Hearten Africa is our giving program.
Not a rounding error on a balance sheet, it’s a program we named, measure and stand behind.
We built Hearten Africa
Every travel company talks about giving back. Few of them tell you specifically what that means, where the money goes, who receives it, what it funds, and how you’d know if it was working.
We got tired of vague language. So we built something different.
Hearten Africa is our giving program. When a client asks us where their contribution goes, we don’t generalise. We name the organisations, we tell the stories and we visit our partners in person. It’s not just to take photos for the website, but because we genuinely believe accountability requires a presence, a real relationship. That specificity is what makes a commitment real to us.
How it works
Simple, transparent, real.
Every safari we complete generates a contribution to the Hearten Africa fund. That fund is distributed to a small number of carefully chosen conservation and community organisations selected each year based on the quality of their work, the integrity of their operations, and the depth of our relationship with them.
We keep the number of partners deliberately small. Not because there aren’t hundreds of worthy organisations across Africa, there are, but because we believe depth of support is more valuable than breadth of gesture. We’d rather know our partners intimately and support them meaningfully than spread thin contributions across a long list of names.
You will always know who our current partners are, what they do, and why we chose them. That transparency is non-negotiable.
Why Hearten Africa?
The name matters.
To hearten means to give courage, confidence and hope. That’s exactly what we believe responsible tourism can do, for wildlife populations under pressure, for communities navigating the tension between development and conservation, for wild places that need advocates as much as they need funding.
It’s also what Africa does to the people who visit it properly. It heartens them. It sends them home with a sense of connection and purpose that ordinary travel rarely delivers.
The name works in both directions. We thought that was right.
Our 2026 partners
These aren’t corporate sponsorships, they’re relationships. We know the people, we’ve seen their work up close, visited them in the field, and trust them completely.
How partners are chosen
Our selection criteria.
We do not accept applications, and we do not respond to sponsorship requests. Our partners are chosen because we have encountered their work in the field, assessed it honestly and decided it meets the standard we hold everything else in our business to.
What we look for:
Proven impact on the ground
Not projected impact. Not theoretical impact. Work that is visibly, measurably making a difference to wildlife, wilderness or communities in the regions we operate in.
Integrity and transparency
Organisations that report honestly on their work, including what has not gone to plan. We are more impressed by honest accountability than polished success stories.
A genuine relationship with local communities
Conservation that excludes or marginalises the communities surrounding it is not the conservation we want to fund. The organisations we support understand that human wellbeing and ecological health are the same conversation.
A personal connection
We visit our partners. We meet the people doing the work. We ask the hard questions. If we cannot stand behind an organisation with complete confidence, we do not direct our clients’ contributions their way.
The refer and reward connection
Keep the ripple moving.
For our current and past guests, when you recommend Encompass Africa to someone you care about, and they book their own journey with us, we gift you AUD $100 to donate to a charity of your choice from the Hearten Africa giving list above.
It is a simple thing. But it keeps the ripple moving – connecting more people to Africa and more support to the organisations protecting it.
A note on transparency
We will always tell you where it goes.
We update our partner list annually and communicate openly with our community about who we are supporting and why.
We do not publish specific dollar amounts – not because we have anything to hide, but because we believe the quality and depth of our partnerships matter more than the size of the number. What we can tell you is that every safari generates a real contribution, that every contribution reaches a real organisation and that every organisation has been chosen because someone from our team has stood in front of their work and decided it is worthy of your trust.
If you ever want to know more about any of our partners or how Hearten Africa works, ask us. We love talking about it.
Travel that heartens Africa.
And you.
The most common thing our travellers tell us when they return is that Africa gave them more than they expected. More perspective, more connection and more of a sense of what matters and what does not.
Hearten Africa is our way of making sure that the exchange runs in both directions, that the continent which gives so generously to everyone who visits it receives something meaningful in return.
Every journey, every time.
“Look up and not down;
look out and not in;
look forward and not back,
and lend a hand.”
– Author and historian, Edward Everett Hale