Our Team
Carolyn Stauffer
GF Co-Founder, Lead Consultant
Dr. Carolyn Stauffer is an international educator with 25+ years experience in trauma recovery, organizational coaching, and violence prevention work. She served in the humanitarian sector for several decades and has taught in higher education on two continents. Carolyn's scholarship focuses on gender-based violence and she brings a health and equity lens to her practice. She is passionate about her work as a reflective healer, social innovator, and curious educator.
Global Citizen - Carolyn's love for people has taken her to 34 countries; she's lived/worked in the Middle East (16 years) and southern Africa (`16 years). She received her doctorate and began her scholarship while at WITS University, South Africa.
Humanitarian Advocate - While in Johannesburg, Carolyn worked as a development specialist focusing on gender-sensitive humanitarian initiatives with projects sponsored by Oxfam and UNICEF. She is a founding member of the Soweto-based Emthonjeni HIV/AIDS program that spawned a health clinic, home-based care, and micro-enterprise projects
Veteran Educator - Carolyn has been an Associate Professor at Eastern Mennonite University teaching in the Organizational Leadership program, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and Applied Social Sciences department. While Co-Director of the university's Biomedicine program, she founded the Silent Violence project.
Trauma Trainer - Through projects sponsored by USAID, Carolyn has conducted training in East Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. She served on the local branch of UNESCO's ESD, she is a sexual harms scholar and a certified Appreciative Inquiry organizational coach.
Opportunity-Maker - Carolyn creates opportunities to celebrate individuals, groups, and communities wherever she goes. Working through the dual lenses of advocacy and post-traumatic growth, she is committed to amplifying voices of healing justice. Carolyn is fluent in multiple languages, loves dance, music and art, and enjoys all things off the beaten track.
Matt Tibbles
GF Co-Founder, Lead Consultant
Matt Tibbles, MA is an organizational development and conflict transformation consultant with experience working in multi-ethic for-profit businesses, higher education, religious, and non-profit organizations in developing and implementing organizational development strategies with a specialization in trauma awareness and resilient-based strategies/practices. Matt's personal motto is "why not." Living into this motto has led Matt to live and work with communities and organizations across the United States and internationally.
Restorative Justice Practitioner - Matt has worked as a restorative justice practitioner/trainer inside juvenile justice organizations, consulting with secondary education schools, and non-profit NGOs. He focuses on accompanying organizations to create a restorative culture by living in RJ values, practices, and ways of being.
Educator & Trainer - Matt has journeyed with indigenous communities in implementing decolonial violence prevention mentoring programming for men and young boys (Compass Toolkit) across the state of Alaska. He also is an educator in the Peacebuilding Program, Sociology Program, Business & Leadership Masters Program, and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University.
Leadership Coaching - He is the Program Director for the Masters of Arts in Transformational Leadership at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. His coaching is rooted in a whole human well-being approach to leadership that incorporates purpose, skills, habits & values alignment with the latest trauma/resilience, neuroscience, and leadership research.
Trauma/Resilience Trainer - Matt specializes in accompanying communities and organizations to become trauma-informed and resilient. He initiated a community process in Ketchikan, Alaska for non-profit organizations, for-profits organizations, tribal organizations, social service organizations, and healthcare organizations to be trained in the individual, organizational, and community responses to traumagenic events and to develop resilient practices across all sectors of the community. Trauma trainings focused on neuroscience, acute, chronic, collective, and intergenerational trauma. Matt was recently interviewed by Peacebuilder Podcast. Take a moment to listen to his journey and work in trauma-informed pedagogies for higher education.
Star Wars Fan - Matt grew up watching the Star Wars movies, playing with the action figures, and dreaming of becoming a Jedi. We can all bring balance to the force if we embrace the light and dark inside each of us. #maytheforcebewithyou