The end of the year is a time to celebrate your hard work and achievements. However, one process frequently fills many with dread: the annual performance review. For some, it feels reminiscent of the days when they received a report card from school. During these reviews, team members often find out if they’ll receive a raise, a promotion, or a transfer to a different department - or, in some cases, face constructive feedback or consequences for past behavior.

Communications and fundraising are deeply intertwined. In this Reader, we want to make this connection clear and strong while providing ways you can put this into practice.

There is an increasing call for a shift in funder thinking, allowing more autonomy to local teams in decision-making and placing trust in them to decide the best use of resources at any given time. In this Reader, three leaders - Tiana Andriamanana, Patrick Kimani, and Andrew Stein - representing different organizations and geographies share their experiences and make a case for the importance of flexible and unrestricted funding.

In this Reader, Maliasili's Resson Kantai Duff and Monicah Mbiba are joined by Dr. Oliver Nsengimana from the Rwanda Wildlife Conservation Association, one of Maliasili’s East African partners. They discuss their experiences and share insights about speaking on national and international platforms about issues they are passionate about. The three of them answer questions honestly and in a relatable way, providing valuable insights that will help you, no matter what stage you are in your public speaking journey, to improve…

Times have changed, which means the traditional style of interviewing and recruiting may no longer work as well as it used to. As the professional landscape evolves, so must our approaches to finding and bringing on new talent in the conservation and environmental space. In this Reader, our Deputy Director for People and Culture, James Kiogora, provides easy-to-implement tips to ensure your interviewing and recruiting processes are successful, respectful, and reflect your organizational values.

We give a lot of time and attention to the hard stuff—having tricky discussions, giving difficult feedback, or surfacing and working through conflict. There are a plethora of tools and great advice for managing these. But with so much emphasis on the trickier discussions, we often forget about the importance of making the time to have another kind of conversation that is just as critical: those that are optimistic and affirming. This Reader dives into these, and how they can…

For many, conflict at the workplace (or anywhere else in life, really) is a negative and scary experience. We are wary of it, even though we know that it is unavoidable. In this Reader, our Deputy Director of People and Culture, James Kiogora, and our Chief Portfolio Officer, Karine Nuulimba, share useful insights on how they regularly manage conflict and reach a resolution. 

In the conservation and environmental sector, our work depends on people. And people are emotional beings who require support, connection, and relationships. Yet, we often overlook this critical part of our work as leaders and instead focus on what we consider strategic. In this Reader, discover the components of emotional intelligence, and how it can help us to be better leaders with real-life scenarios as examples.

Culture is dynamic and is both an individual and shared experience between team members. Creating a healthy culture - building, shaping and adapting it - requires consistent, long-term effort and intention. In our experience, there are some building blocks that make the foundation for building a healthy organizational culture. In this Reader, some of our team members explore some of these blocks, which are often interconnected and influence each other.

Organizational culture shapes how people behave, collaborate, and ultimately function as a team. It is the key to keeping teams engaged and productive, as well as attracting top talent to the organization. A thriving organizational culture unites people and keeps them aligned. In this Reader, some of our key portfolio team members reflect on this critical aspect of organizational dynamics, providing examples and scenarios of how culture manifests.