Mandy Ableidinger
Mandy serves as NCECF’s Policy and Practice Leader. She leads the Pathways to Grade-Level Reading Initiative and is guiding the development of a Birth‐to‐Eight Policy Center to serve as a reliable source of information on birth‐to‐eight policies for North Carolina policymakers, business leaders, philanthropists, early childhood professionals, community leaders and others. She also writes and blogs on state and federal policy issues impacting young children and their families.
Mandy has more than 15 years of experience in the nonprofit and public sectors, focused on children’s issues. Prior to joining NCECF, she was an independent contractor in the early childhood, child welfare, and child mental health fields, including helping to guide the first year of the Pathways Initiative for NCECF. She has previously served as the Director of Policy and Budget Analysis at Action for Children NC (now NC Child), and as a fiscal policy analyst for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Morocco and spent two years there working on education issues with the UN World Food Programme, teaching English, and learning Moroccan Arabic (which she has now, sadly, forgotten).
Mandy holds a B.A. from Duke University and a Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) from Princeton University. She lives in Raleigh with her husband, three children, and Vanilla Bean the hamster.