Our Why

Food policy councils address a wide-range of issues including food access, local food production, food safety, environmental sustainability, food waste, social equity, local economies, and resilient community-based food systems by:

• Facilitating connections among actors in the community food system
• Providing focus on complex food systems issues
• Recommending policy changes, facilitating program adjustments, and amplifying advocacy

There is a positive correlation between food policy council funding and their ability to affect policy change. Food policy councils are underfunded, which presents an opportunity for philanthropy.

Conversations among many diverse stakeholders working in or with food policy councils has taught us that:

• Affecting food policy change through civic collaboration is a long-term strategy which requires time, core support, and unrestricted funding.
• Financial resources are urgently needed to support food policy network development.
• Food policy networks need support to know where the policy opportunities live and how to pull those levers.
• Collaboration and coordination among funders creates a more stable funding climate for food policy efforts.

The Better Food Policy Fund holds this collective wisdom as our guiding framework for why we fund what we do, to channel our energy to support better food policy, as directed by those closest to that important work.