The Sheri Eckert Foundation
An update from SEF’s Board of Directors:
In 2023, SEF awarded and oversaw 76 needs-based scholarships —totaling $300,000 in awards—to a diverse range of students pursuing training and licensure in psilocybin facilitation. Fellows graduated from or are attending nearly every licensed facilitators school in Oregon.
In 2024, SEF is deploying our Psilocybin Access Fund which provides direct financial support towards individuals accessing psilocybin therapy to those with financial needs and/or underserved populations.
The mission of the Sheri Eckert Foundation (SEF), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is to ensure that Oregon’s evolving psychedelic ecosystem includes professionals and participants from diverse backgrounds, financial means, and geographies around the state.
Nate Howard, Executive Director of the Sheri Eckert Foundation, discusses the goals of the foundation's forthcoming Psilocybin Access Fund at the the Horizons Northwest conference in December 2023 at the Portland Art Museum
SEF’s Phase 2 goals are focused on creating and supporting the Psilocybin Access Fund.
With a 2024 fundraising objective of one million dollars, SEF’s immediate goal is to create a statewide “sliding scale” for psilocybin services in Oregon.
The Psilocybin Access Fund will cover psilocybin facilitation costs for those in need of deep healing and who experience financial hardship and/or come from underserved communities. We believe getting money directly to folks that want this medicine, but normally wouldn’t be able to access it, is the best solution now for creating more access and potential for healing.
While respecting underground pathways and the psychedelic science community, we are committed to this new state-regulated framework and believe that psychedelic services and therapy rendered in this model can be more widespread, financially accessible, and without the legal risk.
And we’re under no illusion that philanthropy will last forever - we see this new fund, and the work it will empower, as an essential intermediary step until we achieve insurance coverage for psilocybin services. To learn more about our Psilocybin Therapy Insurance Initiative, a research project to help accelerate insurance coverage for psychedelic medicine in legal state-regulated models, head here.
The Sheri Eckert Foundation was established in 2021 to honor Sheri’s legacy and fulfill a clearly stated wish.
Measure 109 co-creator Sheri Eckert, who passed away in December of 2020, spoke frequently of generating support for “equitable access to psychedelic education and services.” In her words, she wanted to create an institution that, “guided by on-the-ground community leaders, would allocate resources to support facilitator training, community education, and service delivery for often underserved populations.”
David Bronner, Tom Eckert, and Nate Howard—the Founding Board Members of the Sheri Eckert Foundation and co-creators of Horizons Northwest—share reflections, goals, and aspirations, alongside leaders in the psychedelic medicine movement, at the 2023 Horizons Northwest conference at the Portland Art Museum
Support equitable access to psilocybin services for those with financial need
SEF is honored to have co-created the second annual Horizons Northwest in Portland!
Horizons Northwest, the largest psychedelic learning and community event in the Pacific Northwest, is produced by Horizons PBC in partnership with SEF.
A share of the proceeds from Horizons Northwest is given to the Sheri Eckert Foundation to support its scholarship program. It’s a beautiful arrangement: the more people that attend Horizons Northwest, the more funds support the psychedelic medicine community in the form of needs-based scholarships.
The conference features three days exploring Oregon’s Psilocybin Services Program while advancing national and global dialogues around psychedelics.
“If you take the time to explore yourself, to listen to your spirit, to walk among the many less frequented paths within your mind, I am sure you will be amazed at the mesmerizing beauty you will find.”
— Sheri Eckert
Sheri will be remembered by the psychedelic community for championing the unique spirit residing in each of us
and for having helped deliver the nation’s first above-ground psychedelic therapy framework, a statewide program indelibly infused with her characteristic perseverance, integrity, competence, and, above all, her loving, inclusive embrace.
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