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.