Newsletter | Springboard to Opportunities

Filling the Gap

Last January, Mississippi decided to opt out of the new federal SUN Bucks program, which would have provided every family who is eligible for free and reduced lunch during the school year with additional grocery benefits of $40 per month per child to support with extra food expenses when children are not receiving breakfast and lunch at school. By failing to submit a Notice of Intent to the USDA to implement the program by January 1, 2025, Mississippi has effectively opted out again for this summer.

But we knew we could not opt out for our families, so we created a summer cash disbursement program that provided an equivalent amount of cash to qualifying families that would have been eligible for SUN Bucks. Our cash disbursement program proved that providing families with additional resources for food in the summer helped reduce summer food insecurity.

But we wanted to make sure that our policymakers and state leaders knew that, as well.

While we’re proud of the 672 children who received these additional benefits from us, there are 324,000 children across the state who would be eligible for benefits were Mississippi to implement the program. None of those children should have to go hungry during the summer — especially when the resources are readily available if we were to say yes to them.

Last week, we released our latest white paper — Filling the Gap — featuring stories and data from our summer cash disbursement program that centers the real, lived experience of families who received these resources and demonstrates the power of programs like ours or SUN Bucks to reduce summer food insecurity.

In conjunction with the paper release, we hosted our first state capitol advocacy day. Our staff along with our Policy and Systems Change fellows and coalition partners spent the morning of January 23rd at the state capitol building, sharing stories, and educating policymakers and other advocates about the SUN Bucks program and the potential benefits it could bring to our state.

For many of our fellows, this was the first time they had ever been in the state capitol building and the first time they had had such direct access to state policymakers and leaders. It was an important reminder that their voices and stories are powerful and belong in the state capitol just as much as anyone else’s. They also got to sit down for a lunch after a full morning with six members of the Mississippi House to share more and hear directly from legislators about what they are working toward during this session and how the fellows can continue to use their voices for advocacy and to hold Mississippi policymakers accountable.

We know there is still a lot of work to do — both to get a SUN Bucks program implemented in Mississippi and to ensure all our social safety net programs are grounded in family voice and experience. But as a first step, we hope you’ll join our campaign to bring more meals to Mississippi kids and help us fight summer food insecurity in Mississippi.

Our 5th MMT Evaluation is Here!

We are thrilled to release the evaluation for the 5th Magnolia Mother’s Trust cohort that wrapped up earlier this fall. Building on the research from previous cohorts and from other guaranteed income programs across the country, this new report continues to reinforce that cash, paired with family-driven supports, provides pathways for mothers and their children to not only achieve financial stability but also have the freedom and agency to make their own choices that enhance their overall quality of life.

However, with so much research already available on cash-based programs, we wanted to make sure that this year’s evaluation was adding something new to the field. This year, we took a deeper dive with seven families in the cohort, who graciously shared their time, stories, and experiences during the program with our evaluation team.

These seven case studies provide more color and context to the experience of MMT than past overviews and prove how essential it is for programs to be grounded in trust and choice. As you read through the case studies, there are many commonalities – mothers prioritizing their children, decreases in financial stress, and more hope for the future. But you’ll also notice that the way each mother spent their funds and engaged with the program depended on their circumstances and specific needs. Each participant was able to meet her family’s needs and set her own priorities during the 12 months of the program.

Using the case study model, we were able to more directly feature the voices of children in this report. The report features four teenage daughters of case study participants demonstrating not only how the resources and experiences of MMT intersected with their own lives but also how systemic failures and policy issues – especially the lack of funding for education – continued to present roadblocks toward the ultimate dreams they have for their lives.

This report is grounded in the new holistic prosperity framework we released in early September. This framework, developed in partnership with our families, laid out best practices and metrics for cash-based programs and policies based on our families’ own definitions of wealth and prosperity. Throughout the case studies and reports, we see how MMT shaped the experiences of mothers across four interconnected domains: financial stability, social capital, dynamic well-being, and time autonomy.

Finally, this report is unequivocally clear about the need for policy change to dismantle systemic obstacles to ensure all mothers have the support and opportunities needed to maintain their progress beyond the program. Based in the belief that mothers are the experts on their own lives and experiences, this report includes four policy demands directly from our mothers. In both the report and case study narratives, you will find letters to local, state, and federal leaders where mothers share their own stories and recommendations for changes. Additional quotes, stories, and statistics further prove how essential these systemic changes are.

In addition, mothers share how their time in MMT inspired them to become more civically engaged and take action on issues they care about within their own communities.

While these are some important highlights, we hope you’ll take time to read through both the evaluation and the case study narratives. We are consistently inspired and motivated in our work and mission by the stories of our families, and we hope they will spur you to be advocates for trust-based, family-driven supports in your own community, too. Finally, thank you, as always, to the amazing team at Social Insights who executed and created this incredible evaluation that centers our mothers and honors their stories so well!

CEO Aisha Nyandoro named to TIME100 Next — TIME’s annual list of the next 100 most influential people in the world!

Below is a letter from our CEO Aisha Nyandoro after being named to the 2024 TIME100 Next List.

Dear Springboard to Opportunities Partners,

I am starting this morning filled with joy and gratitude. Today, I was named to TIME’s annual TIME100 Next list, a list recognizing leaders and innovators across a variety of disciplines and from across the world who are rising leaders shaping society’s future. I am truly honored and humbled to be listed alongside so many other great leaders across the world.

It has been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks with interviews, photo shoots, and preparing for this release. But I am taking a moment this morning to soak it all in and express my gratitude to all who have made this possible. While it might be my name attached to these recent awards and honors, I am fully aware that none of them have been possible without the Springboard team, our incredible partners, and  — most importantly, the families we are privileged to work alongside every day.

Providing Black mothers living in extreme poverty in Mississippi with cash, through a guaranteed income program called The Magnolia Mother’s Trust, was not my idea. It was our families’ idea. They were the ones who told us what they needed to move out of poverty was not another program, but actual cash. They were the ones who told us they needed a system that trusted them to know the best way to care for their families, instead of more excessive paperwork and paternalistic requirements. It has been their stories that have continued to push this work forward, launch over 150 guaranteed income pilots across the country, change social safety net policies across the country, and shift the narratives surrounding Black mothers and families in poverty.

All we did was believe them.

And today, I am grateful that you believed them, too. We are honored to count each and every one of you as a partner on this journey. Together, we can continue to innovate, advocate, and shape society’s future for the better.

Yours in Service,

Aisha Nyandoro

CEO

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

Watch Aisha’s full interview with Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom.