About Us

A Swiss Army knife CEO—strategist, disrupter & doer. Equal parts thinker and poet. Eager to surprise. Grounded in purpose. Committed to people and planet. For 25 years, Cynthia has championed nonprofit causes, mobilizing teams to tackle tough issues in distressed communities. Issues like crime, delinquency, school failure, youth unemployment, affordable housing, out-of-school time, hunger, illiteracy, homelessness, and childhood obesity.

A consummate optimist, her superpower is seeing potential where others see problems. She cut her teeth on nonprofit work during her last year of college. Recognized for the ability to influence others.

An interfaith collaborative recruited her to run a center for marginalized youth where she began honing her management skills. When the opportunity arose to lead SA Youth, the Board immediately sought her out.

She tripled the budget in year one and succeeded at getting the agency off United Way probation and into the funding expansion category. In year two, she opened a second center then YouthBuild, a program offering second chances for opportunity youth. In year four, she leveraged multiyear federal funding, catapulting the agency to five locations. During overlapping funding cycles, SA Youth operated a ~$7M budget with ~180 staff at 18 locations. Year-over-year, the agency showed gains in education and character development as well as reductions in crime and delinquency. With unrelenting commitment, she and her team built a solid foundation of support and program excellence that continues today.

Over the years, Cynthia noticed nonprofits working in silos, often refusing to collaborate or share resources, so she launched an out-of-school-time network that deployed the collective-impact model and professionalized OST programs. Concerned about the high illiteracy rate, she joined forces with a budding literacy coalition organizer. An unstoppable force, they incorporated the group, secured resources, and scaled impact, focusing on early interventions and science-based reading instruction. Today, it’s TXReads.

Time and again, others have sought Cynthia’s advice, and her stewardship has resulted in building the capacity of numerous organizations, reflecting her passion for civic engagement. With expertise in marketing and public relations, fundraising, program design, career planning, and strategic planning, she strategizes with and mentors professionals who go on to do amazing work.

The only child of eight to graduate traditional high school and finish college, Cynthia grew up in the Mississippi Delta as a child farmworker.