Our Impact

The Better Food Policy Fund provides financial resources to councils, communicates the value of food policy councils, and provides opportunities for shared learning.

Our debut grantmaking program launched in the spring of 2024.  This pilot funding opportunity provides ten food policy councils with $60,000 of unrestricted funding to support their work over two years.  Our IAC is currently incorporating the lessons learned with this first grantee cohort to shape future grantmaking opportunities.

At the Better Food Policy Fund, we think about evaluation through the lens of systemic change.  This approach moves us beyond conventional metrics by seeking to balance quantitative data by lifting up qualitative information to explore the whole picture of how conditions are shifting.

Ultimately, we expect to see more local policies and plans to support transformational community-based food systems.

Along the way, we will look for quiet indicators of forthcoming change, enabling us to measure long-term systemic shifts in the near future. We will work with and through grantees and stakeholders to identify the subtle signals within their work that indicate a more favorable environment for better food policy.

We believe strengthening food policy councils will lead to better food policy through intermediate impacts such as:

• Increased levels of inclusive and equitable two-way civic engagement around food
• Increased identification, mapping, support, and appreciation of local and grassroots food efforts
• Increased collaboration with and across communities, neighborhoods, and local government agencies or departments

We recognize that how things are done – not just what is done – really matters. We are deliberate in our development of the Fund, and have already seen impacts that help achieve our aim of supporting food policy councils. Observed shifts include:

• Increased sense of validation among food policy councils, especially those that work in relative isolation from other food policy councils
• High engagement and reciprocal learning between members and staff of different food policy councils
• Stakeholder participation in trust-based, relational, and at-large nomination processes to select the Independent Advisory Committee
• Co-creation of communication collateral that will support both food policy councils and fundraising efforts
• High engagement in our inaugural grantmaking round
• Sustained participation by our inaugural cohort of grantees in shared learning opportunities