African Philanthropy Forum Podcast Series

Our guest on this episode of the APF Podcast Series is Atti Worku, Co-Chief Executive Officer of African Visionary Fund, a non-profit that provides an avenue for donors to move resources quickly to African visionaries to accelerate their impact. The Fund is designed to allow African visionaries to further focus on efficiently delivering on their mission and investing for the future.

Discussing the topic Understanding & Addressing the Imbalance in Funding African CSOs, Atti shares insights on the under-funding recorded for developmental initiatives on the continent in comparison to organizations headquartered outside the continent. The Fund is committed to ensuring funds go into the hands of local leaders and in the long term, change the stereotypical bias and behaviours that limits funding to proximate organizations.

She also gave insights into AVF’s long-term unrestricted funding approach which is helping African visionaries with catalytic fuel to propel their impactful solutions even further as they drive systems change and transform development across the continent.

With much impact recorded by an organization that is less than 5 years old, this episode packs a lot of useful nuggets for anyone or organization interested in African philanthropic funding.

Atti Worku

Atti is a leader and advocate with over 10 years of experience as a nonprofit CEO. Throughout her career, Atti experienced the biased and unjust challenges of raising philanthropic dollars in the U.S. for a locally-led, community-centered African organization. As the AVFund’s Africa-based co-CEO, she is focused on supporting the personal and organizational growth of African visionaries and their innovative impact ideas.

Prior to joining the AVFund, Atti founded and led Seeds of Africa, a nonprofit developing the educational foundation for the next generation of Ethiopia’s leaders. Since 2008, Seeds has impacted over 2,000 people, transforming the livelihoods and trajectories of students, their mothers, and their families in the community of Adama, Ethiopia. With Atti at the helm, Seeds grew from an after school program serving 15 kids to a full-time, multi-dimensional school educating 250 students from pre-K to middle school and providing them free universal healthcare and nutrition. Seeds also became a micro-finance institution that provided over 150 mothers small business micro-loans, entrepreneurship skills development, and literacy resources.

The Kenyatta Trust's imperative is clear; to sustainably create opportunities for growth academically, morally, and socio-economically for the nationwide class of scholars admitted into The Trust each year. Helping to level the inequalities these youth face will compound over time to create empowered, visionary members of society who will be agents of positive change; transforming more lives just as theirs have been here and now.

On this episode of APF Podcast series, Mwende Mbevi, Executive Director of the Kenyatta Trust joins us for an insightful session and deep-dive into the operations and impacts being made by the Trust. This covers the core values; service, leadership, integrity, justice and peace that the Trust instills in their student's DNA and in turn eventually teaches the importance of these values to their own families when the time comes. 

The Trust provides support to these young leaders because every individual that forms The Kenyatta Trust family will not only positively impact society but will have a story to share with their own children. 

Mwende Mbevi

Mwende oversees all strategic, operational, and administrative functions at The Kenyatta Trust. Together with an amazing team, she selects bright but vulnerable students as scholars of their high school scholarship program; they support the same students through high school and into university or tertiary institutions. She oversees all activities surrounding the mentorship programs as well as the Economic Empowerment project which has a countrywide footprint.

Blood:Water is an international nonprofit that partners with African community-driven organizations to end water & HIV/AIDS health disparities through organizational strengthening & financial support. Since 2004, Blood:Water has partnered with grassroots organizations in sub-Saharan Africa to join them in serving the communities where they work and to improve the health of community members. Through outreach and intimate knowledge of the areas where they work, our partners identify and empower local heroes to champion issues affecting the health of community members.

On this episode of APF Podcast Series, we had as guest, Nadia Kist, the Director of Africa Partnerships for Blood:Water. We had interesting conversations that centered around the organization's goal, strategy and effects of leveraging local partnerships for sustainable impact in communities. 

Nadia also provided insights on community-based philanthropy. This is an exciting episode you don't want to miss if you are leaning towards community-based philanthropy and stay abreast of what opportunities are there and what pitfalls to watch out for?

Nadia Kist

Nadia Kist is a leader in Global Health Philanthropy with over 18-years of experience leading HIV-focused programs and organizations in Africa. She is committed to building equitable community-centered models of philanthropy that address the complex interconnected drivers of socio-economic and health disparities. She endeavors to achieve this through positions responsible for strategic leadership and direction setting within institutions that aim to influence global health through dignifying, equitable and effective philanthropy. At the heart of her work is a personal vision to see the fullness of life rightfully accessed and protected at an individual level across communities most impacted by HIV/AIDS.

The latter portion of her career progressively focuses on developing and scaling African-led and community-driven funding models for health. Throughout her career, she provided technical and managerial oversight to multi-million-dollar public health programs at regional, national and sub-national levels throughout the East and Southern African region. She has extensive experience managing complex programmatic implementation and grant partnerships with academia, host governments, faith and civil society organizations. 

She has a demonstrated track record of influencing health policy processes, through sensitive government engagement and collaborative approaches to technical advisement. She sits on the board of the East Africa Philanthropy Network (EAPN), hold membership with the Africa Philanthropy Forum (APF) and the International AIDS Society (IAS). She is also the Board Chair and co-founder of Seeds for Hope (SFH), a youth-focused charitable trust expanding access to formal education through academic scholarships in Kenya.

Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation is a grant-making nonprofit organization established in 2016 to support local, national and regional non–profit organizations working to address challenges and associated vulnerabilities across the African Continent. 

On this episode of APF Podcast Series, we had an exciting session with Osayi Alile, the Chief Executive Officer of ACT Foundation; she shared insights on the story of ACT Foundation and its pan-African impact. As a trailblazer in the nonprofit sector, she provided guidelines on the critical factors required to start a Foundation and maintain a sustainable momentum for far-reaching impact.

Osayi Alile is a quintessential leader with over 20 years in the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and third sector with a wide array of experience covering International Development, Business and Philanthropic Management, Fundraising and Sustainability. As a visionary leader, Alile has served in various leadership capacities including being the Executive Director, FATE Foundation; Vice President, Junior Achievement of Nigeria; and CSR Consultant, Access Bank Plc. Osayi Alile has served the nation and the world at large in various capacities including Council Member on Youth Unemployment for the World Economic Forum Global Agenda; Committee Member, Ministry of Communication Technology for IT Business Incubation Technology; and was recognised as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Osayi Alile is also the founding curator of the Global Shapers Forum Nigeria and serves as a consultant on sustainability, non-profit management and strategy.

Can we discern the relationship between economic empowerment and social development? When CSOs make impacts and partake in developmental issues, we notice a corresponding improvement in the citizenry, in particular- healthcare, education, earning opportunities, and rights. 

In this episode of APF Podcast Series, we had a very interesting conversation with Noura Selim, the Executive Director of Sawiris Foundation for Social Development on the topic: Economic Empowerment and Social Development. 

Prior to joining the Sawiris Foundation, Noura worked at McKinsey & Company in New York, Dubai and Egypt. At McKinsey, Noura served public and private sector clients, particularly on health care and education topics. Her healthcare work spans the pharmaceutical space as well as public payers and providers in the US, Europe and the Middle East, while her education work spans K-12 and technical and vocational training and education in the Middle East. In the past years, Noura was involved in leading the implementation of a large-scale transformation in technical education and training, focused on improving performance and employment outcomes, as well as leading a health care reform program aimed at increasing access and quality of care. Prior to McKinsey, Noura worked as a Teaching Assistant at the University of Pennsylvania's Engineering school.

Noura is currently a board member at National Investment Charity Education Fund (NICE), representing Sawiris Foundation for Social Development. In May 2021, Noura has appointed to the Advisory Board of Harvard Business School Middle East and North Africa for a two-year renewable term. Noura was also selected from the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader for 2019. Noura served as a Chairwoman of the Arab Foundations Forum (AFF,) representing the Sawiris Foundation on the AFF Board of Directors from 2017 until 2020. She has also joined the C20 2020 Engagement Group as a member of the C20 International Advisory Committee. Lastly, Noura served as a Treasurer on the Board of the Harvard Arab Alumni Association from 2014-2016.

How can we transform the culture of giving on the African continent to the extent that it exceeds development aid by 2030? As unprecedented changes are needed to achieve the 2030   timeline, the conference focused on a call to action to all   stakeholders to mobilize for a decade of action on three levels:

Collective: to collectively secure greater leadership, more resources and smarter solutions for the philanthropy community; 

Local: advocate for the needed transitions in the policies, budgets, and operations of public, private, and non-governmental institutions; and 

Individual, personal commitments by citizens, civil society, the media, the private sector, unions,  academia, and other stakeholders, to generate an unstoppable movement pushing for the required transformations.

In this exciting episode of our podcast series, we were privileged to have Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, Board Member,  African Philanthropy Forum/Managing Partner Sahel Consulting chat with Dr Mo Ibrahim, Founder / Chair, Mo Ibrahim  Foundation.

It is another exciting episode of the African Philanthropy Forum Podcast series, we are so excited to have you here.
On this episode, we have as guest Anthony Farr, the CEO of Allan & Gill Gray Philanthropy.

He shared with us the journey and evolution of the organization as well as the relationship between business success and its role in the operating environment.

Humanity United is an organization that is dedicated to building peace and advancing human freedom. The organization's work is built on four strategic pillars that, together, help make the world more peaceful and free:

- Voice & Will

- Rule of Law & Good Governance
- Markets & Business
- Ideas & Innovations

With a significant impact and work across Africa, we had a chat with Jesse Eaves, the Senior Director (Peacebuilding), on the firm's African vision, and many more.

In our very first APF Podcast Series, we are excited to have as our guest, Gima H. Forje, CEO of the TY Danjuma Foundation. An interesting fact to note, the Foundation is the first indigenous grant-making organization in Nigeria.

In this session, we engaged the CEO on the motivation behind the setting up of the TY Danjuma Foundation, the philanthropic nature of the chairman even while in the service of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as well as lessons the Foundation has learned in the first ten years of navigating the philanthropic landscape.