention strategy nationwide. Prior to that, Belyeu worked at The Trevor Project, the country’s leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ young people under 25, where she held several positions, including Education Director. Belyeu’s expertise includes managing teams, developing strategic partnerships, and organizational planning and implementation. During her time at the Trevor Project, Belyeu led a network of volunteers that participated in fundraising and programming in cities across the country, and she helped to raise the organization’s visibility to create new opportunities for fundraising with major donors and large corporations. She is an in-demand speaker on the topic of LGBTQ rights especially around the intersections of LGBTQ people and faith and religious identities. Belyeu attended Appalachian State University where she received a Bachelors in Science degree. She has pursued graduate work in higher education administration at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and she is currently completing a Master in Divinity Degree from Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth Texas. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Religious Institute, a multi-faith organization dedicated to advocating for sexual, gender, and reproductive health, education, and justice in faith communities and society, and on the Transgender Working Group of the National LGBT Task Force’s Practice Spirit Do Justice Initiative.