biography

Emily Norton (she/her) is a facilitator, trainer, and organization development practitioner who has devoted her career to helping our social change ecosystem thrive. At the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a think tank supporting social movements, she founded the Next Leaders Fellowship Program in 2014 to amplify young scholar-activists’ voices and hone their skills. She grew the program into a fully endowed project, now called the Henry Wallace Fellowship Program at IPS. Over her ten years with IPS, she grew leadership programming, developed curriculum, and stewarded IPS’s institutional growth through strategic planning.

During this time, she pursued a Master of Science in Organization Development at American University to broaden her ability to bolster organizational health, focusing on participatory action research—the practice of partnering with clients to gather, analyze, and synthesize data to plan and drive action. She also volunteered as a facilitator for Femex, a community dialogue organization in DC, where she led cohorts through a 16-week curriculum designed to help participants re-examine their understandings and experiences of the world through the lenses of race, gender, power, and sexuality.

She then joined Keecha Harris and Associates (KHA) as a consultant, designing and leading inclusive processes to assess and enhance people practices and organizational effectiveness for philanthropic and nonprofit organizations. She has collaborated with clients and consultants in various consulting configurations, partnering with groups like Third Settlements and Co-Lab Consulting, and she started her own practice, E. Norton Consulting LLC. She has facilitated numerous workshops and retreats across the social sector, resulting in five strategic plans, three learning communities, two program pilots, an organization’s first successful union contract, and a six-part training series and equity charter.