When I started Feeding America in October 2018, I was honored and humbled to join an organization I had known since childhood. I came to the table from experience, including my years at Walmart, and realized that the people we serve must be at the same table. We have a bold aspiration that every community and every person within it has access to the food and resources they say they want and need to thrive. We want to see the overall food insecurity rate drop by 5% by 2030 and the food insecurity disparity by race and location halved, and we can’t do that without experienced neighbors living at the table, raising their voices and telling us how we can help. .
The voice of people facing these issues is absent from so much talk of community resolution. Well-meaning donors often want to help, but they also want to find out how they can get help without any access from the people they want to help. For example, a donor may want to support a program that serves a specific market or area, even if that is not the area of greatest need. Or the donor may want to support a new program, may have seen the news about it in another community, but the nonprofit is not implementing this program because it is not the right solution for the community it serves.
Our goal is to start from a position of trust and partnership and ask the questions first: What do you need? How do we work together to get the items you need? What role should we play in implementing this? And when is the time to sit back, listen and learn?
When Mackenzie Scott donated $20 million to Feeding America, that dollar came with no strings attached. As of 2020, she has donated $12 billion in unlimited donations to over 1,200 charities, including 43 members of the Feeding America food bank network and many of our partners in hunger relief and social/human services.
Because? Because you trust the organizations doing the work know how to solve the problems they’re facing. It may not be groundbreaking, but it is.
There was a paternalistic issuance system where funders restricted dollars to support specific programs or specific markets, so as not to ask what the organization really needed. They mean: you have to have this money, Yea Hop onto this ring, then spin and spin the cart wheel, and then you’ll get precision and land in this coupe.
Nonprofits have been playing a trick to attract these funds for years to meet the priorities of well-meaning donors. As we learned about the Covid-19 pandemic from Feeding America’s responses, nonprofits are often unable to predict how they will serve their communities and need funding flexibility to maintain a convenient, innovative and effective response and a tool that best fits. adapt to the world.
As Maya Angelou said, “When you know more, you do better.” In philanthropy, this is an opportunity to listen to the issues and learn. Sure, societies across America are suffering and need our support, but this is how we provide that support, and that must change. Let’s get better.
I understand the hesitation, but let me say it clearly: this job is not designed to remove chairs from a table, but to add them. This refers to abundance, not scarcity.
To that end, and in the same spirit, and in the same spirit that Mackenzie Scott donated $20 million, we established the Food Security Capital Impact Fund to give communities the opportunity to eliminate food insecurity and inequality. Meals in America will not be a commanding position at the table; We look forward to taking your place with many new people. People have long understood what their community needs and what real solutions would be to problems that concern their communities. We’ll be there, listening, learning and giving everything we can to make sure the zip code doesn’t define someone else’s food safety status.
We invite you to do the same when you decide to make a meaningful donation to the community that cares about you. Power division. Ask questions. Listen me. წავ Learn. And together create solutions in the community. Only then can we work with the community to really address the important issues.
Claire Babineaux-Fontenot is CEO of Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization, which helps deliver more than 6 billion meals to tens of millions of people every year through 200 food banks, 21 national associations and 60,000 associated foods. Pantry and nutrition programs. Prior to Feeding America, he was CEO of Walmart, where he served as Executive Vice President and Global Treasurer.
A version of this story first appeared in the June 22 issue of The Gossipify. Click here to subscribe.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
