Atti Worku is a leader and advocate with over 15 years of experience as a nonprofit CEO. As African Collaborative’s co-CEO, she is focused on supporting the growth of local organizations in Africa and the innovative impact ideas of their leaders.
Prior to joining African Collaborative, Atti founded and led Seeds of Africa, a nonprofit focused on holistic community development in Ethiopia through quality education and livelihoods programs. With Atti at the helm, Seeds grew from an after-school program for 15 kids to a full-time school serving over 450 students, while also providing livelihoods and economic development programs for over 200 female-led households.
Atti is a regular contributor to Skoll.org where she writes about equitable funding in philanthropy, and her essay on girls education as a global climate change solution was published in the book Why Women Will Save the Planet. She has been featured and interviewed in the Stanford Social Innovation Review and Devex in 2025.
Power imbalances and donor pressure to grow too fast can hinder African-led organizations’ long-term success and sustainability. Together, we can abolish the traditional scale formula and achieve higher impact. “Growth…
Led by the desire to invest in funds that prioritize equity, the Skoll Foundation partnered with other major foundations to seed the African Visionary Fund, an organization that drives unrestricted…
The myth of the corporate American do-gooder is a thinly veiled attempt at upholding the capitalist systems that produce and entrench systemic injustice and inequality. The philanthropic community must—and can—change…
Imagine the impact if the untapped, underfunded, and underappreciated talent and tenacity of leaders from developing countries was fully utilized. At the 2019 Skoll World Forum, my co-facilitators and I…