Our Team

Our team is dedicated to guiding your non-dilutive funding efforts from the first identification of the most suitable opportunity through to submission and subsequent post-award reporting requirements.


It is E.B. Howard Consulting’s (EBHC) ambition is to support the innovation ecosystem and promote inclusive economic growth. We believe inclusivity is imperative for innovation, and building a strong and diverse economy where all our citizens thrive is essential. The EBHC team is currently 100% women and 40% comprised of individuals who are BIPOC – specifically Hispanic/Latina and First Nation/Native American.

We seek to intentionally grow the diversity of our staff across geography, gender, sexuality, race, belief, ability, and other realms and identities, in order to be reflective and inclusive of the diverse communities and missions of our clients. We actively take proactive steps to ensure a diverse applicant pool for any open positions. We believe that building a team with this in mind enables us to better serve the innovation ecosystem and the business community at large… together.


E.B. Howard Consulting strongly aligns with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and meets the requirements of Service Organization Control (SOC) – SOC 2 criteria and controls to protect customers and business data.

In addition, all individuals who work for E.B. Howard Consulting has completed training and certification through the National Institutes of Health training on information security, privacy, and security awareness training and has completed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Extramural Research NIH Web-based training course “Protecting Human Research Participants” in addition to adhering to company-wide protocols and standard for data storage. Additionally, staff completed the Department of Education’s IES What Works Clearinghouse Group Design Standards Training through whatworks.ed.gov. As well as at least 30 hours of self-directed professional development per year to strengthen skill sets.


Since Christine founded E.B. Howard Consulting in 2013, the firm has secured more than $100 million in non-dilutive grant funding for organizations in the innovation ecosystem. Christine and her team have 15+ years of experience in preparing and securing funding from various federal agencies, including, but not limited to, NIH, NSF, DOD, DoED, and DOE, with a specific focus on SBIR/STTR (Phase I, Phase II, and FastTracks).

The entire team, together, lent their knowledge and expertise to develop and refine proposal preparation processes and funding research procedures for funding menu development. Ultimately creating a better experience for all clients. This is a process we visit each quarter. In addition, the entire team (yes, the entire team) was instrumental in the development, implementation, and refinement of StartupFundHub.com 

We believe that dilutive funding is a key tool for de-risking investments of potential investors.


Our Team

Christine E.B. Howard

Christine E.B. Howard

Founder & CEO

Christine E.B. Howard is the Founder & CEO of E.B. Howard Consulting is passionate about equal and equitable access to funding (dilutive and non-dilutive) for historically underrepresented founders of start-ups.

She actively mentors and advises small businesses through programs like the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps™), Columbia Technology Ventures, Verizon Forward for Good Accelerator, NYSERDA EIR Program, Startup Grind, and many others. She has also served as a pitch judge for start-up competitions like 43North, Female Founders in Tech  (FinTech) competition, E^3 and NYBPC, and many others.

She is a Buffalo/Niagara National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), Past Board Member, and Past President. She has served as Sponsorship Committee Chair, Programming Committee Chair, and Nominating Committee Chair. She is also an active member of the Chapter’s Diversity and Inclusion Task Force.

Her awards include being listed in the Haverling Hall of Distinction – Alumni Award in June 2019 and the Distinguished Alumni Award named as Parsons Community Service Award in October 2018 for her work with a small team of women business owners in addressing challenges encountered by the Minority and Women Business Enterprise (MWBE) processes in New York State.

Christine is a proud alumnus of the Corning Community College and University at Buffalo – the State University of New York, holding two Bachelor’s Degrees and a Master’s Degree. She has 15+ years of experience in the development of non-dilutive funding resources, proposal development & grant writing, designing evidence-based projects and activities, monitoring the implementation of those projects, evaluating, and providing feedback for continuous program improvement. As an experienced evaluator, she has extensive experience in advising and working with a variety of technical-focused projects that involve applying operational research theory and methodology, developing logic models, and projects that require applying knowledge of mixed-methods research design and experimental design and analysis.

Her firm is certified as a women-owned business with NYS, NYC, and SBA.


Elizabeth Bunich

Elizabeth Bunich

Client Funding Strategist

Elizabeth has a rich background in grant funding and has been working in the funding space since 2003 (raising $11M+ for ~350 proposals) and came to E. B. Howard Consulting in 2017. Prior to starting here, she worked primarily in the municipal sector and wrote hundreds of grant proposals to state and federal agencies, obtaining more than $11 million in funding for everything from major infrastructure projects (water and sewer) to other public facilities, homeland security, environment, education, records management, community/economic development, and historic preservation projects. In addition, Elizabeth is a proud alumnus of The State University of New York at Buffalo State College and holds a Bachelor’s Degree.

Elizabeth believes there is always something new to work on and learn about. Even if clients are working in the same industry on the same problems – whether it’s utilizing Artificial Intelligence, IoT, developing a software product or platform, creating a medical device, or solving a community or societal problem, everyone’s solution and approach are unique. One thing she enjoys most is working with the world’s problem solvers – the engineers, data scientists, software developers, social scientists, medical experts, educators, and too many more to list – who are working to advance their fields and the greater body of knowledge about so many different things.

Municipal projects often require pictures to document the problem, and she has been to many interesting sites – parks, waterfronts, water and sewage plants, historic buildings, and some wet, muddy, undeveloped areas complete with waist-high brush and voracious mosquitoes. Probably the most fun was a commissioning ceremony for a new firefighting vehicle (funded by FEMA), where she got to ride in the vehicle. She declined a ride on the aerial, however. It turns out they are A LOT taller in real-life. She stayed on solid ground and took pictures of everyone else. Other fun things include waiting weeks for a rainy day and then dashing out in torrential rain for that single perfect picture of a storm drain or flooded intersection. SBIR proposals don’t involve that same level of physical interaction, but they lead her to read through studies, clinical trials, and related literature, which is fun for her.

Quick advice from Elizabeth, 1) “If it’s in the budget, it has to be in the narrative” 2) “Use your resources. Sometimes helpful information can be found in the oddest of places.” 3) “letters of support are more important than you think”. 4) “Also – and I can’t stress enough how helpful this is – starting the DUNS, SAM, and all other required registration processes early, even if you are not ready to apply.”


Amber Clark

Amber Clark

Client Funding Strategist

As a BIPOC Woman, one of Amber’s passions is working with other underrepresented founders to bring diversity, equity, and inclusion to the startup funding landscape and the small business community.

Amber’s unique skillset built on diversified industry experiences has enabled her to provide intuitive and individualized guidance to each client. Amber is an industrious self-starter who learned proposal preparation skills through direct experience with funding lines and maintains a steadfast habit of continual evolution, learning, and professional development in the funding industry. 

Prior to joining E.B. Howard Consulting, Amber was in the Business Management industry from 2009-2019, where she developed core transferable soft skills, including project management, critical thinking, creative problem solving, technical skills, interpersonal skills, conceptual skills, money management, providing outstanding customer care and client relations. Amber received her education in Human Services with a focus on Disabilities and Mental Health. 

Amber Joined E.B. Howard Consulting in 2019 after several years of private consulting work in the grant proposal preparation space, where she developed a passion for writing federal grant proposals and the experience necessary to cultivate the skill set required to craft high-quality and competitive proposals. 

To date, Amber has helped prepare nearly 200 proposals for various federal agencies, including NSF, DoD, DoE, EDA, and NIH, as well as for privately funded opportunities. She has also developed over 100 Funding Menus for clients with unique funding needs. Amber is certified in agile project management and is a certified scrum master.


Sierra Ragoonanan

Sierra Ragoonanan

Strategic Development

Sierra uses her background in Sociology to help clients with proposal grant proposal preparation and with projects that require an external evaluation. Prior to joining E.B. Howard Consulting, in 2020, she focused on the implementation of innovative STEM-based solutions to various social, cultural, or environmental issues with an equitable lens (DEIB) in mind. Additionally, during this time, she gained extensive experience and knowledge in preparing state and federal grants and evaluating various national service grants and various educational-focused grant-funded programs like 21st CCLC (Sierra has received and managed seven 21st CCLC grants in Florida).

In addition, Sierra brings to the table expertise on how to deliver professional development to after-school professionals on programming implementation best practices and data collection methodologies (Sierra has trained 500+ after-school professionals and has worked as a school administrator and managed 70+ staff and 500+ kids). Most notably, She is certified by the Weikart Center as a YPQI/A external evaluator.

Sierra had worked as a grant program manager for the City of Orlando for seven years. While there, she wrote and managed one of the largest AmeriCorps programs in the state of Florida, with a total of 75 members. During that time, she also was selected as an After-School Ambassador for After-School Alliance, an elite group of professionals that run after-school programming. In addition, Sierra is a proud alumnus of the University of Evansville and holds a Bachelor’s Degree.


Sarah Sarviss

Sarah Sarviss

Marketing & Business Development

Prior to joining E.B. Howard Consulting in 2019, Sarah was in the Information Technology industry for over 25 years, both in computer hardware and software development, and bringing the product to market later, moving to do this within SaaS, website, and app development.

In addition, Sarah brings 15 + of extensive knowledge in business methodologies such as Sales, Marketing, and Business Development. Having initially worked within the computer hardware channeling, developing distribution channels, and bringing new products to market, she later moved into the same role within software development, both within the US and Internationally, helping a wide range of technology businesses scale to meet demand, expanding their market reach, whilst preserving the integrity of the product range and the business. Being a solutions-based thinker, she is often able to expand applications to help solve pain points for clients during the proposal preparation process.

Sarah has knowledge and experience with Client Relationship Management (CRM) software has enabled her to champion the establishment of CRM platforms within various businesses (including at E.B. Howard Consulting), including AutoTask, Salesforce, Hubspot, and TeamWave, and has also worked in other CRM application development platforms. From a CMS angle, she has Worpress and Drupal experience, along with knowledge of a wide range of plug-ins, including Yost, Mailchimp, WooCommerce, and custom applications.

Sarah’s extensive business experience brings her the ability to excel at client follow-up, helping to find out client needs and guide them in the right direction for success.

error: