A message from our CEO, Aisha Nyandoro, explaining the recent acquittal of officials in the welfare fraud scandal and how this impacts the narrative of low-income families ⬇️
aisha
Forbes: Women Reclaiming Their Power
How Women Can Reclaim Power In The Room
Our founding CEO, Aisha Nyandoro, sat down with Victoria Nelson, the found of Power of the Ask, to discuss in detail how women can protest their authority without shrinking themselves and why delivering a persuasive “ask” is ultimately about rewriting the rules of the room rather than simply surviving them.
YOU CAN READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE
Victoria Nelson founded Power of the Ask, a negotiation consultancy that helps leaders – especially women – build the skills to communicate clearly, manage conflict before it becomes crisis and take agency over how they are perceived in high-stakes environments.
“Behind closed doors, many highly visible women share the same fear. It is not failure. It is cancellation. Over the past several years, we have seen public stories of women taking disproportionate hits for mistakes, missteps, or controversies, sometimes of their own making and sometimes not. A flawed product launch. An internal culture issue. A poorly managed communication moment. For entrepreneurial women and women in politics, reputation is not confined to one company or one role. It shapes the arc of an entire career. Once a name becomes attached to a conflict that was poorly handled, future opportunities narrow.”
Forbes: Health Insurance
Why soaring insurance premiums are bad for workers, small businesses and the long-term health of the U.S. economy.
READ AISHA’S LATEST CONTRIBUTION TO FORBES HERE
“Rising marketplace premiums translate to impossible choices about rent, childcare, groceries and tuition for families trying to build stable lives. Allowing a hard fought set of subsidies to vanish because of political posturing is pushing many of those families to the financial brink and sending damaging shockwaves through our broader economy. We should treat this moment not as an inevitability — but as a warning that our health care financing system is out of step with both our values and our economic ambitions — and then do the hard work to fix it.”
Forbes: Mississippi’s TANF Scandal
Mississippi’s TANF Scandal Shows How America’s Safety Net Was Built To Fail Families
“When a program serves only a tiny fraction of eligible families, it becomes even easier for officials to treat its funds as discretionary revenue, rather than as a lifeline that must be protected with the same urgency as a widespread benefit such as Social Security. And the broader issue is that despite all the evidence showing its inefficacy, TANF reform still hasn’t happened. We have the lesson of what happened in Mississippi, but we are not having the conversations needed to expedite change. Rather than making meaningful change, we have privileged people who abused resources pointing fingers, while those who are still in need are being punished.”
Forbes: A Year-End Giving Playbook
A Year-End Giving Playbook To Invest In Community, Justice and Power
READ AISHA’S FULL ARTICLE HERE
“The throughline in all of these choices is simple: each organization reflects what matters most to me right now — Black women’s leadership, community joy, narrative power, economic infrastructure and civil rights. Year-end giving does not have to be perfect or exhaustive, but it should be intentional. Choose a few organizations that sit at the heart of your values, and commit to being more than a one-time donor. Whether it is a local arts center transforming a vacant building into a community anchor, a national network training Black women to lead, a narrative lab closing the hope gap, a credit union financing possibility in the Deep South or a civil liberties group defending our freedoms — this is a moment to move beyond performative generosity. Because there is no better investment in this moment than in the people and institutions who are quietly making “impossible” futures feel within reach.”
Forbes: 50-Year Mortgages
A 50-Year Mortgage Is A Crisis, Not A Solution
READ AISHA’S LATEST CONTRIBUTION TO FORBES HERE
“After a decade working side by side with families living in subsidized housing, if there’s one refrain that echoes through every conversation, it’s the hope of homeownership — the practical hope of leaving a valuable asset for future generations, as well as a deep yearning for the autonomy and privacy afforded by having a home of one’s own. Again and again, mothers tell me what they really want isn’t just a yard or extra bedroom, but dignity — the right to claim a home that’s theirs, that their children can remember as an anchor, not a rest stop. Nothing makes this more real than hearing about birthdays held in tight kitchens or kids doing homework on borrowed Wi-Fi, all for the possibility that one day, the sacrifices will pay off. Yet in this context, the recent proposal for 50-year mortgages made by the Trump administration lands not as a lifeline, but as a trap — a heavy shackle disguised as a helping hand, and the latest example of policies that promise much while leaving our most marginalized families burdened with more debt and fewer options.”
What would truly help? ⬇️
1. Short-term fixes like stretching out a bad loan simply don’t cut it. Instead, we need to focus on proven, equity-centered solutions: expanding affordable housing supply, investing in targeted down payment assistance and actively combating predatory lending that preys on desperation with false promises of accessibility.
2. Real change demands policy that is not only attentive to what seems possible in the short term, but also to the history and reality of exclusion and financial harm borne by Black families and other marginalized groups.
3. Wealth-building requires predictability, fair access to credit, support for first-time buyers — and, importantly, options for building equity, not just meeting a lender’s bottom line.