Mallory Donaldson

Mallory Donaldson Tim Johnson | Columbus CEO

About: Donaldson joined COTA in the fall of 2019 after working as executive assistant to the president and CEO of economic development group One Columbus. Her accomplishments include partnering with Bob Evans Restaurants to provide 16,000 meal kits to nonprofit partners, local food pantries and churches during Covid-19. She also collected 21,000 cloth and paper masks from the community, which were given to COTA riders and nonprofit partners to provide equitable access to an essential need and essential travel during the pandemic. She received a bachelor of arts degree in international studies, education from Ohio State University in 2006.

Outside of work: Donaldson is passionate and purposeful about empowering and encouraging young women in all walks of life and reducing black maternal and infant mortality. She is a YWCA Columbus board member, a resource development committee member at CelebrateOne and manager of operations for the Archie and Bonita Griffin Scholarship Fund. In 2019 she founded Eliza Consulting LLC, which specializes in managing nonprofit and foundation needs and creating strategies to build, maintain and expand their impact.

What does Columbus need to thrive? Columbus needs to convene resources and allocate them to the African American community. We continue to be underfunded and resourced.

In order to thrive in a prosperous city, we need to hold ourselves and others accountable to achieving prosperity through equity.

Donaldson’s idea: High-level problem: Transportation is a barrier for all nonprofits COTA serves. (The) majority of nonprofit partners do not have a budget or funding to purchase passes at a discounted rate. Nonprofits spent about $700,000 on transportation in 2019. Solution: Donate mobility. Matching eligible nonprofits with companies who would like to sponsor or donate money to nonprofits to purchase bus passes/COTA services and/or donate emergency rides to passengers in need.