On Wednesday, April 17, 2024, we hosted our annual Night of Storytelling – a night filled with shared stories and conversation with Springboard To Opportunities’ mothers and Dwayne Betts, a 2021 MacArthur Fellow and Executive Director of Freedom Reads. You can watch a recording of the evening below!
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CEO Aisha’s Nyandoro’s conversation with Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom
Anyone who does work that is thinking about a tomorrow is hopeful.
I have been thinking about those words from Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom since I had the honor of interviewing her at Bold New Consensus earlier this month. Our conversation was part of the larger event, hosted by Economic Security Project in collaboration with the Roosevelt Institute, Community Change, and the Hewlett Foundation celebrating the progress we have achieved in building an economy that works for everyone, and setting the course for a bigger, bolder economic paradigm for our collective future.
Our full, joy-filled conversation explored possibilities like rewriting the social contract into one that rejects the premise that there have to be winners or losers, or those who are deserving and undeserving. We explored the probing questions that recognize our current cultural narratives and what we seek to create new, better ones. We talked about the seeds others planted before us that we discovered, and the ones we are planting ourselves that we trust will bloom for others in the future. The hopes that we have for all the tomorrows to come.
It is easy to look at all that is happening around us and fall into pessimism. Inflation, suffering around the world, unaffordable housing, constant threats of economic downturn, a gridlocked Congress that can barely keep the government open, let alone think about reimaging a better economy and future for all people. It is no wonder that so many have leaned toward despair or simply apathy in times like these.
And yet, there are still so many of us doing work focused on tomorrow.
We end every interview or story sharing opportunity with our moms asking them what is giving them hope right now. Most often, we hear them talk about their children, their family, or their communities – the people around them who they are working to create better tomorrows for. Our families continue to inspire this same hope for us, and we trust that our work is contributing to better tomorrows for the South, Black families, and people living in poverty across the country.
As we look toward the end of 2023, we want to ask you the same question – what right now is bringing you hope? And what work for tomorrow will you put in today to make that hope a reality?
Your in Service,
Aisha Nyandoro
CEO
The Magnolia Mother’s Trust Featured on The Kelly Clarkson Show!
Exciting news! Our CEO, Aisha Nyandoro, and Magnolia Mother’s Trust Recipient, Sequaya Coleman, were featured on an episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show! Watch the full video below!
Celebrating 2023!
It has been quite the year! 2023 marked 10 years for Springboard To Opportunities, and we loved celebrating with you all year long. As we close out this year, we wanted to be sure to share some of our reflections and accomplishments with you.
In 2023, Springboard To Opportunities:
- Provided radically resident-driven programming to over 2,500 residents in affordable housing.
- Provided a total of 40,957 services to residents throughout 2023.
- Expanded and refined our policy and advocacy fellowships, supporting residents as they made connections between public policy and their lived experience.
- Launched the 5th cohort of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, our largest cohort to date.
- Completed our new strategic plan, which will guide Springboard over the next 3 years as we dive more deeply into our socioeconomic wellbeing work, community-driven policy and advocacy efforts, and shifting the narratives surrounding low-income, Black women.
But there’s even more! We hope you’ll take a few minutes to watch our 2023 Year End Review to really see what this year looked like for us and all we, and the families we work with, were able to accomplish this past year. We are grateful to count each of you as a partner on this journey and look forward to what is next in 2024.
Deepening and Expanding – Springboard in 2024
It’s hard to believe the first month of 2024 is almost over. In 2023, we celebrated 10 years of Springboard and spent a lot of the year reflecting on the past decade, celebrating our past growth and success, and identifying our strengths and core commitments as we move into the future. Springboard has always been grounded in our radically resident-driven mission, which means that as the needs and goals of our residents and the world around them shifts, our strategy and execution of that mission shifts, too.
With all that in mind, at the beginning of 2023, we started developing a strategic plan to guide the next years of our work. We talked with residents, staff, our partners, and other stakeholders to determine how Springboard can best serve residents in affordable housing. What emerged is 5 priority areas that will be the core of our strategy moving forward.
Resident Relationships
Springboard’s work has always been rooted in strong, trusting relationships with residents of affordable housing. Staff’s main job will always be building and maintaining these relationships. In this next phase of work, Springboard will strengthen its navigation, coaching capacities, referral networks, and partnerships, while continuing to ensure essential resources and basic needs for all residents are met.
Socioeconomic Well-Being
Since 2018, Springboard has been a leader in the direct cash assistance field. Springboard will continue its signature Magnolia Mother’s Trust guaranteed income program, modeling best practices for cash disbursement programs. Springboard will also expand other cash-based initiatives grounded in dignity and trust, such as direct cash disbursements in emergencies and creating new Lending Circles℠. Lending Circles℠ is a social loan program managed by Mission Asset Fund (MAF)
Fellowships
Springboard’s fellowships offer cohort-based learning, personal development, and opportunities for residents to make connections between public policy and their lived experiences to catalyze positive change in their communities. Springboard will deepen and expand these fellowships to provide residents more opportunities for off-site learning, developing meaningful networks, and enhancing their confidence as community leaders.
Policy Advocacy
Springboard believes no one knows better than families themselves how social policies can be improved. Springboard’s community-driven policy agenda centers the voices and lived experiences of our residents and advocates for policies grounded in dignity, equity, and trust. Leveraging a network of partnerships, Springboard finds places for residents’ stories and expertise to be heard, shared, and spur change.
Narrative Change
The vast majority of our country’s poverty policies and strategies are grounded in false beliefs and assumptions about low-income families. Springboard believes it is time for families to tell a new story, by shifting their own internal narratives, recognizing their own self- and community-worth, and sharing their true, lived-experience through media and other platforms willing to amplify residents’ authentic voices.
We have already spent the first month of this year developing a plan and goals for this year’s implementation, and we look forward to sharing this new journey with all of you. Thank you, as always, for your partnership and support on the journey!
Aisha’s TED Talk is Here!
“Wealth is about a sense of agency, a sense of freedom, and being able to care for the collective whole.”
Last week, our CEO, Aisha Nyandoro, took to the TEDWomen stage to ask us all if we are brave enough to reimagine what wealth looks like in this country. Through a powerful personal testimony, the stories of Springboard families, and the results of The Magnolia Mother’s Trust, Aisha challenges us all to listen more deeply to the stories of families living in poverty and create new narratives, policies, and systems that can disrupt poverty and actually support families as they build wealth according to their own definition.
We are thrilled to announce that Aisha’s dynamic TED talk has officially been publicly released.
We hope you’ll take some time today to watch it yourself and share it within your own networks, too. Pass it along to 3 more people to watch, and ask them, “What does wealth truly mean to you?” We need to start a conversation about what wealth means in this country, and that starts with us in our communities.
We are grateful to count each of you as a partner on this journey and look forward to continuing to grow this movement of centering family voice and pushing for a trust-based social safety net system alongside each of you.
