Forty Under 40: Cyndi Bilyeu

Cyndi Bilyeu’s passion for nonprofit work started after she completed her master’s degree in political science at the University of Arkansas in 1999. She decided to spend a couple of years in AmeriCorps service to get a feel for what she wanted to do. The second year she became an AmeriCorps Promise Fellow assigned to work in the Bentonville and Springdale schools on violence prevention programs through the Northwest Arkansas Crisis Intervention Center.nSince then, she has spent five years as the director of volunteer services at the Crisis Intervention Center and since April 2003 as executive director of HOPE Inc. HOPE is a nonprofit agency dedicated to assisting cancer patients with prescription and other financial needs, and developing clinical trials in Northwest Arkansas. nIn her first year as director, Bilyeu has added two additional staff members and doubled the agency’s budget and its fund-raising efforts. nBilyeu said her immediate goal is to “put HOPE on the map and bring HOPE to the next level in terms of nonprofit capacity and needs assessment.”n”I love knowing that what I’m doing is making a difference in the lives of others,” she said. nBilyeu is from Uniontown in Crawford County.