Frequently asked questions

Untold Wildlife is a global, volunteer-driven community becoming a nonprofit foundation. We bring overlooked stories, knowledge and conservation efforts into the open, connect people across borders, and help more people contribute to protecting nature.

Our community brings together storytellers, conservationists, scientists, creatives, local communities and people who want to make a difference.

Our ultimate aim is to help protect nature, wildlife and biodiversity.

We do this by uncovering overlooked perspectives, sharing knowledge, supporting people to tell their own stories, and creating connections that can lead to opportunities and conservation action.

We want valuable contributions to have a chance to be heard, regardless of someone’s nationality, location, recognition or access to resources.

Becoming a foundation gives us a formal structure to support the community’s ambitions, manage resources responsibly and build lasting partnerships.

It will help us seek funding and provide practical support to people and projects. We want to move beyond offering visibility alone and create more opportunities for people to share knowledge, collaborate and contribute to nature protection.

Untold brings together storytelling, education, creative work, community building and conservation support.

Publishing is an important part of our work. Our wider purpose is to help people access knowledge, collaborators, resources and opportunities that enable them to contribute to protecting nature.

“Untold” does not mean a subject has never been mentioned before.

It can mean an overlooked person, a misunderstood species, an underrepresented community, a local initiative that deserves wider support, or a perspective missing from a familiar issue.

We look for what deserves to be seen, understood and connected to others.

• Discover: Bring overlooked people, stories, species and conservation efforts into view.
• Learn: Turn experiences and reliable knowledge into understanding.
• Connect: Bring people, skills, organisations and opportunities together.
• Protect: Help those connections and insights contribute to responsible outcomes for nature.

These pillars work together. A single project can contribute to all four.

Untold is open to people from anywhere in the world who share our values of Equality, Authenticity and Collaboration.

We welcome different nationalities, languages, cultures, identities, backgrounds and areas of expertise. Whether you bring lived experience, local knowledge, scientific understanding, creative skills or a willingness to help, we welcome the opportunity to explore working together.

You do not need an established career, professional equipment or a large following. We want to reduce the barriers that prevent people from sharing their perspectives and create opportunities for people who might otherwise never meet or collaborate.

Contributions should reflect our mission, respect the people and wildlife involved, and meet the relevant standards for each project.

Our projects offer different ways to discover nature and the people connected to it.

Untold Stories shares personal accounts written in contributors’ own voices. A Day in the Life explores the everyday experiences behind people’s work. Untold News shares reporting on wildlife and conservation developments, with attention to overlooked perspectives.

We are also developing further opportunities through podcasts, educational resources and creative collaborations. Each initiative grows according to its purpose, available resources and our ability to deliver it responsibly.

Stories help people understand issues, discover conservation work and recognise the people behind it. They can make unfamiliar experiences relatable and bring local knowledge to wider audiences.

They can also create opportunities: a contributor may meet a collaborator, an initiative may reach potential supporters, or a reader may discover a practical way to help.

We want to build meaningful connections around the stories we share and understand what those connections make possible.

We welcome both recognised and overlooked contributors.

What matters is the value of their perspective and its connection to our purpose. Someone’s reputation, organisation size or location should not determine whether their contribution deserves attention.

Bringing people with different levels of experience and recognition together can create valuable opportunities to exchange knowledge, offer support and collaborate.

We do not currently accept donations. We will begin accepting them only after Untold Wildlife’s official nonprofit establishment is complete and the necessary arrangements are in place.

Future donations would support our mission: helping people share overlooked stories and knowledge, keeping our core content freely accessible, creating learning and collaboration opportunities, and supporting suitable conservation initiatives.

As funding and capacity grow, we aim to offer practical and financial support to contributors, communities and projects. Funding may also cover essential costs required to deliver this work responsibly.

Funds would be managed under board oversight, with documented spending and clear communication about their use and outcomes. They would serve the foundation’s purpose, with no profits distributed to founders, board members or supporters.

Our intention is to keep our core published stories and learning resources freely accessible.

Access to knowledge should not depend on someone’s financial means. Future funding would help us create, share and maintain these resources while supporting the work behind them.

Yes. We welcome collaborations with organisations whose work and values align with our mission.

Collaboration can include sharing expertise, developing educational or creative projects, supporting contributors, providing equipment or services, and working together on conservation initiatives.

We assess significant partnerships for integrity, independence, environmental impact and our ability to deliver responsibly. Support must respect our contributors’ voices and must not buy favourable coverage or misleading claims about conservation outcomes.

Our core values are Equality, Authenticity and Collaboration.

We put them into practice by respecting contributors’ voices, obtaining appropriate consent, giving credit, checking factual claims and placing wildlife welfare at the centre of our work.

We value honest representation. Artificial wildlife imagery must not be presented as genuine field documentation, and machine-generated personal accounts must not be presented as someone’s lived experience. Tools used for language, accessibility or editing should preserve authorship and accuracy.

We also aim to work with communities through respect and reciprocity, ensuring their involvement offers value beyond the collection of stories or images.

We are currently in the process of establishing Untold Wildlife as a nonprofit foundation in the Netherlands.

We will publish our registration details once establishment is complete. Any future information about donation eligibility or tax benefits will reflect our confirmed status and the applicable conditions.

You can contribute a story, volunteer your skills, share useful knowledge, introduce a potential collaborator or help us reach people whose work deserves attention.

Editing, translation, research, photography, filmmaking, design, technology, education and project coordination can all make a meaningful contribution.

We welcome ideas from people who share our values and want to help advance our mission.

We want Untold to become a global, freely accessible collection of knowledge and experience about nature, wildlife and conservation, shaped by people from across the world.

Our ambition is to bring people with different backgrounds, cultures, disciplines and levels of recognition to the same table. Local knowledge holders, emerging storytellers, scientists, artists and established conservationists should have meaningful opportunities to learn from one another and work together.

Through this storytelling and conservation network, we aim to support people and communities in sharing stories from their own regions, in their own voices, languages and creative forms. Geography, recognition and access to resources should not determine whose knowledge is heard or whose ideas can grow.

Together with other organisations, we want to turn those connections into successful educational, creative and conservation projects. By uncovering overlooked stories from natural history and documenting the experiences shaping conservation’s future, we hope to help more people Discover, Learn, Connect and Protect the natural world.