Program grew from a mother’s inability to afford a pizza

The Magnolia Mother’s Trust is an initiative of Springboard to Opportunities, a nonprofit that Aisha Nyandoro co-founded in 2013. The organization works with families living in federally supported affordable housing in Jackson. Nyandoro described the approach as “radically resident-driven.”

MSI previously reported that the program entered its ninth year in May 2026, sustaining itself through the Covid-19 pandemic and the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision on affirmative action.

By 2017, Nyandoro said she became concerned that Springboard was not moving the needle enough on poverty. The organization offered after-school programs, workforce development, and reading circles, but Nyandoro began asking what else families needed. A chance conversation with a mother, she said, changed her direction.

“I was like: ‘Oh, what are you doing this weekend? Are you doing a movie with the kids?’ In conversation, that’s just standard theater,” Nyandoro said. “And this mom looked at me, and she was like: ‘Let me tell you — I can’t afford something like a pizza.’ And in that moment, it clicked. I was unsettled all weekend. I came back to my team, and I was like: ‘We’re missing something. This is a mom that we are intimately involved with. We have relationships with her. Her kids are involved in our programs and she’s involved with our programming, and she is telling us that she can’t afford something as inconsequential as a pizza.’”

Springboard prioritized community feedback and asked residents what they were missing.

“That question just opened up all these stories,” Nyandoro said. “When we sat down and listened, I said: ‘Oh my God, all of this can be stopped with money.’”

A year later, in December 2018, Springboard launched the first cohort of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust with 20 mothers. Nyandoro said the response to that first year was “pure joy.”

“It was a novelty — someone is just going to give you a thousand dollars a month for 12 months and open 529 accounts for your kids?” Nyandoro said. “So many of our moms thought that it was a scam.”

Nyandoro said the program is focused on Black mothers because of the specific economic conditions they face.

“The unfortunate reality is that the data is the data,” Nyandoro said. “It’s not as if we are saying that we are working with Black women because we are trying to exclude anyone else. We are saying that we are honoring the tenets of what guaranteed income is. Guaranteed income is a specific amount of money given to a specific population for a set amount of time. And that funding is typically given to the financially most harmed within a community.”

“Here in Jackson, Mississippi, the financially most harmed are Black women, specifically Black mothers, and that is because of the policies and the systems that we have put in place that make it virtually impossible for them to earn at the same level as their counterparts.”

Participant stories: ‘It was rainbows after bad weather’

Amaya Jones moved into a new apartment complex three months after giving birth to her son, knowing no one else in the building. One day a flyer appeared on her door notifying her about the Magnolia Mother’s Trust.

While pregnant, Jones experienced homelessness. She applied for the program, knowing it could be life-changing. When she learned she had been selected, Jones said she “burst out into tears.”

“I went from full-time to part-time to barely making ends meet,” Jones said. “I was like: ‘Oh, my God. Lord, you hear my cry.’ It was rainbows after bad weather.”

Before the payments, Jones said her son was frequently sick, and the family lived paycheck to paycheck. Missing a day of work, even to care for an infant, meant her check would be short, and she struggled to cover day-to-day expenses for her children.

“It was a sigh of relief,” Jones said of the guaranteed income. “I was actually able to take my kids out of town, stuff I wouldn’t be able to do. It’s more time with my children. It’s still helping me today because I’m not struggling and I can prepare myself for the future. My kids are still taken care of.”

Jones said being in a cohort with other single mothers receiving assistance helped her build community. The MMT is “bigger than the money,” she said.

“We had meetings. We talked about mental health,” Jones said. “I found new people who lived in the apartments, because I knew no one. It’s like a very big sisterhood and familyhood to this day.”

“When my baby was in the hospital, they would check on my baby: ‘Do you need anything?’ Even if I didn’t reply, they would text me again. Some people don’t like to talk about their problems. Some people don’t like to talk about things that they may be going through … But when they say this is an open space, everything stays in this room. We’ve talked about so many things. If you need a little free time, bring the kids to me. We build relationships and friendships. That’s what the trust is.”

Current cohort faces affordability crisis pressures

This year’s cohort, launched in May, faces unique challenges, Nyandoro said. The program sustained itself through the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and through the Supreme Court’s 2023 affirmative action decision, which Nyandoro said sent “destructive waves” of anti-diversity, equity and inclusion policies through the country. Those issues, she said, have since compounded.

“This year, the moms are probably a little more stressed than in previous years, because of the affordability crisis and because of the impact on the social safety net,” Nyandoro said. “They’re very aware of what’s happening with the ‘big, beautiful bill.’ So you see some clear exhalation like: ‘I’m going to be OK. I got this. This is right on time.’”

Kenja Patton, selected for this year’s cohort, said she thought: “God answers prayers.” With the program’s help, she was able to surprise her son with a trip to Disney World for his kindergarten graduation. Her six-year-old son is asthmatic, and Patton said she had to leave one of her jobs during one of his extended hospital stays.

“It’s given me more freedom,” Patton said of the trust. “If something happens with him or if I need to go to the school, it makes a big difference.”