Peri Finkelstein: Turning a $1 Million Fundraising Journey into a Disability Inclusion Movement

Peri R. Finkelstein is the founder and CEO of the Team Peri Foundation, a New York-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that fights ableism and promotes disability inclusion through a podcast, speaking engagements, scholarships and community projects. Born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy and a full-time wheelchair user, she turned a family fundraising effort into a movement that has raised more than $1 million for children with serious illnesses — and, in September 2026, published a memoir, The Velvet Bow, that refuses the "inspiration story" she has been handed her entire life.

Table of Contents

• A Fundraiser Before She Could Drive
• From Team Project to 501(c)(3) Foundation
• The Million-Dollar Milestone
• Building a Public Voice
• Education as a Launchpad
• The Velvet Bow and What Comes Next
• Lessons for Entrepreneurs
• Frequently Asked Questions

A Fundraiser Before She Could Drive

Peri Finkelstein started raising money for children with life-threatening illnesses before she was old enough to drive. Fundraising under the Team Peri banner began in 2008 in support of Chai Lifeline, an international support network for families facing medical crises, and from 2009 the team raced every year in the Miami Marathon as a fundraising vehicle for Chai Lifeline's Team Lifeline and Camp Simcha programs. Finkelstein, who was born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy and uses an electric wheelchair, has described the decision to act early as a matter of necessity rather than ambition. "At a young age, I knew I was going to have to live my life now and not wait because my life may be shorter due to my medical challenges," she told Adelphi University in 2024. "I always say that while my physical body continues to fail me, my brain is my best attribute and I am going to use it to the fullest extent."

That framing — urgency converted into action — is the thread running through everything Finkelstein has built since. By the time she enrolled at Adelphi University, the fundraising machine she ran with her family had already outgrown the label of a side project, and the question was no longer whether Team Peri could raise money, but what it could become.

From Team Project to 501(c)(3) Foundation

The Team Peri Foundation officially launched in November 2022, incorporated as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization with Finkelstein as president and CEO. The idea had been on the shelf for years: it was Team Peri member David Stulberger who first asked why the group was not a nonprofit itself, and Finkelstein shelved the suggestion until she had the credentials to execute it — a bachelor's degree and an MBA in marketing from Adelphi University, both completed by 2023. The foundation received its federal tax exemption in August 2025, according to ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer records (EIN 92-1457065).

Its mission is broader than fundraising. The foundation describes itself as driven by "justice, compassion, and the belief that true inclusion celebrates diversity," and it works to amplify marginalized voices, challenge societal norms and combat ableism. The three pillars are the Step Out of Line podcast, corporate and academic speaking engagements led by Finkelstein on disability inclusion, and an online community — supported by partnerships and donations to organizations that share its values, among them Chai Lifeline, NYU Langone Hospital Long Island's Child Life Program, Runway of Dreams, the Be Like Josh Foundation, Canine Companions and Adelphi University's Levermore Global Scholars program. The foundation also runs its own programs, including the annual Bowl-a-Thon fundraiser and The Peri Project, which assembles self-care kits for Pediatric ICU caregivers — a pilot launched in the first quarter of 2025 to make caregiver mental health part of the patient-care equation.

The Million-Dollar Milestone

In January 2024, Team Peri passed the number that fifteen years of marathon fundraising had been building toward: $1,017,340 raised for Chai Lifeline. The campaign had run through twelve consecutive years of participation in the Miami Marathon, plus benefit events ranging from Citi Field awareness nights to tennis tournaments, bootcamp and Zumba benefits, cupcake wars, paint nights, online raffles and Charitybuzz auctions.

For Finkelstein, the million-dollar figure is less a trophy than proof of a model: a small, family-run team that never stopped showing up can outlast professionally staffed fundraising operations. The recognition followed. Her fundraising work has been acknowledged by personalities including Skeery Jones of The Elvis Duran and the Morning Show, MLB player Pete Alonso and the Alonso Foundation, former MLB pitcher Nelson Figueroa, and Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman — several of whom have joined Team Peri and raced alongside its members in Miami.

Building a Public Voice

Finkelstein's most visible platform is the Step Out of Line podcast, which she produces and co-hosts with her mother, Lori Finkelstein, and which has passed 125 episodes. The name comes from actor Alex Borstein's 2019 Emmy acceptance speech, in which she urged women to "step out of line" — a phrase Finkelstein adopted for the podcast, then for the foundation's programming, and finally for the Fox 5 New York segment about her, "Step Out of Line with Peri Finkelstein," which won a 2025 New York Emmy Award for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in News. Guests on the show have included Borstein, Mayim Bialik, journalist Dana Arschin, bridal designer Pnina Tornai and Aly Raisman.

She was featured in Forbes in December 2022, and her TEDx talk, "Always Wanting More & Stepping Out of Line," delivered at Texas Woman's University, was narrated by Bialik. Finkelstein herself uses AI voice technology from ElevenLabs to deliver prepared remarks in her own synthetic voice — an explicit choice to treat technology as an accessibility tool rather than a novelty. She has also been a Points of Light Ambassador since May 2026 and received Adelphi University's 10 Under 10 Young Alumni Recognition in September 2024.

Education as a Launchpad

Finkelstein earned her BS in marketing in 2022, graduating summa cum laude with Levermore Global Scholars distinction and as a Willumstad Leadership Scholar, then completed her MBA with distinction in August 2023. She has been candid about how transformative the experience was. "I did not see myself as a leader or a change maker. I was afraid to use my voice and, frankly, did not think that it mattered," she said of her first year. The Levermore Global Scholars program, which focuses on global citizenship, leadership and social responsibility, "taught me to think differently, and I saw my potential flash before me on how I could be a leader, create social change in my own world."

She has given back to that program directly. In 2024, Team Peri established the Julie Hait Adler Scholarship, supporting undergraduates in the Levermore Global Scholars program in memory of Julie Hait Adler. Finkelstein set a $25,000 goal; the foundation reached it in December 2024, and Adelphi matched the funds through its Momentum 2 Endowment Matching Campaign, creating an annual scholarship in perpetuity.

The Velvet Bow and What Comes Next

In September 2026, Finkelstein added author to her résumé. Her debut memoir, The Velvet Bow (Lucky Book Publishing), is a funny, unsparing account of building a career, a company and a public voice while living with a rare muscular dystrophy — and it opens by rejecting the framing its author has spent her life being handed. The book arrives with advance praise from The Wire creator David Simon, who calls it "as much a manifesto as a memoir," and from Alex Borstein and Mayim Bialik, whose quotes appear on the cover. An audiobook narrated by Danielle Monaro, co-host of The Elvis Duran and the Morning Show, is planned. "I may not have control over what my body does," Finkelstein writes, "but I do have control over how I show up."

Lessons for Entrepreneurs

Finkelstein's path offers concrete lessons for founders, whether they are building a nonprofit or a for-profit business. First, start before you feel ready: she began fundraising as a child and built the credentials later. "I usually go headfirst into a project and then go figure out how to do it," she told Adelphi. Second, treat constraints as positioning: disability inclusion is not a footnote of her brand, it is the brand. Third, compound consistency — fifteen years of showing up at the same marathon produced a million-dollar result that no single gala matched. Fourth, borrow audiences deliberately: podcast guest bookings, university partnerships and media features each fed the foundation's next chapter. And fifth, let the mission outgrow the founder's physical capacity: AI voice technology, a co-hosted podcast and a scholarship endowment all extend her reach beyond what her body alone could carry.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Peri Finkelstein's story is not a story about overcoming disability; it is a story about building systems — a fundraising team, a nonprofit, a podcast, a scholarship, a book — that keep working long after any single moment of effort. From a teenager racing in Miami to a CEO whose words carry a New York Emmy and a million-dollar ledger, she has shown that the most durable businesses, for-profit or not, are the ones built on a mission the founder genuinely lives. For entrepreneurs wondering where to start, her advice is characteristically blunt: go headfirst into the project, and figure the rest out on the way.

Sources

• Team Peri Foundation — About Us (consulted October 2026)
• Team Peri Foundation — Projects, Million Dollar Story and Julie Hait Adler Scholarship (consulted October 2026)
• Adelphi University, June 17, 2024 — "Using My Powers for the Greater Good"
• Adelphi University — Alumni Profile: Peri R. Finkelstein '22, MBA '23
• The Jewish Star, October 22, 2025 — "Peri Finkelstein of Long Island is building a movement"
• EIN Presswire, September 9, 2026 — "Peri R. Finkelstein Publishes Debut Memoir The Velvet Bow"
• ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer — Team Peri Foundation Inc (EIN 92-1457065, tax-exempt since August 2025)