NH’s Top Women-Led Nonprofit: (#20) Granite Edvance Corporation

When Christiana Thornton was ready to go to college, she could have used the help offered by organizations like Granite Edvance. Her family had not saved for college, and she had no idea she lived down the road from an organization that could have helped her make college more affordable. Later, when Thornton visited her college’s career services department to figure out her next steps, she took a career assessment that recommended a career as a nonprofit CEO. However, at the time, she didn’t agree with that assessment. 

Yet after six years in Washington D.C. working for then U.S. Senator John E. Sununu and then serving almost a decade as the president of the NH Bankers Association, Thornton became the CEO of a nonprofit that helps students pursue higher education.

Thornton took the reins of what was then called the NH Higher Education Assistance Foundation, or the NHHEAF Network, in 2018—a nonprofit with three distinct divisions, each with their own board of directors. Under her leadership, and during the pandemic, the organization consolidated to one entity and discontinued its work as a federal loan servicer to be more efficient and to focus on serving NH students and their families.

“That was a big shift for us,” Thornton says. “It enabled us over the past two years to dive deeper into the needs of New Hampshire students and their families as they explore college and career pathways.” The organization, renamed Granite Edvance in 2023, focuses on planning for and paying for college, assisting with completing financial aid forms, and providing affordable loans to New Hampshire students.

“Our goal has been to increase funds for scholarships,” Thornton says, adding Granite Edvance provided about $500,000 in scholarships this year. “Our goal is to provide $1 million in direct scholarships to New Hampshire students [annually],” she says.

Granite Edvance provided $75,000 in emergency funds to college students last year to assist with emergency expenses. In September, Granite Edvance provided $25,000 in seed money to establish a scholarship fund to support students who are completing prerequisite courses for nursing degrees through Granite State PARTNERS, a federally funded statewide program. “Our goal is for [education] to be as affordable as possible,” Thornton says.