Maria Baltazzi
PhD, MFA, Founder
Wellbeing Mentor
Emmy-winning TV Producer
Seven Continent Marathon Walker
Intentional Travel Designer and Guide
I have been a longtime supporter of SU2C. Started by a group of well-respected women in the entertainment industry, who each has been profoundly impacted by cancer. I began supporting this organization after disease hit my family. My mother is a survivor. My brother is a survivor. Unfortunately, my sister was not. I STAND for ALL those touched by cancer.
Stand Up To Cancer’s mission is to raise funds to accelerate the pace of groundbreaking translational research that can get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives now.
SU2C brings together the best and the brightest researchers and mandates collaboration among the cancer community. By galvanizing the entertainment industry, SU2C has set out to generate awareness, educate the public on cancer prevention, and help more people diagnosed with cancer become long-term survivors.
Founder and CEO, Damien Mander, is a man who keeps putting his money where his mouth is. I have watched his organization grow from fledgling to 200 strong. The word ‘hero’ is an accurate description of this former Australian Special Forces Operator turned Wildlife Warrior.
The IAPF operates in Southern and East Africa. Their focus is ecosystem preservation, achieved through the two critical functions of training and operations.
The operational model is Akashinga, a community-driven conservation program, empowering disadvantaged women to restore and manage networks of wilderness areas.
Training is conducted under the LEAD Ranger initiative, a program of excellence. It builds field-based indigenous leadership and instructional capacity across Africa’s conservation industry.
Registered in four countries, Dr. Jane Goodall is their Patron. They have supported or trained rangers that help protect over 20 million acres of wilderness across the continent.
The Foundation was started by two award-winning wildlife filmmakers, whom I admire very much, Beverly and Dereck Joubert. Their work, both as storytellers and conservationists, has significantly raised awareness that has preserved vast lands of the African bush so wildlife can roam freely.
The Great Plains Foundation’s mission is to conserve and expand natural habitats in Africa through innovative conservation initiatives with a long-term commitment to the environment, wildlife, and local communities. The Foundation works in parallel with the conservation-tourism parent company, Great Plains Conservation. Together, they realize this mission through conservation education programs, community initiatives, wildlife, and environmental stewardship in Botswana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. All of the Great Plains Foundation activities are supported by charitable and in-kind donations.
The Founder of this organization is a friend and a true humanitarian. If ever I could say that someone is earning heaven points, it is Jon Ross.
MicroAid’s mission is to help families recover from the devastating effects of natural disasters. They help those who have no other recourse get back to their ‘normal’ life.
They focus on areas after the world’s attention has moved on, and other aid organizations have finished their emergency response and relief work.
Their small size and direct-assistance model allows them to efficiently maximize their impact for disaster survivors in the years following a disaster. They focus aid on those who need it most: the people who have no means to move out of their temporary situation — shelters, tents, or the rubble of their old home — and who were overlooked during the initial relief response.
MicroAid gives no-strings-attached hands-on assistance — rebuilding permanent homes and replacing tools of livelihood — to help people return to self-sufficiency.
This organization was set up by our East Africa Experience Specialist Shaun Mousley, a talented photographer and guide. We are happy to support his meaningful art.
Set up in response to the impacts of COVID-19, Prints for Conservation showcases photographers’ images in support of conservation. They aim to bolster and raise awareness of conservation organizations whose invaluable efforts do not receive sufficient recognition. These groups have critical roles to play in the survival of wildlife and in sustaining habitats. All are 100% donor-funded and severely impacted by the collapse in tourism resulting from the global pandemic.
Each limited edition image is printed on gallery-quality paper and delivered to your doorstep. The cost is all-inclusive, covering printing, packaging, and shipping. A percentage of every sale will be donated to a different conservation group each month. Some of these are For Rangers, Tsavo Trust, and Mara Elephant Project.
Of all the professional organizations I belong to, I am most proud of being a Fellow National member of The Explorers Club. It is an honor and humbling to belong to an organization that includes some of our greatest explorers. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who was the first to summit Mount Everest. Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, who went to the deepest part of the ocean. Nealy Armstrong, Buz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, who were the first on the moon. The TEC is a nonprofit organization that supports the scientific exploration of land, sea, air, and space by supporting research and education in the physical, natural, and biological sciences. Their mission is to advance field research, scientific exploration, resource conservation, and the ideal that it is vital to preserving the instinct to explore.
