The Reader

Chasing every RFP and donor lead can feel productive, but reactive fundraising costs you in burnout, mission drift and low-probability bets. Here is how to tell whether your fundraising is genuinely strategic - plus a quick self-check and two templates to get more intentional.

Creating meaningful opportunities for teams to gather and connect isn't a nice-to-have; it's vital to an organisation working well together and achieving real impact. Human beings, even at the workplace, value connection and a sense of belonging.

Questions can help unlock someone’s thinking, but not all questions achieve that. This Reader explains what makes powerful questions different.

For many, inspiration rarely arrives neatly. It comes in the middle of a long drive, in the pages of a book passed on by a colleague, a song, or in a…

The first question every conservation leader should be able to answer is: do we actually control our own website? This sounds basic. But across the organisations we work with, we regularly encounter situations where the domain name – the web address itself – is registered in the name of a former staff member, a well-meaning volunteer, or an external developer. Where the hosting server is inaccessible because credentials were never handed over. Where the only person who can make changes…

When we use the word "brand" with conservation leaders, we often see a slight wince. It sounds corporate. Shallow. Like something that belongs in a marketing agency, not in the field. But brand, at its core, is simply the answer to a question every funder, partner, government official, and community member is already asking: Who are you, and can I trust you?

Why does fundraising feel so hard for many nonprofits, even when the work is strong? Why does it continue to keep so many of us up at night? Why does fundraising feel so hard for many nonprofits, even when the work is strong? Why does it continue to keep so many of us up at night? Recently, our CEO, Fred Nelson, hosted a live conversation with Kevin L. Brown, founding partner & CEO of Mighty Ally, joined by the Maliasili team and more…

At the start of a new year, leaders are often encouraged to set goals, define priorities, and commit to new initiatives.

Big wins remind us that progress is possible even in difficult conditions. The small acts remind us why this work exists: people, relationships, and a shared belief that conservation can succeed when rooted in community. In this Reader, we invited leaders in our network and members of our team to share the moments that carried them through this year.

Like any framework, the purpose of STRONG is to distill and simplify complex ideas and relationships in a user-friendly way. In all our work at Maliasili, we strive for simplicity and clarity, and believe that STRONG can help leaders focus on some of the most critical areas for organizational performance, which is in and of itself a critical step in becoming stronger and more effective.