
Aside from his career as an artist, Guy Combes is US Development Director for Soysambu Conservancy and sits on the board of Friends of Soysambu Conservancy, a US based non-profit fundraising organization. He has raised tens of thousands of dollars for a project to build mobile cattle enclosures to mitigate human-wildlife conflict and ensure that lions can continue to roam free on 48,000 acres of ideal habitat in Kenya’s central Rift Valley. This is especially crucial now that lions have been declared “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List due to an alarmingly decreasing population.
Combes has also been involved in activism to stop environmentally insensitive development in the Serengeti and the destructive trade in ivory and rhino horn worldwide. He has raised funds for Action for Cheetahs in Kenya, Amboseli Trust for Elephants, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, and many other grass-roots organizations with whom the artist has a personal connection. Guy has also pioneered an effective way of fundraising on social media with live auction painting sessions, creating the perfect nexus of artist, audience, and conservation philanthropy. Working from his studio in California and dividing his time between the US, England, and Kenya, Guy Combes uses his visibility as an international artist to draw attention to the plight of the wild things and wild places that have been so instrumental in his own development as an artist and as a human being.