Ayo Roach is currently Vice President and Head of Grant Programs at Comic Relief US. In this role, she oversees a $30 million high-impact grants portfolio spanning 40 countries that takes a systems and multigenerational approach towards achieving Comic Relief US’ social impact goal to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. She and her team have expanded the portfolio to include 50 grantee partners, the majority are Black, Latinx, Indigenous, LGBTQ+ and locally-led organizations that work deep in communities to create long-lasting, systemic change.
Ayo introduced trust-based philanthropy practices at Comic Relief US to build deeper trusting, more just and equitable relationships with grantee partners. She co-developed the new Domestic Health Equity Strategy aimed at ensuring all children, their families, and caregivers are able to be healthy and thrive by investing in solutions that address nutrition and food security, access to healthcare, and build and sustain healthy communities and will launch Comic Relief’s second cohort of its Youth Advisory Council, comprised of eight trail-blazing young, global leaders from Argentina, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Argentina, and the United States, in July 2023.
Further, Ayo is a trustee at the New York Women’s Foundation, the largest public women’s foundation in the US and serves on the executive committee as treasurer. She is trustee and treasurer at Moore Impact, the exempt entity under Moore Philanthropy, a Black-owned, women of color-led philanthropic advisory firm. She serves on the Advisory Board of Sankofa.org, an organization founded by Harry Belafonte and Gina Belafonte that is focused on issues related to injustice.
