Melinda Wiggins, MTS (she/her/ella) joined the staff of The LIFT Fund as the Director of Strategy and Operations in 2022. The LIFT Fund catalyzes deeper collaboration and investment between unions, philanthropy, movement-building community organizations, and academia to build worker power. By supporting frontline worker organizations, LIFT supports collective action for a more just and equitable society. Before joining LIFT, Wiggins served as the Executive Director of Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) for over twenty-five years. Through her work at SAF, Wiggins led and supported efforts to create learning communities for young people interested in workers’ rights, facilitated community-labor alliances, built greater support for equity within the nonprofit sector, and educated philanthropy about the need to support agricultural workers in the South. In March 2012, she was honored by the Obama White House as a recipient of the “Cesar Chavez Champion of Change” award. Wiggins helped initiate two key statewide coalitions in North Carolina–the Adelante Education Coalition and the Farmworker Advocacy Network—focused on immigrant and farmworker rights. She also co-edited The Human Cost of Food, Farmworkers’ Lives, Labor, and Advocacy. A granddaughter and daughter of sharecroppers, Wiggins grew up in a working class family in the Mississippi Delta. She received her Bachelors of Arts from Millsaps College in Jackson, MS, and her Masters of Theological Studies from Duke University in Durham, NC. She continues to live in Durham with her partner Dave and cat Cocoa.