Maliasili exists to support high-potential local organizations to accelerate the benefits they bring to people, ecosystems, and climate change →

Our mission is to accelerate community-led conservation through local organizations.

We believe that improved conservation practices through community action and stewardship will scale and spread through more capable, influential, and resilient local organizations.

We find and partner with outstanding organizations to help them develop and grow organizationally. In turn, they achieve even greater impact in safeguarding critical ecosystems that provide value for peoples’ livelihoods, generating nature-based economic opportunities, protecting numerous endangered species, and storing vast amounts of carbon in forests and other natural systems.

Our Core Values →

→ Our Purpose is Our Partners’ Success

We exist to serve our partners and are fully committed to their visions of change. The work they do is complex, urgent, and critical for people and the planet. We strive to meet the organizational needs and specific context of local and community-focused organizations, to strengthen them and to help them achieve even more.

→ The Path is Made by Walking

Our work is grounded in practical problem-solving and continuous improvement. We strive to be authentic and creative in developing effective and customized solutions to our partners’ organizational challenges.

→ Make the Complex Simple

In everything we do, we aim to generate clear understanding and facilitate practical actions. We keep things simple and clear, focusing on the most important elements and priorities.

→ Put People First

Our organization and work are relationship-driven and trust-based. When our team feels supported, valued and included, they are able to reach their full potential. Maliasili depends on dedicated, high-performing people working together towards collective achievement.

→ Strength in Diversity

The inclusion of diverse backgrounds, perspectives, personalities and voices is essential to our success. Diversity is vital for Maliasili as an organization and for driving effective and sustainable conservation.

→ Walk the Talk

We aim to align our words with actions. We understand the realities of building, leading, and growing strong, impactful organizations. We strive to embody effective management and teamwork for the well-being and success of our team and to inspire others.

→ Laugh, Learn, Grow

We are resilient and strive to do our best in any situation. We seek to have fun, as laughter helps us maintain commitment and perspective. We learn and adapt while being open about our successes and failures. We aim to continually improve ourselves and our practices with a mindset of humility and growth.

Our goals are ambitious and bold →

Vision for 2030→

Over the next five years we aim to support improved local management and conservation impacts across at least 100 million hectares of community land and seascapes in Africa. To achieve this we will:

Support the growth and development of over 100 high-impact African organisations, including our existing portfolio and carefully selected additional partner organizations.
Train over 400 African conservation leaders through our cohort-based programs.
Work to direct at least $75 million in funding to our partners, including but not limited to funding that we manage and grant ourselves. We will use detailed country-level strategies to articulate the national community conservation outcomes that our work contributes to, based on our partners’ own strategies, and that will guide our portfolio selection and support. We will improve our ability to document our partners’ environmental and social impacts, and how those build up into national-level influence and change.

READ OUR 2026-2030 STRATEGIC PLAN

Our Theory of Change →

We believe that when organizations are strong and effective; when their leaders are capable; when they have the right type and scale of funding to do their work and run their organizations; when they are supporting each other’s learning, work, and growth; and when they are able to act together for collective impact, they will be able to accelerate community-led conservation.

The outcomes we seek →

Stronger Local Organizations

We believe that if we invest in the organizational development of local organizations through holistic, multi-year partnerships that enhance their strategy, people, implementation, and funding, then these organizations will become more capable and resilient. We believe that investments in organizational development create a positive feedback loop between organizations seeing results towards their mission and feeling empowered to do more.

Organisational Development

Outstanding Leadership

We believe that all organizations need outstanding leadership to meet their full potential. Our programs seek to cultivate and support such leadership, which requires not just the skills to guide an organization’s work, but also the self-awareness and empathy to support themselves and their team members, as well as their ability to foster partnerships necessary to grow their work.

Leadership program

Greater Local Influence and Resources

We believe that local organizations are key to driving conservation success, and are deserving of more recognition, trust, and funding on a systemic level. We work to amplify our partners’ voices, influence, and access to resources and ultimately to catalyze shifts in power, influence, and funding towards our partners and other local organizations.

Amplifing resources and influence

Our Value Proposition

Maliasili offers a unique combination of skills, experiences, and competencies.

We possess a unique combination of skills and knowledge in community-based conservation AND organizational development.

We establish long-term partnerships built on trust, walking the journey of organizational development together with our partners.

Our work relies on the strength of group facilitation to identify and address organizational challenges together.

We act as a bridge between worlds, able to understand both local and global contexts, and serve as a trusted partner between national and international conservation actors, including donors.

Maliasili exists to help talented local conservation organizations overcome their challenges and constraints so that they can become more effective agents of change in their landscapes, communities, and nations.

READ OUR 2030 STRATEGIC PLAN

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4 Carmichael St, Suite 111-193, Essex Junction, VT 05452

Maliasili is designated as a public charity (501c3) organization by the Internal Revenue Service.

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