Deborah has spent more than thirty years raising funds and building awareness for local and national nonprofit organizations that help disenfranchised children and adults. She spent 15 years in the HIV/AIDS arena, starting in New York City with Gay Men’s Health Crisis. In 1993, she co-founded Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS, which became a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. In Seattle, she worked for organizations serving foster children and their caregivers and homeless youth. In Boston, since 2010, she served as the VP for Development and Communications at YouthBuild USA and Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center, and was Chief Development Officer at 2Life Communities (housing for low-income seniors), and at Victory Programs (housing and services for homeless individuals and families).

Deborah retired in March of 2022 and moved to Stephentown. When she joined the Stephentown Library Board of Trustees, she realized the full circle of her career: Her very first job, from age13 to 16, was for her local library!