COLLECTIVE THREADS INITIATIVE

Collective Threads Initiative (CTI) partnered with MA Impact Partners (MAIP) to design and execute a multi-year fundraising engine aimed at raising $8 million to scale CTI’s survivor-led, movement-building work. The engagement blended strategic planning, major-gift activation, donor-engagement events, and infrastructure build-out utilizing MAIP’s embedded partnership solution to turn CTI’s global credibility into catalytic investment.

Organization Snapshot

Based in: Global (leadership in Kenya, U.K. & U.S.)
Sector: Human Rights / Anti-Trafficking / Social Justice

the background

CTI is a survivor-led collective accelerating systemic solutions to human trafficking and modern slavery. By late 2024, founders Sophie Otiende and Chris Ash had attracted growing international attention but relied on ad-hoc gifts and a patchwork of spreadsheets. They engaged MAIP to install a rigorous fundraising engine capable of matching their ambitions.

The Challenge

  • Stretch goal, lean capacity — $8 M target with no in-house development team, and founders busy trying to save the world.

  • Unstructured pipeline — lots of warm relationships, little segmentation or forecasting.

  • Fragmented systems — donor data scattered across email, Asana and personal notes.

THE SOLUTION

MAIP worked with CTI as embedded fundraising partner.

  • 30-day diagnostic and a February 2025 fundraising plan aligning revenue milestones to program priorities.

  • Network mapping, research, and warm-intro sourcing that produced a $10M high-intent pipeline across 45 prospects.

  • End-to-end workflows, meeting briefs, and weekly pipeline reviews to free founders for high-leverage conversations.

  • Modular concept notes, slide decks, and a virtual launch that placed CTI’s survivor-led narrative before 45 funders and thought partners

  • Real-time coaching on moves management, gift negotiation, and stewardship culture.

The impact