Ecologists Without Borders (EcoWB) was founded in 2011 by three scientists from the U.S. Pacific Northwest: Larry Dominguez, Eric Knudsen, and Cleve Steward. Current EcoWB President Danielle Reich spoke with the founders about their perspectives on the past, present, and future of EcoWB.
Where did the idea for EcoWB come from?
Larry: When you have an experience like Peace Corps early in your life as I did, it never leaves you. After seeing the worst of poverty firsthand in several countries, you think about it all the time. One night I saw a Doctors Without Borders donor solicitation. I said to my wife, “I know what I want to do! I want to create an organization like this for environmental scientists. There are too many smart and caring people out there to ignore the poverty and environmental devastation that’s going on.” I was also interested in the Judeo-Christian ethic and obligation of land stewardship and, early on, considered whether EcoWB should be a secular or faith-based organization. Ultimately, my conviction was that the organization could be a major force for good and should be open to all—it couldn’t be exclusive, self-serving, or have an agenda. That is how the idea for EcoWB was initially conceived.
How did you go about getting the organization started?
Larry: The founding and forming of an organization are really two different processes. An idea can be conceived and formed, but then it has to be established. Cleve and Eric helped give substance to my ideas and vision. I also want to acknowledge the pivotal support of two other colleagues, Chuck Meacham and Bill Dunning. I initially asked them, “Hey am I crazy? Is this possible?” I might not have continued with the idea if they hadn’t strongly encouraged me to go forward.
Eric: There was a night when the three of us met and we had a very lively conversation about how it could work. I was very enthusiastic about how it was developing and I felt like I was with two of the most productive brainstormers I had ever met. We were just feeding off of each other and developing the ideas and the vision. It was a wonderful experience to be involved in that initial energy.
Cleve: We were all very alike in our shared interests, values, and excitement, and we were fertile ground in which to plant the seed of the organization. We have similar scientific backgrounds and we also have the common experience of seeing large-scale environmental problems firsthand. It’s a very challenging endeavor to maintain the ecological integrity of our systems, but that’s what we took on. All of us were motivated to create an organization to deal with problems that we knew weren’t just limited to our local circumstances. These issues transcended place and basically were connected through ecological processes and interdependencies. We all realized that in both scientific and visceral ways.
Eric: We were juggling a lot in the beginning because the three of us were all very involved in the American Fisheries Society (AFS) 2011 Annual Meeting in Seattle. I was the Fundraising Chair for the meeting and we made a proposal to AFS to use part of the funds raised to help establish EcoWB, as a lot of our fisheries colleagues were interested in the organization and we felt it would be a benefit to AFS. Things came together really well, we raised a lot of money for AFS, and received sufficient resources to found and organize EcoWB. These funds allowed us to hire Larry as our first Executive Director and also funded some of our initial travels to go places to start projects, etc.
Cleve: It’s amazing in hindsight to see how things came together. AFS deserves credit and you too, Eric, for your superhuman work in raising funds for that meeting, and for obtaining funds for EcoWB. I also have to acknowledge the support of the companies that I worked for at the time. They were extremely generous in allowing me the time to devote to planning the AFS meeting and getting EcoWB going. Of course, everyone who put up with us during this period deserve our thanks and acknowledgement. The fact is, we got off to a pretty good start. We were able to identify initial projects and recruit volunteers, including board members and others who provided invaluable help during this critical stage.
What was the first official EcoWB project?
Larry: I think it was the Fiji project because it was where we first pursued and obtained project funding. I was part of a project in Fiji starting in 2005, and it led to an EcoWB aquaculture project. I’d traveled there on a few different trips to visit a center called Homes of Hope, which provides various training opportunities for women rescued from sexually-exploitive situations. This helped shape our conviction that the organization should promote projects that benefitted people, not just the environment.
What was the hardest part of the first few years?
Cleve: I think it was to establish the processes and the conditions necessary for growth. We are still in a growth phase, but for a while, it was like riding a bike while you’re building it. We were trying to realize our goals, start projects, and get volunteers involved, but at the same time we were also establishing ourselves as a functioning organization, meeting all the requirements of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, etc.
Eric: I second that. I think there were some years where we were basically struggling to stay alive and keep it going. Over the past few years, we’ve made remarkable progress. I feel like we now have a lot of good momentum that we didn’t have in the middle of that 10-year period.
Larry: One early and ongoing challenge is international project development and finding good on-the-ground people. The amount of effort that we put into developing an early project in Cambodia project is a good example. Cleve went on a trip to the area, we had good government contacts, we did site surveys, had another organization partner with us, and did all we could to start something and promote a project, but communications stopped. Building trust and long-term relationships is a challenge. Another challenge was interpersonally—I wanted to tell the world that this was going to be the greatest organization ever created for mankind. [laughs]. Cleve is a good ballast for me and brings me back down to reality. And Eric is the peacemaker between the realists and the dreamers. This is probably why the organization has developed the way it has—from the balance we had between this triad of people. We might have had some discussions that were colorful at times, but it’s what happens when you make sausage and it tastes great in the end!
How has EcoWB evolved since its founding? Are we where you’d thought we’d be at the 10-year mark?
Cleve: No. [laughs] I remember when we went through the application process for our tax-exempt status determination. It was a lengthy process that included a 5-year projection of what we thought our annual gross income would be. I think we put down $500,000 by Year 5—we didn’t come close to that, and we still haven’t come close. Where we have been remarkably successful is in attracting attention and raising our profile within our professional community and among other like-missioned organizations. I think people are also finding a place for themselves within EcoWB where they might not have previously. Volunteers can now contribute directly to the organization, serve on committees, take on projects, etc. Another challenge has been meeting our fundraising goals, both for building organizational capacity and for implementing large-scale projects. We have a few examples of projects that have been funded over the long term, and they are good examples of where we’ve engaged the local community not just on environmental problems, but also on social and economic problems. We’ve learned that we can’t just go in as ecologists and deal with the ecology; an essential part of what we do is to empower the local community and ensure they have the resources to effect change.
Larry: In the early days, I would look at huge international nonprofits like Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, etc., and think, “How is EcoWB ever going to get to be like that?” I defaulted to thinking that that we would never be a large stand-alone environmental organization. I looked at all these big organizations as tiles of a mosaic and imagined EcoWB as the grout between them. I thought we would be the ones to deploy and fill in when other organizations’ contracts run out, or they need to finish out a project, or they need follow-up assistance, etc. But as EcoWB is growing, I see the potential for us to be leaders. We have a strong network and the capability to lead projects at that level. EcoWB is now leading and developing large projects and building trust from other organizations. That’s one of the changes I see in the growth.
Eric: The other change to add to those is how our Board of Directors has evolved. We’ve attracted a lot of really good people. Larry, Cleve, and I are not on the Board as full voting members anymore and there are all new people with fresher ideas and their own vision. It’s really contributed to our recent growth and success. I want to acknowledge our gratitude for past and current board members and all of our volunteers of all different walks of life and skills. We are so grateful for everyone who has put their time and energy into this organization.
What are the organization’s biggest challenges going forward?
Cleve: It’s our ability to adapt to changing circumstances. For example, we couldn’t predict the COVID-19 pandemic, and it directly affected us and our partners and the work we do with them. As an organization, we have to be resilient and adapt in order to be able to continue to provide our services. I want to make sure that we maintain the capacity to evolve and respond to changing circumstances.
Eric: Another challenge as an organization is our effectiveness. This includes things like fundraising and building an organizational structure that facilitates projects and getting volunteers involved in the projects. We have a lot of volunteers in our network and we haven’t had the capacity to fully implement their volunteerism. Also, we can’t do all of this with volunteers alone. Our most effective projects have been those where we had the funds to support one individual to be on-site to coordinate and monitor the project. That person is really important because they’re the ones who interact with the local community and stakeholders. When consistent, local interaction happens, the project becomes very effective. This is the kind of thing we need to develop further.
Larry: There are lot of other organizations that make it easy to volunteer and are funded heavily. We need to somehow provide an incentive for volunteers, especially younger people. We need to be open, clear, and realistic about the experiences we can provide, and figure out how to market ourselves as not just a volunteer organization.
Cleve: As ecologists, we think of the functions and components of large-scale, complex systems, but funding opportunities tend to be narrowly focused on certain issues. Funded projects are typically of a defined type, in a defined area, and involve a specific local community or group of stakeholders. All of that is well and good, but are we only interested in the goals and outcomes associated with a particular project? Or are we thinking in the long term about how our actions can be replicated over larger scales of time and space so that we see benefits expressed on an ecosystem or even global level? How do we go from the local and specific to the universal and general so that benefits are maximized? That is something that not just we, but anyone concerned with these types of problems, are challenged by.
What is your vision for the next 10 years at EcoWB? Where would you like to see us in 10 years’ time?
Larry: The first five years of an organization is typically either the grave, or it will grow. When we went past 5 years, even though we didn’t have a lot going on, there was still substance and I felt good about that. Now we’re at the 10-year mark, and look at what’s happened! There is an amazing number of people involved in and interested in EcoWB. In the future, I envision much more cooperation and more recognition from partners.
Eric: There are a lot of things in my vision for the future. One thing I would like to see is for us to have hundreds of volunteers deployed around the world to help people in their local communities to improve their environmental situation, which leads to economic improvement, community improvement, and so many other things. The details are tricky, but the vision is clear. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish, and I want to see us get there.
Cleve: We all believe there is tremendous potential for EcoWB to be successful because the need for an organization like ours will only increase. Ten years from now I would expect a high-level of public awareness of who we are and what we do, and a desire among other organizations to interact with us and integrate their mission and activities with ours. I think more and more organizations working on humanitarian causes like health care, education, etc. will begin to acknowledge the influence of ecological processes in meeting their goals. We feel that the well-being of humans and the environment are inextricably intertwined, and that EcoWB can bring value as a partner to those organizations. Finally, I would like to see more engagement with donors—I mean that in a broad sense because, in a way, we’re all donors. EcoWB is a way for people to give their time, talents, and financial resources if they have a desire to, and it’s not just about performance or work or recognition. It’s about supporting the organizations and communities that we work with. I think all of us have experienced the pleasure of not only contributing ourselves, but seeing others get caught up in this, and taking on added responsibilities.
Larry: I grew up looking at National Geographic magazines, and I would imagine myself going places and wanting to do things to help. With EcoWB, if somebody, like a biologist or environmental scientist, sees a problem, they can do something about it. They don’t have to go get a job at a big non-profit, it’s on them to take action. EcoWB is that mechanism. We might be one of the only organizations where you can create and develop your own project. Many other organizations have a volunteer system where you can participate in things like established projects and eco-volunteer journeys, which is great. But EcoWB is where you can create something that is a passion for you. That is our distinction.
Cleve, Eric, and Larry continue to play pivotal roles in the organization. Cleve currently serves as EcoWB’s Executive Director, Eric is a Director-Emeritus, and Larry serves as an EcoWB Ambassador.
