Aisha Nyandoro

Aisha Nyandoro is the founding CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, a Jackson, MS nonprofit that uses a “radically resident-driven” approach to end generational poverty. In 2018, she created the Magnolia Mother’s Trust – now the country’s longest-running guaranteed income program.

In addition to leading Springboard’s community work and growing the Magnolia Mother’s Trust exponentially, Nyandoro is focused on shifting gendered and racialized narratives around poverty and deservedness, and working to show how the success of the Trust can be scaled nationally through policies like the expanded Child Tax Credit and a federal guaranteed income.

Nyandoro’s expertise on economic, racial, and gender justice issues has been featured in outlets including The New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, Essence Magazine, NBC Nightly News and CNN. She is a fellow of Ascend at the Aspen Institute, the Highland Project, the Emerson Collective’s Dial program, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network. She is also a TED Speaker, a 2022 McNulty Prize Winner and the 2022 Disrupter Change Champion from Community Change. She holds a B.A. from Tennessee State University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Michigan State University. When not working to liberate financial capital; she is a wife and mom to two very charming sons.