from the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development |
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Philanthropic funding is critical to the work of many organizations working on food access and food justice issues. How foundations conceptualize and assess their grant-making, and their relationships with grantees, have profound implications for the challenges and possibilities of creating a more just, equitable, healthy, and sustainable food system.
In a new JAFSCD article, Making and measuring change in the food system: The perspectives of funders, Sara Shostak presents initial findings from an interview study with program officers at foundations that support food system interventions in New England. This study aimed to describe how program officers think about making and measuring change in the food system and whether they are open to establishing more collaborative relationships with the organizations and communities supported by their grant-making.
KEY FINDINGS
- Philanthropies fund food system interventions toward a variety of ends, including preventing hunger, reducing the prevalence of childhood obesity, addressing environmental challenges and advancing environmental justice, and preserving agricultural land and/or buildings.
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Program officers are very aware of the strengths and limitations of quantitative metrics, express interest in qualitative and mixed-methods approaches to understanding the outcomes of grant-making, and recognize the challenges involved in assessing long term structural change, including in regard to health equity and racial justice. They also share with grantees an interest in measures of collective impact and in strategies to reduce the burdens of reporting.
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As a consequence of their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing efforts to reckon with racial injustice, program officers are increasingly focused on centering equity, social change, and justice in their grant-making and providing support for policy advocacy and movement building focused on the food system (and its intersections with other critical social issues).
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Aligned with the practices of trust-based philanthropy, program officers are also very interested in establishing new relationships with grantees. Nonetheless, it may be a challenge for program officers to translate these new approaches to their boards, which tend to value outcomes that are apolitical, easily measured, and readily accomplished in relatively short periods of time.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR POLICY, PRACTICE, AND RESEARCH
This study suggests that now is a critical and hopeful time for food access and food justice organizations and foundations to develop new practices and relationships to advance a more just, equitable, healthy, and sustainable food system. Practitioners and program officers might also meaningfully collaborate to translate these new approaches to the boards of foundations that fund food system interventions. That said, more research is needed to understand variations in perspectives across a larger sample of foundations, to assess actual grant-making practices, and to consider whether the changes described in this study have been sustained over time.
SHARE ON YOUR SOCIALS
How do foundations understand and assess their investments in the food system? A new study explores the perspectives of program officers on grant-making, evaluation — and the possibility of new relationships between foundations and community-based organizations. #trustbasedphilanthropy #foodjustice #grants #programevaluation #foodsystems Read the @JAFSCD article for free: https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2024.134.007
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Photo above: Working Landscapes staff unload produce. Photo courtesy of Working Landscapes (Warrenton, North Carolina, USA).
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NEW RESOURCE FROM A JAFSCD SHAREHOLDER
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New Farmer Guide to Fertilizing with Urine
The Rich Earth Institute is delighted to announce the release of our new Farmer Guide to Fertilizing with Urine. Farmers around the world have harnessed the fertilizing power of human urine for millennia. In recent years, interest in urine nutrient reclamation has been surging, driven by spiking synthetic fertilizer prices, global supply disruptions, and increasing regulations on aquatic nutrient pollution. This new guide is rooted in Rich Earth’s extensive research with farmer-partners in Southern Vermont and is enriched by insights into urine fertilization from researchers around the world. It joins our other guides to community and home garden urine recycling, offering resources to practitioners at different scales.
Download a free, digital copy of the guide
Readers of the guide are invited to complete a very short (four-question) feedback survey on the guide to inform our future research and farmer communications. |
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