Emma Margraf has more than twenty years’ worth of experience in non-profit, political, and government communications, fundraising, and change management. She is an expert in major donor programs, event planning, and communications in addition to being a certified Prosci Change Management trainer. She is very much focused on the people side of change, and can help any organization with their team building needs.

Emma has local, statewide, and national political campaign experience, and can support your communications or volunteer management needs at any level. She is also a writer in her spare time, and her most recent work can be found on her Substack, Bites of Change. She lives in unincorporated Mason County with her girlfriend, two dogs, three cats and ten chickens.

Jim Cooper is the principal and owner of Soaring Heights Consulting, a veteran owned Washington State based small business that focuses on success for small organizations, nonprofits and governments, since 2021.

Jim is also the President and Chief Executive Officer for United Ways of the Pacific Northwest, the regional association for 32 local United Way organizations in Idaho, Oregon & Washington, since 2013. In this work he has also served as the interim CEO for three different local United Ways. He is a founding member of the United Way Worldwide Disaster Resilience Committee and a leadership member of Idaho, Oregon and Washington VOAD’s (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters).

Jim served as an elected member of the Olympia City Council from 2011 through 2025 where he served on various committees including chairing the City Finance Committee, chairing the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency (ORCAA) Board of Directors, chairing the Thurston County Solid Waste Advisory Committee, the founding chair of the Thurston County Regional Housing Council and the founding president of the Olympia Metropolitan Parks District. See what some of his ORCAA colleagues said about Jim when he retired from the City Council. 

Jim has 33 years of nonprofit, corporate and government leadership experience working with community organizations, governments and businesses to achieve positive outcomes for people and the environment. Jim has a unique ability to facilitate difficult group conversations in a way that brings people together towards common outcomes. His experience includes strategic planning, finance, non-profit leadership, communications and outreach, construction management, program development and evaluation, training, and public policy.

As an Army veteran, Eagle Scout and poverty abolitionist, Jim works to stand up for issues that financial mobility while aiming at his personal goal of the Pacific Northwest being the best place in America to grow up and live. He is a 2007 graduate of leadership Thurston County and made the Business Examiner’s 40 under 40 list in 2013.

Jim loves the outdoors and lives in Olympia, WA with his wife Thomasina, daughter Maggie, and their rescue dogs Rusty & Meli.