Chidi Koldsweat, Founder/CEO, Donors for Africa Foundation

Chidi Koldsweat is the Founder/ CEO Donors for Africa Foundation. At this global development firm, she works actively with governments, funding Institutions, the private sector, philanthropy organisations, NGOs, and social impact leaders to break the cycles of poverty in Africa.

Her core competence is providing business and social solutions in sustainability for social entrepreneurs. She has trained over 5000+ social impact organisations across Africa, raised over $30m in direct and indirect funding, and reached over 51,000 individual accounts, providing weekly knowledge to the development community.

Chidi launched the first ever digital African Social Innovators Bootcamp in 2019 and since then has strengthened the capacity of over 120 civil society and entrepreneurs from 30 African countries helping them to jointly raise over $850,000 in funds. She closed a global partnership with Meta working with Donors for Africa to scale impact to communities in Anglophone West Africa.

Koldsweat also launched African Women in Development Feature-a programme focused on telling the stories of African women working solely in development who are transforming their communities and countries individually, globally, or as an organisation.

Chidi was drafted into the African Youth Front on COVID-19, launched by The African Union (AU) Office of the Youth Envoy and the Africa Centre for Disease Control & Prevention (Africa CDC). She participated in and coordinated regional virtual consultative sessions with young people from different parts of Africa, discussing the impact of COVID-19 and making recommendations to Africa governments. She contributed to policy briefs presented to steering committees of the African task force and the AU paper on COVID-19, highlighting the impact on youth and the future of Africa we want.

Chidi has over 14 years of experience working in health, gender (women and girls in leadership, business, and politics), organisational management, and sustainability. She holds a leadership certificate in International Organisational Management from the University of Geneva and a Master’s in History & International Relations from the University of Lagos.

Koldsweat is a recipient of several awards. In 2014, CEO Global gave Chidi an award as a finalist, Africa’s most influential woman in management, business & public service (civil society category). In the same year, she was selected by the Chinese Embassy to participate in the three weeks cultural exchange programme under The Chinese Association for International Understanding. In 2013, she became a Vital Voices Lead Fellow and was nominated amongst the 100 unseen women changing her world. In 2011, she was among Africa’s 25 most outstanding emerging women leaders under the Moremi Initiative for Leadership (MILEAD).