Over the last year a number of non-profit and K-12 Environmental Education providers have been meeting to explore how funding, influence and networking can be improved and affected in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.   The group became an EECollaborative Task Force and set about exploring a collaborative approach to address these three EE issues.   Five documents and/or initiatives were reviewed to validate the need for a collaborative:  California’s Environmental Education Initiative (EEI), The Community Foundation’s Environmental Initiative, California Dept. of Education’s Blue Print for Environmental Literacy Task Force, The Children’s & Nature Network, and the North American Association of Environmental Education.

 

The group sought guidance on how collaboratives are formed and what makes them successful.  A local social service non-profit agency, Reach Out, was approached because it has formed and manages a variety of collaboratives and has worked in the community for over 30 years. The Executive Director, Diana Fox, agreed to volunteer her time to guide the effort.  The EECTask Force was given “homework” to study Stanford’s Collective Impact Model as a vehicle to affect change and solve problems.

 

After many work sessions to develop a plan to propose the idea of a collaborative to a larger group of EE providers and to the community, the task force set about to first enlist the support and input from Riverside and San Bernardino County Departments of Education.   They are in support of this effort.

 

The original EECTask Force was/is comprised of:  CREEC (California Regional Environmental Education Community),  Riverside Land Conservancy, Santa Rosa Plateau Nature Education Foundation, The Community Foundation, The Wildlands Conservancy and Reach Out, Inc.

 

July 10, 2014 the group held the first meeting to debut and expand the collaborative.

 

Feb 26, 2015 was the first EEC Symposium. Over 120 participants from 75+ organizations joined together to share ideas and lay the foundation for beginning a collaborative.

 

Please contact EECollaborative@gmail.com to be informed of opportunities for involvement.