We are thrilled and honored to be starting 2026 and our new strategic plan with an unprecedented investment in our mission that provides immediate momentum to this new vision of impact.

In late 2025, Maliasili received an extraordinary gift of $15 million in one-time unrestricted funding from MacKenzie Scott. This is our second gift from Ms. Scott, and we are deeply grateful to be included among the organizations she supports with her transformative approach to trust-based philanthropy and investing in civil society organizations across multiple fields and diverse geographies.

We used our first grant from Scottin in 2021 as seed funding for the Maliasili Conservation Fund (MCF), a pooled funding mechanism that combines flexible grants with organizational strengthening and fundraising support, providing critical core and multi-year funding for our partners’ work. This trust-based capital helped attract additional funders and we have since secured more than $14 million for this fund, supporting 28 of our partners over the past three years. They are not only achieving greater impact but are also stronger organizations.  For every $1 contributed through MCF, partners unlocked roughly $3 in additional funding.

With this new grant, we will scale up this funding framework, as a key element of our 2030 strategic plan, providing seed capital for a new pooled fund to reach more of our partners across a wider geographic area. We intend to apply this proven approach at a larger, more ambitious scale, using flexible capital not as an endpoint but as a catalyst to multiply resources flowing directly to African organizations closest to communities, landscapes, and long-term conservation outcomes. We also view this new fund, like MCF, as part of creating better funding models through close collaboration and co-design with our partners, which increases local organizations’ access to resources and makes it easier for them to invest in their work, their teams, and their visions.

We’re tremendously grateful for MacKenzie Scott’s own transformative vision of philanthropy and the momentum her investment will provide for our strategy and ultimately for so many of our partners.