Zainab leads the The National Library restoration initiative of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies in Mogadishu, Somalia. From 2007 to 2012, she was a Program Officer for The Minneapolis Foundation where she led the Foundation’s strategic focus areas of Transform Education of the community grantmaking, and served as key staff and managed special purpose funds. As a writer, poet, and human rights and social justice activist, Zainab has been an active member of the African diaspora philanthropy, and the Somali diaspora civil society.