Lucinda Koza

Activist, Artist, Buddhist, Care taker, Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Connector, Designer, Educator/Teacher, Filmmaker, Idea generator, Journalist, Marketer, Parent, Performer, Producer, Project manager, Promoter, Public servant, Student, Writer/Editor

Lucinda Koza is the founder and chief executive of I-Ally, a digital support platform for millennial caregivers navigating the demands of long-term, unpaid care. Her entry into health and social care advocacy was shaped by personal experience: in 2018, following a stroke that left her father in need of daily assistance, Koza assumed the role of his sole caregiver. The emotional and logistical weight of that responsibility—combined with a lack of accessible resources and community support—led her to identify a gap in the broader healthcare and social systems, particularly for younger caregivers often overlooked by policy and public discourse. I-Ally was developed as a direct response to that experience. The web and mobile-based platform aims to serve the specifi c needs of millennial caregivers, a demographic balancing early career development, fi nancial pressures, and family obligations. I-Ally off ers a suite of services, including mental health resources, telehealth access, fi nancial and legal navigation tools, and community forums. Koza has described the platform as a means of reducing isolation while improving quality of care for both caregivers and those they support. Raised in Columbia, South Carolina, Koza grew up in a politically engaged household. Her father, a former member and Majority Speaker of the South Carolina state legislature, was involved in efforts to dismantle discriminatory laws and expand civil rights, including legislation to admit women to The Citadel. That early exposure to public service and civic responsibility has remained a defining influence. Koza has cited her upbringing as foundational to her sense of purpose. Koza trained as an actor and storyteller. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Southern Methodist University and later wrote and directed several creative projects. Her short fi lm Laura Point was featured at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015, and she co-directed Caregivers: A Story About Them, a documentary exploring the human dimensions of caregiving. This background in the arts continues to inform her work, particularly her emphasis on personal narrative as a tool for healing and systemic change. Koza’s advocacy gained wider recognition during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she introduced a mutual aid feature to the I-Ally platform in collaboration with Golden Volunteer. The tool facilitated community-based support for caregivers, including the distribution of medical supplies and wellness check-ins. The initiative earned her recognition from Authority Magazine and Thrive Global, which named her among their “Heroes of the COVID Crisis.” She has also been named a Visionary Voice by All Raise and received an honorable mention in the Lyfebulb + Orexo Innovation Challenge for innovations in patient-centered care. Koza is a member of the Time’s Up Care Economy Business Council, a coalition working to reform the structure and valuation of caregiving labor in the United States. She was also selected for the 2021 TechCrunch Include Cohort and participates in the SheWorx + AWS Startups Mentorship Program. Through these affi liations, she has joined a growing network of advocates and entrepreneurs focused on gender equity, inclusive design, and the long-term sustainability of the care economy. Her work extends beyond caregiving into broader issues of women’s health, reproductive trauma, and maternal mental health. After the premature birth of her twins in 2023 and their extended stay in a neonatal intensive care unit, Koza began writing more openly about the psychological aftermath of high-risk childbirth and postpartum care. She has spoken about the enduring impact of medical trauma and the cultural expectations that often leave new mothers feeling unseen or unsupported once the initial crisis has passed. These refl ections became the foundation of her forthcoming book—a collection of essays and interviews that centers the voices of women navigating infertility, birth trauma, postpartum depression, and maternal rage. Koza is a regular contributor to publications including Thought Catalog, Caregiving.com, Medium Women, and Hackernoon. She is also a columnist for Authority Magazine, where she frequently writes about trauma recovery, gender and healthcare policy, and mental wellness. Her podcast, How I Ally, builds on these themes, offering interviews and personal narratives that explore identity, interdependence, and care. In public appearances and written work, she has called for the recognition of caregivers not only as service providers, but as patients and stakeholders whose health and agency are integral to the larger healthcare system. Koza’s career to date reflects an evolving intersection of storytelling, caregiving, and entrepreneurship. While the origins of her work are rooted in personal crisis, her ongoing efforts aim to contribute to a national rethinking of how caregiving is valued, supported, and understood.

I had just gotten married. I was so newly-married that we hadn't even discussed joint checking accounts, how we would split bills, whose name the house would be in, which one of us would be expected to bend in terms of relocation while the other's career would be a mainstay -- no logistics, no disappointments had taken hold. We were basking in a carefree honeymoon phase. Visiting my home state of South Carolina, something we don't do now because of the heaviness, my father called and said he was driving and did not know where he was. My father WAS South Carolina. He was once the majority leader of the State Legislature (when it was majority democratic). Now I instructed him to stop, stay where he was; we would find him. Find him we did, only it wasn't him: it was the shape of him, only his eyes were empty, he slurred his speech, and met me with a teenage insolence; but I heard what others didn't -- he was screaming. Screaming to me for help. This was the traumatic beginning of the complete derailment of my life at a very young age. I kept waiting for someone to come and help me, including my two siblings, but nobody ever came. I was the sacrifice. I became his primary caregiver. This interrupted my career development, wiped me out financially, put a fracture in my mental and physical wellbeing and, point blank, delayed my life. As I found out that there were actually millions of others just like me, I thought, why isn't anyone talking about this? Why isn't anyone helping us? Oh, because they need us to keep quiet. Our society depends on us playing these roles for no pay, because they have no other way of taking care of the aging and sick folks. But our society needs to take care of the ones who are taking care. Here's my proposal: give us credit for working. Let that time caregiving count towards our social security we will one day get. Don't let it all be for nothing -- don't leave us in debt. Don't leave us sick, trying to pick up the pieces. Give us credit for work at least. You don't have to pay us, but in the eyes of our country, we served our society, we put in major time that nobody else would come near.