Community Food Leaders Convening
Building Capacity for Future Leadership
The Situation
All across the country, individuals, organizations, and community leaders alike are on a mission to redesign our broken food system. These fair food revolutionaries are on the ground level, working tirelessly to ensure that healthy, fresh food reaches those who need it most, in a fair and sustainable way. In an effort to keep this momentum going and build capacity for future food leaders, Fair Food Network took on an initiative to gain an understanding of some of the greatest opportunities and challenges being faced by community-based food systems efforts in the U.S. and to learn how philanthropic and public dollars can be invested to most effectively support the movement.
The Gathering
Fair Food Network invited nine food systems innovators and entrepreneurs for an open dialogue to explore their cutting edge ideas and actions in community-based food systems work and to collectively address the opportunities and challenges they face.
The goal of this gathering was two-fold:
- Connect these leaders to catalyze ongoing collaboration in the food systems field.
- Help guide the investments of future funders who have an interest in supporting programs related to community-based, sustainable food and agriculture approaches.
The objectives of the dialogue were simple:
- Identify assets needed by community food systems leaders to strengthen both their leadership and the impact of their food systems work.
- Identify investments that could be provided for the future of the community-based food systems field.
Progress Report
Fair Food Network convened this meeting on March, 2010 in Holyoke, Mass. and Dublin, N.H. Nine leaders, engaged in a wide range of food-related activities, gathered from both rural and urban areas from around the country. The gathering was also unique in that it has gained support and attention from several private foundations and the USDA, who are interested in using this information as they consider future investments in community-based food systems.
The dialogue focused on the innovative programs and business activities that are currently being considered and implemented and the resources needed to bring these innovations to scale. From the planning phases through the conversations of the convening, it is clear that much of the cutting edge community food systems work is happening around social enterprise. Leaders and innovators of the movement are looking to drive change through market-based strategies that build the infrastructure of a healthier food system from producers through retailers to consumers, and they are seeking to generate the resources to financially sustain their organizations and activities.
