February 26, 2026

The EFI Steering Committee is pleased to announce that after much exploration, EFI is now a fiscally sponsored project of Ecologistics, Inc!

Fiscal sponsorship is a formal arrangement in which a current non-profit agrees to serve as an incubator for a charitable program external to itself that does not have tax-exempt status yet. In this arrangement, Ecologistics is the fiscal sponsor that is “hosting” EFI as the charitable program. See more about Ecologistics’ fiscal sponsorship program here.

This means that EFI now has a bank account, can accept donations, and can serve as the lead or a subaward on grant proposals. 

A huge thanks goes to the four EFI Steering Committee cohorts who have worked on this project since 2022. Between 2022 and early 2024, the Steering Committee identified and convened an Executive Advisory Committee to provide advice on options to support EFI’s long-term fiscal, legal, and organizational sustainability. The recommendation to explore fiscal sponsorship from that group prompted the Steering Committee to explore and connect with a wide range of potential fiscal sponsors over the next two years. In early February this year, Ecologistics approved EFI as a fiscally sponsored project. The current Steering Committee approved the sponsorship, acknowledging the overlap of EFI’s missions with that of Ecologistic’s mission to collaborate with people and organizations around the world to create resilient and healthy communities that are environmentally and economically sustainable, and socially just. 

Executive Advisory Committee members:
Kathie Weathers – Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network, GLEON; Ecological Society of America, ESA,
Kari Jordan – The Carpentries,
Nicole Crane – Society for Conservation Biology; One People One Reef,
Caroline Stem – Conservation Measures Partnership,
Lou Woodley – Community for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement, CSCCE

All voting and ex-officio Steering Committee members since 2022 who contributed to this project:
*Mike Dietze (Boston University),
*Melissa Kenney (University of Minnesota),
Nievita Bueno Watts (California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt),
Carl Boettiger (University of California Berkeley),
Alyssa Willson (University of Notre Dame),
Glenda Wardle (University of Sydney),
Christy Rollinson (Morton Arboretum),
Kira Sullivan-Wiley (PEW Charitable Trust),
Jake Zwart (US Geological Survey),
Quinn Thomas (Virginia Tech),
Jason McLachlan (University of Notre Dame),
*Jody Peters (University of Notre Dame),
Meghan Beatty (University of Florida),
Chris Brown (NOAA/University of Maryland),
Istem Fer (Finnish Meteorological Institute),
*Anna Sjodin (US Environmental Protection Agency),
Kayode Oshinubi (Northern Arizona University),
Alistair Hobday (CSIRO),
Michael Gerst (University of Maryland/National Institute of Standards and Technology),
*Korryn Bodner (University of Guelph),
Antoinette Abeyta (University of New Mexico, Gallup),
John Zobitz (Augsburg University),
Cara Gallagher (Aarhus University),
Hannah O’Grady (University of Notre Dame),
Jasper Slingsby (University of Cape Town),
Patricia Dumandan (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)

*Special thanks to Melissa Kenney, Anna Sjodin, and Korryn Bodner, Mike Dietze, and Jody Peters, who provided additional leadership to facilitate Executive Advisory Committee calls or participate in calls with and compile information about potential sponsors.