Springboard seeks to not only support families during difficult times but also help inform policies and create new models of support. While there have been many articles, toolkits, and think pieces on social distancing and how to take care of oneself during the pandemic, almost all of these rely on middle-class frameworks that assume readers have space in their homes to spread out, access to technology, and a supportive social network to connect with. Many of these strategies rely on disposable incomes and disposable time, which are luxuries that those potentially working multiple “essential” jobs are unable to afford. Furthermore, they almost never address the important fact that the trauma most low-income families are facing during this pandemic is just one piece of a long line of traumas they have experienced due to racist, classist, and sexist systems in our country. As the organization attempts to operationalize family prosperity within the current reality of COVID-19, we want to ensure that trauma-informed, mental health support is an essential part of the conversation.

Stories featuring Springboard to Opportunities

The Aspen Family Prosperity Innovation Community Phase II sought to find and foster the most effective and innovative strategies to accelerate social ...
Aspen Family Prosperity Innovation CommunityMay 3, 2023
As an organization with a vibrant Early Head Start program and a two-generational approach to alleviating poverty, All Our Kin has been a proud partne...
Aspen Family Prosperity Innovation CommunityAugust 11, 2022
Dr. Aisha Nyandoro, an Ascend Fellow, is one of three winners of the 2022 John P. McNulty Prize.
Media MentionsJuly 18, 2022
This year, the Aspen Idea Festival returns to in-person programming at our campus in the Rocky Mountains June 25 - July 1, 2022.
Ascend FellowshipJune 15, 2022
Although Black women continue to make significant contributions to their families and society, including being the top breadwinners and the most educa...
BlogMarch 16, 2022
Image caption: Ascend Fellows at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 2018. Pictured left to right: Ann Kalass, Darius Tandon, Kirsten Lodal,...
Ascend FellowshipFebruary 23, 2022
Poverty is the result of poor policy choices. These choices reflect our national values and decide who deserves access to opportunity to achieve their...
BlogNovember 2, 2021
In an op-ed co-authored by Aisha Nyandoro of Springboard to Opportunities and Trene Hawkins of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Asc...
Aspen Family Prosperity Innovation CommunityJuly 26, 2021
Ascend is honored that our Executive Director Anne Mosle has been named to the Holding Co.’s CARE 100 List, a first-of-its-kind list of the people d...
BlogOctober 23, 2020
familyphoto
Our world has changed. The wave of uncertainty touched off by the pandemic is becoming an ongoing process of relearning how to live, work and care for...
BlogJuly 28, 2020
Smiling Family With Parents Giving Children Piggyback Rides In Garden At Home
Contact: Lindsay Broyhill Ascend at the Aspen Institute lindsay.broyhill@aspeninstitute.org  Bold Leaders to Advance Innovative Strateg...
BlogJuly 22, 2020
This op-ed, by Ascend’s Executive Director Anne Mosle, was published in The Hill on March 24, 2020. There’s a truth we’re all experiencing n...
BlogMarch 24, 2020
“It really is the agency and dignity that cash restores.” – Aisha Nyandoro, CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, Ascend Fellow, and Family P...
BlogJanuary 10, 2020
AFPIC Network Partners
NEWS RELEASE Contact: Lindsay Broyhill Ascend at the Aspen Institute Tel: 202.721.5596 lindsay.broyhill@aspeninstitute.org 10 Community Organizations ...
BlogSeptember 27, 2018

Convenings Featuring Springboard to Opportunities

Location: St. Regis Hotel Courtyard (Aspen, CO) & Live Webcast (virtual)
Many places we look, we are stuck. Stuck in old ways and old thinking. We are burdened by zero-sum thinking and surrounded by the word ‘can’t.’ Our best way to get unstuck is to follow and stand with visionary leaders that don’t get...
ConveningJune 28, 2022
Location: Virtual (Zoom)
Guaranteed income pilots and projects have proliferated across the country over the last few years – what results do these pilots demonstrate, and what might the implications be for how we approach entrenched narratives around families with low...
ConveningJune 7, 2021