New Program-Related Investment funds to be available from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation
The following contains information about a new program at WKKF and a request for information about non-profit organizations that work to provide children, families and communities with access to Good Food.
W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) is launching a new effort that provides Program-Related Investment funds to organizations working in the food system. Program Related Investments (PRIs) provide loans to non-profit organizations to implement projects that generally generate revenue streams that can be applied toward repayment. PRIs have low interest rates (1%-4%) with negotiable repayment periods. PRIs are one of the non-gift vehicles that WKKF is using to diversify its reach and impacts on child wellness. PRI food investments will be focused on supporting organizations that work toward providing children, families and communities to access to Good Food. The Kellogg Foundation defines Good Food as:
· Healthy- promotes the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of individuals, families and communities.
· Green- produced in a manner which maintains or improves the quality of land, water, air and other ecological factors.
· Fair- minimizes the chance that anyone along the production line was exploited for its creation.
· Affordable- priced so that people of all socioeconomic backgrounds are able to purchase it and have access to it.
KHA, Inc and Urban Advisors are conducting a PRI Food Scan of organizations and approaches grounded in economic, environmental and social sustainability. The scan will include completion of an on-line survey aimed at profiling the characteristics of organizations with potential for funding. The criteria for non-profit organizations follow below:
- Have favorable impacts on child-wellness;
- Have the ability to manage a PRI including repayment on a timely basis;
- Reflect a high social return through contribution to community health factors such as childhood food security, community vitality and resilience, stability of sustainable farms;
- Demonstrate a high environmental return through improvements to air, water, soil conditions and other ecological factors;
- Maintain organizational practices that reflect resilience, stability and long-term planning.
WKKF is looking for non-profit organizations that fit this profile and are interested in receiving training, technical assistance, grant support and/or loans.
If you feel that your organization fits this description, please reply with a comment to this post and explain, briefly, how your work fits the criteria listed.
- Casey W. Hoy's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Comments
Growing America/PAST Foundation
I am the director of a youth program that promotes healthy, local, sustainable food production called Growing America. We are closely partnered with the PAST Foundation. Growing America is a seamless integration of STEM fields scaled for students 9-20 using sustainable local food production. We have implemented a pilot for the youth program and have received funds for one of our current projects planned for 2009-11.
Growing America is a problem/project based learning program for youth continuing to be developed through a partnership between Metro Early College High School, The Ohio State University and the business and service communities of central Ohio. Growing America: Knowing and Serving Our Communities is a set of multifaceted projects within the larger program with the specific aim of serving local immigrant communities, while providing opportunities to youth to gain leadership skills in the fields of Horticulture and Anthropology. These projects are intended to identify specialty food crops that resonate with the local immigrant (Somali, Latino and Russian) communities and then test the feasibility of producing these selected crops year round through high tunnel production.
It is the goal of these two projects to develop a process for growers to increase their profitability while promoting locally grown crops.
Please contact Neal Bluel at bluel@themetroschool.org for more information.
cell 614-448-6493
Non-profit child wellness organizations please comment
I've been asked by KHA, Inc and Urban Advisors on behalf of the WK Kellogg Foundation for help with identifying nonprofit organizations that fit the criteria listed below, by today, Nov. 9. My purpose in asking for a reply from subscribers who work with these organizations is twofold: 1. to raise awareness of your organization within this network and 2. to ensure that all such organizations within this network are identified for WKKF. The next step will be a survey sent to each organization from WKKF. Details on the criteria follow from the original post (please use the "Read the complete message, read or add comments, and download attachments" link to add a comment describing your nonprofit organization, today if possible):
KHA, Inc and Urban Advisors are conducting a PRI Food Scan of organizations and approaches grounded in economic, environmental and social sustainability. The scan will include completion of an on-line survey aimed at profiling the characteristics of organizations with potential for funding. The criteria for non-profit organizations follow below:
New Harvest Community Arts
Casey,
I certainly think WKKF would be interested in Kwodwo Ababio's non-profit New Harvest effort, especially as it is now allied more strongly with two related non-profits in the Linden area into an umbrella organization, UHADA, Urban Housing and Agricultural Development Association. The on-going and expanding effort is focused on good food as defined by WKKF, centered on serving youth through formal educational ties with the local high school and supervised mentoring and internships with established members of the students' community. Moreover, the effort has strong commitments of support from OSU Extension, Columbus City Public Schools, Columbus Health Department, Columbus City Development , and the North Linden Commission.
This partnership and its products will help define the cutting edge of economic opportunity for urban centers devastated by the loss of an industrial base, white flight to the suburbs, and infrastructure
Justice Gardens
Hi Casey: I think Local
Hi Casey:
I think Local Matters would be great candidate for this opportunity with WKKF. Our "Food is Elementary" program is a 28 week, comprehensive nutrition education curriculum that focuses on teaching vulnerable children, in pre-k through second grade, about what healthy food is, where their food comes from, how it's grown and how to cook it. The curriculum also includes outreach and education for teachers, parents and caregivers. We are currently teaching 28 classes per week and reaching over 700 children and over 250 teacher, parent and caregivers on a weekly basis. Their is no other comprehensive program like it that is currently being taught.
One of our major partners is Childhood Development Council of Franklin County-HeadStart. They have asked us to expand this program into all Head Start progams in their district of Franklin County over the next 2 years. This expansion would allow us to reach over 2000 children and roughly 750 teachers, parents and caregivers after full implementation of this program.
We have always viewed this program as our "anchor" within the community from which we can we can assess other access opportunities for local, healthy food. This is important as we think it is unfair to the children to provide opportunities for local, healthy food at school and not work to create those same opportunities within the community.
To expand the walls of the school, we have typically started by looking for other access opportunities already happening within the community and to offer our support as needed. We've also been able to create some additional access opportunities by making our Veggie Van available in the community if the community feels that it can be a resource. The Veggie Van is our mobile farm market on wheels and made about 30 stops per week last summer in communities in need. The van travels with wireless credit card machines and can accept and process EBT (food stamp) cards as payment. The van is loaded with fresh, local produce purchased from Ohio farmers and expands market opportunities for local farmers as an added benefit.
We think that it will take a comprehensive approach like this to begin to address some of the systemic issues related to food justice that we see in many underserved communities. It also means that we need to be actively engaged and listening to the community itself to be a good partner and a resource.
Thanks for the consideration.