EcologyShifts 

EcologyShifts is an 18-month learning cohort focused on creating critical shifts in the environmental field to facilitate greater awareness, cooperation, and justice. The program is designed to be a community-learning experience that brings people together across the environmental sector to connect, share valuable knowledge, and explore collaborative pathways forward. 

Who is EcologyShifts For?

EcologyShifts is designed for people in environmental and related fields in Maine who have a desire for and a commitment to cooperation and change organizationally and at the systems-level. We define the environmental field broadly, recognizing a broad web of interconnected and interdependent partners across all sectors of society.  For the purposes of this program, each cohort will have designated themes related to specific areas of the environmental sector.  


For 2025-26, we are focusing on four themes: 

1. Fisheries, marine conservation and those impacted by fisheries/the working waterfront, 

2. Forestry, conservation, and tourism/recreation, 

3. Indigenous rematriation, land trusts, and farms,

4. Just energy transition, renewables, and those impacted by energy transition.


To support organizational and field level change, we are requiring applicants to demonstrate buy-in from their organizational and or board leadership. We are also requesting that applicants be composed of teams of two people from the group or organization who are committed to participating for the entire 18-month program. 


What we are envisioning is a culture shift within the field. Therefore, participants should be willing to work toward cross-sector change within and beyond their respective organizations. They should be ready to connect, open to learning and understanding, willing to ask hard questions and to explore more collaborative pathways forward.  We encourage applicants to be thoughtful about who within your organization would be the best candidate for this program. We encourage a mix of those in established leadership roles as well as those in early career positions within the organization.  


The cohort will comprise teams from multiple levels of engagement within each themed area. We will be selecting 12 teams of two. This will include participants from a wide range of organizations, and those with varied work and life experiences. 


EcologyShifts is designed with a commitment to accessibility and is rooted in values of relationality, equity, and interconnection and efforts will be made to reduce barriers to participation.


Time Commitments and Details

  • The cohort will meet monthly over an 18-month time frame and will kick off with an in-person day-long session at the Land Peace Foundation (LPF) in Monroe, Maine on July 9, 2025. 

  • Monthly in-person sessions at LPF will be bolstered by 2-hour online learning sessions and +-2 hours of homework a month, amounting to 12-14 hours a month of total time commitment, depending on travel time.

  • We are planning to host our first in-person session in July of 2025

  • There is no cost to participate.


Throughout the experience, participants can expect to:

  • Develop a deeper understanding of the connections, impacts, and outcomes for work within their own area of focus and across the environmental field.. 

  • Develop processes and strategies for shifting and transforming leadership structures and power distribution in organizations and the environmental field.

  • Engage in conversations, contemplation, and reflection.

  • Practice transformational change through taking action within organizations, communities, and at the larger systems-level.

By the end of the experience, participants will:

  • Deepen their understanding and awareness of the impacts and outcomes of decisions and actions taken within the environmental field.

  • Strengthen skills which nurture more powerful, authentic connections with people, organizations, and the environment and build meaningful cross-sector networks.

  • Build relationships with a community of people with whom they can learn from, collaborate with, and create needed change in the environmental field.

  • Develop a sense of how they and their organizations will continue to contribute to a shift to justice-centered change in the environmental field.


Imagined outcomes of EcologyShifts are that people, organizations and the environmental field will:

  • Be centered around issues of institutional transformation with a focus on justice for all, humans, nonhumans, and the living Earth.

  • Engage in well-informed justice-focused policy and field-based shifts.

  • Share resources through authentic collaboration.

  • Have tools to create more transformative and inclusive structures of leadership.