Offers

Channeling Finance into Local Action

VIA Foundation combines flexible capital, hands-on technical support, rigorous monitoring, and blended finance to help Africa's restoration organisations grow from pilot to scale.

Our Offer

What We Do

Deploy Capital

VIA Foundation and its partners deploy grants, debt, and equity directly to the organisations doing restoration work on the ground — cooperatives, social enterprises, and community associations.

Funding is structured around each organization’s growth stage, from early seed grants that de-risk a first pilot to larger multi-year commitments that help proven models scale. Every disbursement is paired with clear, achievable milestones co-designed with the partner, so capital keeps pace with real capacity rather than forcing premature scale.

Build Capacity

Money alone doesn't restore land — organisations need financial management systems, monitoring capability, and technical know-how to deploy it well. VIA Foundation's technical assistance team works side-by-side with local organizations to build exactly that.

Support spans from nursery management and agroforestry techniques to financial reporting, governance structures, and safeguarding practices, delivered through peer exchanges and online courses. The goal is durable institutional strength: organisations that can attract and manage more finance.

Manage Portfolios & Performance

Every hectare VIA Foundation finances is tracked thoroughly by its experienced project managers and field coordinators. Hands-on technical support helps local organizations solve challenges in real time.

Reports every six months and structured field visits bring in constant data on portfolio performance. This system flags underperforming sites early, allowing VIA Foundation and its partners to adapt before problems compound.

Generate Outcomes

VIA Foundation structures blended finance vehicles that combine catalytic public and philanthropic capital with private investment, reducing risk for commercial funders entering restoration for the first time.

Instruments range from first-loss guarantees and outcome-based payments to co-investment facilities designed alongside development banks and impact investors.

By absorbing early-stage risk, VIA Foundation helps unlock capital at a scale that grants alone could never reach.

Priority Landscapes

Where We Work

VIA Foundation operates in three key landscapes, where restoration strengthens the ecological integrity of degraded landscapes while delivering social and economic benefits to local communities.

Lake Kivu & Rusizi Basin

In the Lake Kivu & Rusizi Basin spanning Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda, planting trees helps to reduce operating costs for hydropower companies and protect habitat for endangered biodiversity.

Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley

In Kenya’s Greater Rift Valley, restoration reduces flood risks and protects water supplies for flower exporters, geothermal operators, and smallholder farms.

Ghana Cocoa Belt

In the Ghana Cocoa Belt, the shift to shade-grown cocoa helps cocoa companies comply with new deforestation regulations and increases farms’ resilience to climate change.

Partnerships for Implementation

How We Partner

In its priority landscapes, VIA Foundation brings its offers alive through partnerships with financiers, community groups, and data experts.

TerraFund

Founded by the World Resources Institute (WRI), One Tree Planted, and Realize Impact in 2021, TerraFund is a financing partnership that has deployed grants, loans, and equity investments ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 to community-based non-profits and enterprises restoring land.

Since 2025, VIA Foundation has helped manage 141 TerraFund projects, with staff co-creating projects alongside community-based organizations and enterprises. This partnership has helped VIA Foundation build its track record of targeting investments to maximize impact per dollar, deploying flexible funding, and providing monitoring and verification support for a real-time view of restoration progress.

Revolving Capital Facility

Through this facility, VIA Foundation creates a virtuous circle in which capital is repaid through verified outcomes and reinvested in new restoration projects. The RCF works in five steps: raising upfront capital, securing outcome commitments, funding local delivery, verifying and repaying, and reinvesting for greater impact.

VIA Foundation is actively mobilizing commitments from upfront financiers, as well as outcome payers, to kickstart the facility in each of the three priority landscapes.

W+ Credits for Gender & Social Equity

VIA Foundation is partnering with WOCAN to certify the gender and social equity outcomes of its portfolio and issue credits to outcome payers. Women are central to restoration, yet often do not receive financial benefits or recognition for their work.

VIA Foundation serves as a project developer, identifying leading local organizations from its portfolio and directing grant funding to implement women’s empowerment initiatives. Currently, VIA Foundation is piloting this approach with two projects in Kenya, before expanding to additional partners.