The Last Mile Fund – Supporting innovative finance solutions that have the ability to go the distance to support nature for people
By Lisa Freercks
The Last Mile Fund is a collaboration between The Sustainable Finance Coalition and Conserve Global to address the ‘missing middle’ of capital between traditional limited grant funding and finance demanding higher ticket sizes and commercial returns. This financing gap leaves local communities unsupported and new finance solutions stuck at a localised pilot stage unable to maximise their impact potential. The knock-on effect of this directly limits the ability of local communities to address climate and nature risks.
With an initial focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, The Last Mile Fund addresses this ‘missing middle’ by leveraging a blended finance approach to provide bridging finance to catalyse new innovative finance solutions that support sustainable finance for nature. The Last Mile Fund will catalyse more impact on a repetitive basis and will catalyse and re-catalyse impact and more sustainable finance to amplify their reach and to achieve impact at scale.
The Last Mile Fund is looking to make its first investment in Q3 of 2026 and is actively fundraising to grow its blended capital stack to further its reach and impact potential. For more information: lisa@sfcoalition.org.za.