This week’s episode of The Idealists (formerly Grit & Grace) is all about the power of the word no. Host Melissa Kiguwa interviews Wanja Muguongo, the founding Executive Director of UHAI, an African philanthropic grant-making organization that has distributed more than $10 million to LGBTI and sex worker human rights movements in East Africa. This interview will inspire you, it will definitely challenge you, and it will make you laugh.

Correction: the podcast says $6 million, but the number is $10 million.

“The second thing I’d find irritating was the question, ‘So you call yourself an African indigenous funder, but where does your money come from? Does it come from the continent?’ And I would say, ‘No! I will not fundraise on the continent. A lot of the issues we are grappling with are not indigenous to the continent. Before (Europeans) came here, we didn’t have rampant homophobia and communities consolidating power at the top at the expense of everyone else.’ So for me, it was deliberate to get money from where the problems came from.”

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#4: Courtney Nichols