Our Impact
We strengthen organizations, enhance leadership capacity, and help get more money to the right people so they are less constrained and more capable of driving change across their communities and landscapes.
$15M+ raised and leveraged for our partners since 2018
20+ strategies bringing new focus, clarity & direction
80 African conservation leaders trained
90% of our partners said Maliasili’s support has made them a stronger organization.*
90% increased or kept steady their social and environmental impacts.
70% have more money than when we started working together.
60% grew the sizes of their teams.
2 out of 3 of our partners have a more diverse group of donors.
The numbers above include partners that we have worked with for three years or more. *Data from an anonymous 2020 partner feedback survey.
Our Portfolio’s Influence & Reach
Together, our partners have an impact on a huge scale, benefiting people, wildlife, the climate and nature
Work across 350,000 km² covering critical landscapes in east and southern Africa
Support communities to safeguard more than 34,000 elephants and 1,800 lions residing in critical ecosystems
Help generate +$12 million annually for communities who are sustainably managing their forests, wildlife, rangelands, and waters
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Reach more than 2 million people
Our partners are pioneering and leading community-based conservation across Africa
What guides us
Climate change, ecosystem degradation, population growth, resource conflicts. Our global environmental challenges are massive and urgent. Local communities offer a solution. With the rights, incentives, and capabilities they can sustainably manage their lands, resources, and ecosystems, benefiting people and our planet.
The best support for these local communities is through talented, motivated, and committed local organizations. That’s why Maliasili pours our efforts into helping them realize their full potential. When local organizations are strong, the communities driving conservation are too.
That’s why we invest in people for nature.
What we do
We support outstanding local organizations to become stronger and more effective through a multi-year customized support process that strengthens their organization, improves their leadership, and helps them develop the connections and resources they need to thrive. Our three pillars of work are inherently connected and reinforcing.
Our first step is to select high-potential partners:
We take a rigorous and curious approach when determining who to partner with. We look for organizations with a conservation model that puts people at its core by:
• Strengthen rights over land and natural resources
• Providing economic incentives for conservation efforts
• Enhancing local decision making and management bodies
Our 3 pillars of work
Building Stronger Organizations
Developing Outstanding Leaders
Amplifying Local Resources & Influence
Building Stronger Organizations
Strengthen local organizations for optimal performance.
We provide several years of intensive support to our partners. We start by assessing their organization’s needs, and then design annual plans for our organizational development support.
Featured
Developing Outstanding Leaders
Catalyzing self-aware and capable leaders.
Today and tomorrow’s conservation leaders need to drive systemic change by building organizations and networks far greater than the sum of their parts. Conservation needs leaders who can address local and global challenges, build collaborations and movements, and build and manage outstanding teams of diverse and talented individuals.
In collaboration with several partners, we run several leadership programs to strengthen conservation leaders across the continent.
Our programs cover three levels of leadership.
1. Leading Self
Helping leaders understand their approach, leading style, strengths, and behaviors.
2. Leading Organizations
Empowering leaders with the skills and competence to engage, motivate, and inspire their teams to build strong organizations.
3. Leading Collaborations
Fostering a leader’s ability to collaborate within the broader system that their organizations operate within, such as working with different actors and interests, including government, donors, partners and more.
Amplifying Local Resources and Influence
Local organizations often struggle to obtain the resources, attention, and support that they need in order to be successful. A key and growing aspect of our work is helping our partners tell their stories, find supporters and allies, and mobilize resources.
We work to raise awareness about the value of investing in local, community-driven conservation solutions, promote our partners as the key innovators and change-makers that they are, and help them secure funding for their work.
We work with funders who want to support the best and brightest in African community conservation to connect with our partners, and facilitate new funding structures such as the Maasai Landscape Conservation Fund.
Ultimately we seek to use our skills and networks to shift more influence and funding to great local organizations.
Grants to Maliasili Partners
Stronger local organizations leading innovation and change
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Greater local and global conservation impact
Partner Growth Journeys
What it takes to accelerate impact
Read our Case Studies →
When local organizations realize their full potential, the whole world benefits.
Our Big Vision
Maliasili’s work is ultimately all geared towards expanding, strengthening, and supporting community-based approaches to conservation and natural resource management. Our work and our portfolio selection, in terms of the organizations we choose to support and invest in, is based on the belief that local communities’ rights, values and agency is critical to the future of the earth’s biodiversity and ecosystems, as well as human well-being. Our vision of conservation seeks to empower communities to secure the lands and resources that their livelihoods depend on, providing them with greater agency to shape their own futures.
Our partners are putting that vision into action every day in their communities, their landscapes and their societies. By helping them become stronger, more influential and more resilient organizations, we are accelerating their impact, and the spread of community-led conservation across Africa and beyond.
Our global challenges can’t wait.
To address biodiversity loss, climate change, and environmental degradation, we need more outstanding local organizations that can drive positive change for people and nature on a growing scale.
Our goals are ambitious and bold.
By 2025 we aim to:
Triple the size of our portfolio supporting a total of 90 organizations across Africa and Madagascar
Train, support, and connect 200 high performing local conservation leaders
Mobilize at least $40 million in new funding for our portfolio partners
Stimulate at least $100 million in new funding commitments for community-based conservation organizations across the conservation field
Invest in us:
We want your support:
Invest in Maliasili - We have a big vision and ambitious goals and we need additional resources to invest in our growth
Invest in our portfolio - When you invest in our portfolio you know the organizations have been vetted and strengthened, and with more money, their impact will grow.
Invest in Africa’s next generation of leaders - Your support to our leadership program will help secure the future of African conservation.
