Nikishka Iyengar is using the Purpose Futures Fellow to incubate Groundcover, a project powered by  The Guild. Groundcover's mission is to seed and develop community-owned and community-controlled real estate that allow marginalized communities to collectively steward assets in their neighborhoods as a pathway to self-determination. Groundcover assembles the right mission-aligned, non-extractive capital stack for each project, develops the project in partnership with the community, and then creates a Community Stewardship Trust to allow residents in the community to purchase shares of properties in their zip code.

Nikishka is the founder and Chief Ecosystem Officer of The Guild. She has over a decade of experience in social impact  — as a consultant, entrepreneur, and organizer — and uses a systems thinking approach across her work in finance, racial justice, equitable development, and climate action.

Nikishka is passionate about dismantling racial capitalism and building an economy that works for all of us, including our planet. She is a 2020 Aspen Institute Fellow, 2018  RSF Social Finance Fellow, 2020 Common Future Fellow, 2020 New Leaders Council Fellow, and was a 2016 “30 Under 30” Greenbiz leader in sustainability. As mama to an adventurous and energetic toddler, spare time is a foreign concept to Nikishka.

More about the Purpose Future Fellowship