Skip to main content

Possible Help for Food Banks


The slow economy has put pressure on food banks to serve more people with the same or fewer resources. Now, the level of EBT benefits has been cut, so people who often struggled to make it through the month now have less food. More of those people will run out of money and food before the end of the month, and will turn to their local food bank for help. Will there be enough food for all when the time comes? No, in many cases the shelves will be bare.

How can food banks meet increasing demands for food?

This question has two dimensions: the immediate need for more food and the long-term challenge of securing reliable access to more food from donors. One hopes the long-term need doesn’t materialize, but realism requires being prepared.  

The immediate need for additional food donations can be handled in several ways. If you run a food bank or just volunteer regularly, then you probably know what the options are: appealing to current donors, approaching new donors, using emergency cash or credit to buy some food.

Do you have cash reserves or a credit line to tap in emergencies? Well, generating extra cash for November might seem unrealistic, but isn’t. Could you get a business credit card and use that to buy some food. Apply today and, if you can get a card, you could have it in two weeks. In the meantime call some wholesalers and warehouse clubs to see what sort of deal you can get.
What about measures for long-term food supplies? There will be ongoing demand and periodic crises. Several strategies are available to you. I’ll come back to the really creative later. First, let’s recap some of the regular options:
1. What new business and nonprofit partnerships might make sense? Don't focus on food. Could you also get help with operating costs, or rent? Cut costs one place, get more done elsewhere.
2. If you have resources to share, could some sort of bartering arrangement be worked out?
3. Could you start a business venture to generate some extra revenue each month?
4. Could you partner with farms or ranches in the region to grow some food? What about CSAs and community gardens?
Of course I can’t offer specifics here, but I think you can figure out the sorts of business ventures or partnership arrangements are realistic for your specific situation.
Now, or when the latest food crisis passes, it might be useful to think about a whole new approach to your food bank and its business model.  I’ll address that option and offer some creative planning tips in my next post or two.

 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

9 Ways Cognitive Bias Undermines Social Change Efforts

This is going to be the first of many posts on how cognitive bias might undermine social change efforts. Yeah, I know. I will do my best to keep this concrete and interesting. A number of quirks in how our brains work might lead to mistaken judgments in many areas relevant to social change: problem analysis, strategy, program design, and advocacy. Maybe fundraising. Taking effective action on a certain problem is what activists want to do, so we'll come back to fundraising later. 1.Confirmation bias may cause us to look for reasons why a certain strategy or tactic is the right one. Supportive evidence gets woven into the narrative, lending support to the need for more education for women or more gun control or whatever the topic might be. Negative information gets tossed out. 2. Bandwagon effect -This may be a real problem when the resources devoted to addressing an issue get all of proportion to the seriousness of an issue. Instead, bandwagon jumping siphons away money and v...
Post a Comment
Read more

Using SWOT Analysis to Rev Up Your Fundraising

Strategic planning, including SWOT analysis, is for small nonprofits, giant philanthropic foundations, and every other nonprofit. Every nonprofit that seeks financial support of any kind needs a strategy.  The point is to make a plan and work the plan. Business gurus have shared a bunch of strategic planning tools, some generic and some made for a specific purpose. This post is about looking at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats - SWOT.  Knowing about your organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is step one in planning your fundraising efforts.  SWOT - A Quick Review This is not the best place to run through SWOT analysis, but an overview will make it obvious why we need to do it. First, however, you should write down your fundraising goal. Then, you can do some analysis. Here are the steps: Strengths - What about your financial resources? What about your reputation and your connections? How big is your audience on social medi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fundraising Ideas

Raising money is a perennial challenge for nonprofits. The Great Recession has made things tougher for some and nearly impossible for others. Your nonprofit may be working hard to deal with fundraising challenges. Traditional thinking about fundraising might lead to thinking like this - “We need to raise $600,000 more money third year. What do we need to do to make this happen?” A discussion of grant writers, fundraising consultants and mailing lists follows. There is nothing wrong with this approach. At least some of that discussion needs to happen. But, new thinking might also be needed. Lateral thinking may help you get better results. Lateral thinking is (from Wikipedia) “solving problems through an indirect and creative approach.” The point of lateral thinking is to move “sideways” to new ideas and different ways of thinking. The point of this little essay is to point out another way of approaching the subject of fundraising. Lateral thinking itself suggests a broader approach to ...
Post a Comment
Read more