Strengthening ECAS for Its Next Chapter
Update from Vivian Eto, ECAS Interim Executive Director
Aloha ECAS Network Partners and Friends -
Since stepping into the role of Interim Executive Director, I have been deeply grateful for the warm welcome, encouragement, and support I have received from partners across the early childhood community. I am equally appreciative of the support extended to ECAS’s backbone team as we navigate significant organizational change and staff transitions. Their continued positivity, flexibility, and enthusiasm have helped sustain our work and momentum during a challenging period.
Over the past few months, ECAS has been engaged in a comprehensive assessment of our initiatives, teams, grants, contracts, staffing, administrative capacity, and financing. As we absorb the departures and temporary absence of several valued team members, our immediate priority has been to ensure that ECAS continues to meet its commitments and support the work already underway.
At the same time, this period of transition has created an opportunity to clarify ECAS’s purpose and strengthen the organization for its next chapter as we adjust to changing conditions and an evolving early childhood landscape.
Refocusing on Our Central Purpose
This spring, ECAS convened a Leadership Hui comprised of long-term, cross-sector partners familiar with ECAS’ evolving work and history. The Hui undertook a process of reflection and strategic discussion about the organization’s role within the early childhood landscape.
That process affirmed our central purpose: convening government and nongovernment partners around shared systems-change priorities and facilitating cross-sector collaboration to improve Hawaiʻi’s early childhood system and outcomes for young children and families.
Since our origins in 2012 as a strategic planning and implementation body for the Executive Office of Early Learning, ECAS’s work has diversified and become increasingly involved in incubating, managing, and scaling various initiatives. While these efforts have produced important results, they also expanded our scope and operational demands.
In the face of constricting resources, we are now looking to consolidate and streamline our work to better align our staffing, structure, and resources with our core, collective-impact role.
Several initiatives are moving through planned or developing transitions. The Hawaiʻi Maternal and Infant Health Collaborative recently transitioned to new non-profit HIPRES. Our multiyear Infant and Early Childhood Behavioral Health and FARMWISE grant activities are concluding, and Aloha at Home efforts are paused while we consider additional funding needs. We are working carefully with partners to support continuity, preserve relationships and learning, and responsibly complete or transition commitments.
Updating the ECAS Network Based on a Revised Framework
ECAS team conveners and backbone staff have developed a revised conceptual framework to guide our next phase. This work began in 2025 but was temporarily placed on hold during the first part of 2026 as the organization worked through questions about its future.
We aim to complete the initial Network restructuring by the end of the third quarter of 2026. Our guiding principle is that form follows function, and funding follows form: we must first clarify the work ECAS is best positioned to do, then build out the structure and resources necessary to sustain it.
recognizing Emerging Areas of Strategic Focus
Several potential areas of strategic focus are emerging, including support for the Early Childhood State Plan, early childhood workforce development, early childhood data tracking and integration, and greater exploration of early childhood financing and governance.
These priorities reflect ECAS’s strengths as a backbone organization: bringing cross-sector partners together, supporting shared planning, facilitating coordinated action, and helping the field use data and information to guide decisions.
Building Sustainability and Governance
In parallel, ECAS will be developing a fund development plan that reflects our statewide role in improving systems for our youngest keiki and their ‘ohana. Potential strategies include legislative and state agency support, federal grants, philanthropic investment, funding for convening and coordination within projects, and fee-for-service activities such as facilitation and meeting support. We expect to have greater clarity regarding specific fundraising priorities and needs by the end of 2026.
ECAS is also beginning a process of restructuring the current governing board to better support and guide ECAS through these next few years. The refreshed board will provide fiduciary oversight, support long-term sustainability, and help guide the organization through its next phase. The governing board complements the critical involvement of the steering committee, teams, and other partners in shaping and advancing the shared work of the Network.
Moving Forward Together
The coming months will involve important decisions about ECAS’s priorities, structure, staffing, financing, and governance. Not every detail has been determined, and we want to be transparent about the fact that this remains a work in progress.
ECAS’s value has always come from the collective knowledge, relationships, and commitment of its Network.
As we move through this transition, we will continue to engage partners, share updates, and create opportunities for input. We also ask for your ongoing support and assistance in our efforts to adapt and evolve by staying actively involved and/or stepping up into new roles across our workgroups, teams, and leadership groups. Our goal is to create a more focused, sustainable, and effective organization that is well positioned to support collaboration and systems change across Hawaiʻi’s early childhood system.
Mahalo for your continued partnership, patience, encouragement, and commitment as we move through this transition together.
Vivian Eto
Interim Executive Director
Early Childhood Action Strategy