Happy Mwende Kinyili is a global movement strategist, organiser, dreamer, and storyteller committed to building futures anchored in social and environmental justice. For over two decades, they’ve worked across local and global contexts to deepen feminist resourcing, collectivise power, and resist the fragmentation that weakens social justice movements.
Based in Nairobi and rooted in the Global South, Happy brings a perspective shaped by lived experience and a deep connection to African social movements – their complexity and their possibility. Building from that foundation, Happy has become a pivotal voice in global feminist philanthropy. They serve on the Steering Group for the Alliance for Feminist Movements and the Advisory Board of the Center for Effective Philanthropy. They also helped found the International Trans Fund, serving on its inaugural International Steering Committee, and previously held key roles at UHAI – the East African LGBTI and sex worker fund – where they developed grantmaking strategies and built partnerships between activists and donors.
Currently, Happy serves as Co-Executive Director of Mama Cash, the world’s first international women’s fund. There, they’ve helped lead a bold transformation toward participatory grantmaking – ensuring that those closest to the issues are also closest to the solutions.
Happy’s joy is defiant, their anger purposeful, and their commitment to justice unwavering. They believe in slow hope – a form of grounded optimism that acknowledges difficulty but insists on embodying transformation in the present.
Their thought leadership has appeared in OpenDemocracy, the Queer African Reader, and the Institute of Development Studies, and they’ve spoken on global platforms including the UN Commission on the Status of Women, Foreign Policy’s Her Power Summit, and the Clinton Global Initiative. They hold a master’s degree in Religion, Gender and Sexuality from Yale Divinity School and a bachelor’s in Chemistry from Yale University.
A solo parent by choice, raising two children, Happy is also a dedicated guitar player and an aspiring linguist learning their mother tongue, Kamba. After twenty years of action, they remain clear in their message: in times like these, every contribution counts – and shared freedom is worth the discomfort it may take to build.
