Profound and magical
things are possible when
we work together.
Wisdom comes from our human differences and various life experiences.
20+ years of facilitating
people in the processes of
LEARNING
COLLABORATNG
& HEALING
ABOUT
ASHLEY
I believe that each person has some unique perspective and insight and that everyone has a right to thrive. I feel heartache witnessing people being denied basic human rights and blocked from opportunities to contribute and thrive. My work as a facilitator, educator, consultant, organizer, and evaluator is a practice of cultivating a more loving and just world. I cherish when the work feels like play and my colleagues are also my friends.
The ways I work and the types of initiatives that I get to be a part of provide outlets for me to tend to the violence of injustice, experience tastes of liberation, and deepen my own humanity.
I use she/her or they/them pronouns.
People hire me to
Facilitate community engagement and significant conversations
Design learning experiences
Foster a more equitable and collaborative culture
Clarify a game plan and take the next steps towards more love, justice, and collaboration in their organization, family, and community
WHAT I DO
I partner with determined individuals, mission-driven organizations, and philanthropic foundations who are invested in desinging for anti-racist outcomes and moving in relational and participatory ways.
Through the arts of facilitation, coaching, community organizing, and strategy and innovation consulting, I partner with clients to create shared experiences and learning opportunities where people feel enough spaciousness to be real, learn, grow, and practice embodying the world we want — our individual and collective dreams and goals.
The focus of this work is to create a safe-enough space where people can be brave and take necessary risks.
With me the journey isn’t always comfortable, but we move in a positive direction and people feel supported as they grow to be the badass individuals or group that the moment requires.
ACCOUNTABILITY
This work cannot be done alone. And, as a white woman generating income from my racial analysis, accountability for my actions and the outcomes of my work is essential. I collaborate in multiracial teams for all work that has anything to do with racial inequity. I also have accountability partners who have committed to witnessing my work and offering feedback and advisement around intentions, practice, and integrity. Monetary income is shared with accountability partners as well as all other Black and Brown community leaders and colleagues who are part of this work with me.
With partners and clients, we learn together how to practice revolutionary love, racial equity, and radical imagination.
ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNERS
Lucia Daugherty
Equity, Inclusion and Resiliency Educator/Consultant, Coach, and FacilitatorThis work should always start internally through the examination of one’s own privilege and patterns of internalized supremacy
Melvin Bray
Equity Designer & Facilitatorthis is the place we don’t get to in equity work, the next step. doing the work of correcting systems involves agency and accountability
Keynon Lake & DeAngelo Collins
My Daddy Taught Me That Founder & Youth AmbassadorIt’s teaching the next person how not to bring harm, damage, or hurt to the people that they are going to be trying to work with
MY PATH
I am an expression of all the people I’ve learned from; the work of others that mine grows out of and formal and informal teachers.
I began as a preschool teacher, developed into a school counselor and social and emotional educator for adults and children, co-founded a multi-generational leadership organization, and grew a coaching and consulting business that continues today. I’ve worked with tens of thousands of people, from demanding and curious 4 year-olds to creative Executive Directors, Board chairs, motivated teenagers, burnt-out organizers, idealist teachers, mission-driven organizations, social justice foundations, and grassroots nonprofits.
For the last 16 years, I’ve intentionally learned from Black, Brown and Indigenous colleagues, thought leaders, authors, and, most powerfully, the lived experiences of people I’m in community with and the lessons from our collaborations. I am grateful to and could never name all of the folks with whom I have learned and been on this journey. I’m especially grateful to youth for sharing their brilliance.
My life experience has consistently revealed that truly innovative and healing paths towards a more loving and just world are seeded with the wisdom, compassion, and power of Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples. I am a white woman, Jewish, queer, Southern, and constantly evolving; willing and able to move with the integrity and humility that is necessary in multi-racial collaborations to bring these visions to life.
MORE INFO
Resumé
Examples of Past Work
Program Design and Curriculum Review
- Partnered with Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Faith in Women, and Collabyrinth Consulting to design and facilitate a Fellowship for Leaders of Moral Courage for faith leaders focused on reproductive dignity.
- Partnered with Faith Matters Network to review the curriculum for the Daring Compassion: Movement Chaplaincy course.
Racial Equity and Anti-Racism Trainings and Practice Groups
- Workshops, trainings, and equity coaching, co-facilitated with Black and other People of Color.
- Clients have included: Evergreen Community Charter School, Buncombe County, Youth Outright, MAHEC – Mountain Area Health Education Center, and Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association.
- Affinity groups for White and Jewish people.
Group Facilitation Trainings and Workhsops
- Co-lead a semester long graduate studies course with Lenoir Rhyne University that was also open to local community leaders: Leading Through Engagement and Facilitation.
- Consulted with Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE) to co-design and deliver a facilitation training to develop skills in FTE’s unique facilitation methods.
Short Bio
Ashley Cooper believes in the goodness of humans — in our abilities to collaboratively address the complex challenges we face and care for one another along the way. She is an educator, community organizer, facilitator, coach, and consultant with over 20 years experience working with thousands of people in schools, foundations, nonprofits and grassroots initiatives. Ashley’s approach is relationship-oriented, systemic in scope, and centers equity. She partners with determined individuals, mission-driven organizations and companies, and philanthropic foundations to design deliberately for anti-racist outcomes and to move in relational and participatory ways.
Full Bio
Profound and magical things are possible when we work together. That’s what more than 20 years of experience facilitating the processes of learning, collaborating, and healing has revealed to Ashley Cooper. As an educator, facilitator, coach, consultant, and community organizer, she’s witnessed the wisdom that comes alive when people of various ages, races, genders, class, cognitive, emotional and physical abilities, and life experiences lean into similarities and find strength and power in the differences. She’s also experienced the learning and growth that is possible and necessary when people convene in affinity groups to learn from and with others who share identities and life experiences.
Ashley’s work is a practice of cultivating a more loving and just world. Her focus is to create a safe-enough space where people can be brave and take necessary risks; actions that support shifting current conditions that limit human rights and collaboratively addressing the complex challenges we face while caring for one another along the way. Her approach is relationship-oriented, systemic in scope, and centers equity.
She partners with determined individuals, mission-driven organizations and companies, and philanthropic foundations to design deliberately for anti-racist outcomes and to move in relational and participatory ways.
Beginning her career as a preschool teacher, Ashley developed into a school counselor and social and emotional educator for adults and children. She co-founded a multi-generational leadership organization and grew a coaching and consulting business that continues today. Her experience has repeatedly shown that truly innovative and healing paths towards a more loving and just world are seeded with the wisdom, compassion, and power of Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples. Ashley is a white woman, Jewish, queer, and constantly evolving. She’s willing and able to move with the integrity and humility that is necessary in multi-racial collaborations to bring these visions to life. She consistently shows up with authenticity, deep listening, and respect for whoever is in the room. For the last 16 years, she has intentionally learned from Black, Brown and Indigenous colleagues, thought leaders, authors, and, most powerfully, the lived experiences of people with whom she’s in community. Her courage, willingness, and ability to challenge is grounded in compassion and lived experience.
Because accountability for Ashley’s actions and the outcomes of her work are essential, Ashley collaborates in multiracial teams for all work that has anything to do with racial inequity. She has paid accountability partners who have committed to witnessing her work and offering feedback and advisement around intentions, practice, and integrity. Income is also shared with all other Black and brown community leaders and colleagues who are part of this work with her.
Ashley partners with colleagues and clients to learn together how to practice revolutionary love, racial equity, and radical imagination.
