Goulding is the founder of Girasol Consulting, a Los Angeles-based advisory supporting nonprofits and schools through strategic planning, fundraising, storytelling, and partnership development. Her clients have included the University of Virginia, Environmental Charter Schools, Hispanic Access Foundation, and Self Help Graphics & Art, East LA’s longest-running arts organization and the center of gravity for printmaking education in Los Angeles.
Prior to this, Goulding served as Executive Director of Amplifier, an award-winning nonprofit media lab that builds storytelling campaigns with artists, journalists, and social movements. Amplifier’s work translated complex political and economic issues into
visual experiences designed for public spaces, classrooms, and everyday life. Through the Education Amplifier network, Goulding helped lead partnerships with more than 20,000 K–12 educators nationwide, bringing open-source storytelling tools into classrooms to help students better understand how power, policy, and public systems shape their lives.
At Amplifier, Goulding led national partnerships with organizations including the J. Paul Getty Museum, National Geographic, Meta, the Pop Culture Collaborative, Levi Strauss & Co., Discovery Education, and Stanford d.school, and co-developed campaigns that inspired thousands of youth art submissions. In parallel, she oversaw more than 30 global public service campaigns focused on environmental stewardship, public health, and civic participation, designed to reach both youth and adult audiences across five continents and create shared entry points for intergenerational learning. This work reached more than one million K–12 students nationwide, earned a 2023 IDEA Award from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications, and led to her recruitment into Education Leaders of Color’s inaugural Social Studies Accelerator.
Emily Goulding is a mixed Latina nonprofit leader, educator, and entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience spanning education, the arts, environmental learning, and civic engagement.
Across classrooms, museums, nonprofit organizations, and public media campaigns, she has spent her career working with three groups: young people, educators, and the organizations that support them. Whether teaching writing, building educator networks, leading nonprofits, or developing partnerships, her focus has been on creating meaningful learning experiences and helping institutions grow the capacity to deliver them.
Over the course of her career, Goulding has helped raise nearly $22 million to support this work. Her work is grounded in a belief that meaningful learning experiences can help people see new possibilities for themselves — and for the future of their communities.
Goulding brings an educator and artist’s lens to leadership, shaped by her own creative writing practice and years working across classrooms, cultural institutions, and media campaigns. She has spent her career teaching writing, designing learning experiences, supporting educators, and helping mission-driven organizations grow their impact through storytelling and strategic partnerships. She has taught writing at both the K–12 and college levels, including at Occidental College.
After a couple years of balancing family life with nonprofit fundraising, Goulding is actively pursuing nonprofit leadership and senior strategy opportunities focused on social impact, education, and public engagement.
She holds an M.A. in Journalism from Georgetown University and a B.A. in Modern Literature from the University of California at Santa Cruz, with a minor in Latin American and Latino Studies. She lives in the hills of northeast Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.
