Friday, February 13, 2026
Time: 12-4PM (CST)
Online and In-Person
Do you believe there is more than one faithful way to engage in organizing work rooted in our faith? We do too. The Organizers Think Tank convenes organizing elders and movement leaders from diverse organizing traditions to explore multiple theories of social change and their theological implications. Participants will examine the unique challenges and gifts each approach brings to the gospel’s call for justice and transformation.
Through case studies of real campaigns and grassroots organizing strategies across movements, participants will engage scripture and theology to clarify their moral plumbline. Together, we will discern which organizing strategies most faithfully align with our call as disciples committed to justice, liberation, and collective flourishing.
DeMarco Davidson
Mr. DeMarco K. Davidson became a recognized community leader in his youth. After graduating from Hazelwood Central High School in 1999, he attended the University of Missouri-Rolla, where he earned a BS in Engineering Management and minors in Chemistry and I/O Psychology in 2006. While in college, he served as the Regional Vice President for Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., started several businesses, and co-founded the Black Man’s Think Tank of UMR. In 2008-09, he worked on several winning political campaigns. DeMarco was recognized in his alma-mater’s alumni magazine for his work in the inner-city of St. Louis as a Field Organizer for President Obama.
DeMarco has spent most of his adult life in education, engineering, youth development, and community organizing. He has worked as a teacher in the Hazelwood School District, an After-School Director with Providence Counseling, a Youth Advisor for Kappa League, a Project Manager in the Greater Chicago Area, a Field Organizer for political campaigns, and a mentor to many youth. After founding the Michael Brown Jr. Memorial Fund in August 2014, he volunteered for the Michael Brown Sr. Chosen for Change Foundation as the Executive Director from 2015 until 2022.
While DeMarco was running for US Congress in 2017-2018, he received his Masters in Divinity from Eden Theological Seminary in 2018 with an emphasis in Liberation Theology & Faith-Based Community Organizing. Since then, he has worked in several winning campaigns including Prosecutor Attorney Wesley Bell, the CLEAN Initiative, Raise Up Minimum Wage, Medicaid Expansion, and over $500 million for community development. As the Executive Director for Metropolitan Congregations United since 2023, DeMarco continues to organize people of faith and voters in St. Louis to develop policy towards breaking the school-to-prison pipeline and unifying the Urban and Rural citizens of Missouri. He believes that congregations can and should be a galvanizing force to building powerful, self-sustaining communities.
“Success is what you have when you add value to yourself. Significance is what you have when you add value to others.” ~ John C. Maxwell
Cassandra Gould
The Reverend Dr. Cassandra Gould is a native of Demopolis, Alabama, where her mother was a voter rights activist. Affectionately known as the “Pastor in the Public Square,” she serves as the Political Director at the Faith in Action National Network and lives in DC. She is an Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, serves on staff at Metropolitan A.M.E. and previously served 10 years as a Sr. Pastor in Missouri. During her tenure at her last congregation, she led a relocation and multi-million building project that resulted in the erection of a state of the art edifice with no debt.
In addition to her undergraduate degrees in journalism and psychology she also earned a Master of Divinity degree from Eden Theological Seminary and was a proud Samuel DeWitt Proctor Fellow at United Theological Seminary where she earned a Doctor of Ministry. Her D.Min. project, “Beyond the Walls” is her mantra for ministry. It evolved into a digi-ministry that was online weekly for three years during the pandemic.
She is the former Executive Director of Missouri Faith Voices, where she led one of the largest faith-based voter engagement campaigns in the state, turning out tens of thousands of low-propensity voters and helping to win major policy victories. Her work has taken her around the world from Palestine and Ghana to Buffalo and the White House. She is a founding member of Faith for Just Lending, an ecumenical national coalition formed to fight predatory lending. She also has testified in Congress regarding debt collection and financial predation.
Gould believes that the call is not merely to challenge systems of oppression but to equip faith leaders in a global context to build and curate spaces of liberation that are multi-faith, gender and racially equitable. Her current work includes co-authoring a curriculum to combat White Christian Nationalism.
