FUNDING HIGHLIGHTS
Food Systems and Food Waste
Sustainable food systems, food justice, and food security are key issues for us as a family and foundation concerned about healthy communities, ecological sustainability, and climate change. Our initial work in these areas involved supporting organizations such as the American Farmland Trust, Wholesome Wave, Harlem Grown, and our local food banks. In 2006, Betsy established Millstone Farm in Wilton, CT with the aim of restoring a sustainable regional food system. Through her work operating the farm and visiting the restaurants and grocery stores it serviced, she saw first-hand how much food was grown but ultimately never eaten. Realizing that food waste was an important issue in its own right, we began to apply our venture philanthropy model that involves a fusion of grant funding, impact investing, and the talent and time of our trustees and staff.
Our work on food waste started with a few place-based projects and pilots to build capacity and knowledge. Millstone Farm was used as an educational venue and living laboratory where we experimented with solutions to food waste such as gleaning. As our own knowledge base grew, we began to seed fund initiatives including a gleaning program at Island Grown Initiative and a food rescue technology platform developed by Food Rescue US. The Foundation also started to support nascent food waste programs at national nonprofits including NRDC, EDF, the Conservation Law Foundation, and Harvard’s Food Law and Policy Clinic. In many cases, our funding supported Fink Fellows and interns who were embedded within these organizations to expand capacity for food waste initiatives. In addition, through the Foundation, MissionPoint Partners, or personally, we have also made seed investments in innovative, for-profit companies working to solve food waste. Some examples of companies in our food waste impact investment portfolio are Spoiler Alert, an inventory management and food donation software platform, Mori (Cambridge Crops), a shelf-life extension coating technology, and Divert, an organics recycling solution for retailers.
As we learned more about potential solutions to food waste and what the key stakeholders needed to do to drive action on a systems-wide scale, we realized that there wasn’t a central knowledge hub or a shared, data-driven strategic plan. This led the Foundation to embark on a special project with MissionPoint Partners in 2013 to create a roadmap to reduce wasted food in the United States, based upon research on the best areas for impact and their economic costs and benefits. Through the hard work of so many people and organizations, as well as the intellectual and financial support of philanthropic families, foundations, and corporations, this project led to the creation of ReFED in 2015 and the publication of its seminal report, A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste By 20 Percent.
The Foundation continues to actively support organizations and individuals working on solutions to food waste as well as on sustainable and inclusive food systems in general. Our place-based initiatives are currently focused on our local communities in Colorado and Martha’s Vineyard as well as in Nogales, Arizona, the border town and port of entry where six billion pounds of fresh produce enter the U.S. from Mexico. Highlights of the Foundation’s current food systems and food waste initiatives are described below.
Eagle Valley Community Foundation
The Eagle Valley Community Foundation (EVCF) is a dynamic organization dedicated to addressing the critical and emerging needs of individuals and families in the Eagle River Valley in Colorado. By meeting essential needs such as food security and access to health resources, EVCF empowers community members to achieve economic stability and prosperity. Through programs like The Community Market, which provides free, nutrient-rich food and prevents food waste, EVCF ensures that no family has to choose between paying bills or putting food on the table. EVCF also collaborates with local partners to foster leadership, advocacy, and empowerment within the community.
Harlem Grown
Harlem Grown (HG) is a Harlem-based youth development nonprofit utilizing food justice as a vehicle for social transformation. HG strives to deliver all programming, services, and activities through a deeper racial and social justice lens with disciplined attention to race and ethnicity. Since its inception in 2011, HG has operated local urban farms, increasing access to and knowledge about healthy food for Harlem residents, and provides garden-based development programs to Harlem youth. Through the Foundation, students from HG visited Millstone Farm for workshops and other hands-on learning opportunities.
Island Grown Initiative
Island Grown Initiative (IGI) strives to build a regenerative and equitable food system on Martha’s Vineyard that engages, informs, and integrates the community. In 2009, The Foundation seed funded IGI’s gleaning program which improves access to fresh local produce by harvesting farm surplus and donating to organizations serving low-income, hungry, and marginalized community members. Since then, volunteers have harvested more than 200,000 pounds of food from Vineyard fields to share with their hungry neighbors. In 2018, the Foundation began to support IGI’s Martha’s Vineyard Food Waste Initiative, including providing a grant to fund the addition of an organic waste collection truck and an in-vessel compost rotary drum. In addition, Eunice Youmans, a Fink Fellow, has served as IGI’s program manager for this food waste initiative from 2019-2021. Since 2018, the amount of food waste recovered and converted to high quality compost has quadrupled, and plans for an island-wide composting system have been developed.
ReFED
In 2014, the Foundation seed-funded ReFED, a national nonprofit working to end food loss and waste across the food system by advancing data-driven solutions to the problem. ReFED leverages data and insights to highlight supply chain inefficiencies and economic opportunities; mobilizes and connects people to take targeted action; and catalyzes capital to spur innovation and scale high-impact initiatives. The Foundation continues to actively support ReFED’s work and has catalyzed recent ReFED capital and innovation programs as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. We are also proud to have supported the development of the recently launched ReFED Insights Engine and the accompanying RoadMap to 2030.
The Foundation is proud of the organizations we have supported in the food systems and food waste landscape some of which include:
