By Stacey Hughes | Director, Philanthropy Operations
In November, Feeding America became one of the first nonprofit organizations to begin accepting donations through Apple Pay. This secure, private and easy-to-use donation channel makes it even more convenient for our supporters to contribute to our work on their Apple devices. And it comes at the perfect time—as more shoppers make their purchases online, a growing number of donors are also using the web to support the causes they are most passionate about. Donating with Apple Pay is as simple as the touch of a finger with Touch ID, so there’s no need to manually fill out shipping and billing forms. As more than 42 million Americans struggle with hunger, Feeding America is energized by this opportunity to grow our support. With donations made through Apple Pay, we will help provide many more meals to our neighbors in need and develop and refine creative strategies to help end hunger.
Millions of older Americans are struggling to make ends meet. Some lost their financial footing during the Great Recession, others are unexpectedly caring for grandchildren or aging parents. Seniors across our nation, like Pat from Wells, Vermont, are making tradeoffs between buying food and medicine, and sadly, many more may follow in their footsteps. As Baby Boomers age, the number of seniors facing hunger is expected to double by 2050. Feeding America knows that we must continually evolve to address complex challenges like senior hunger. As a result, we have developed a comprehensive senior hunger strategy and six-year implementation plan to meet the unique needs of older Americans. This year, as part of the implementation plan, we will provide grants to member food banks for senior hunger programs and conduct rigorous program evaluations to inform future investments in the plan.
Feeding America also recently published a local partnership guide in collaboration with Meals on Wheels America to support effective local partnership in communities across the country. Together with our partners, we are committed to providing more food to help seniors stay healthy and strong.
We are grateful to the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Foundation for championing our senior hunger strategy and supporting programs that make a real and lasting difference for seniors in need.
Feeding America helps provide meals to people facing hunger across the nation. However, we must better understand the people we serve in order to continue improving our work and reach more people. To that end, we have embarked on a project that will help us determine how to responsibly gather the right information about households that receive food from our network. Feeding America has awarded grants to five food banks to use different software systems to test a national framework for collecting data about the people we serve when they visit food pantries. The framework provides recommendations to all food banks on how to work with local food pantries to implement data-tracking software, train staff to use the technology and determine what data to collect, in an effort to facilitate consistency across the Feeding America network. Testing the national framework will help strengthen it, encouraging more food banks to invest in electronic data collection. We believe that this project will help food banks make more informed decisions so they can better meet needs in their communities.
Feeding America is grateful to the Laura and John Arnold Foundation for its generous support for this initiative.
Hearing firsthand from the people we serve helps Feeding America improve the quality and types of programs we offer. As a result, we are testing different ways of collecting feedback about peoples’ experiences receiving food from local food pantries and meal programs. We are working with the Urban Institute and the Fund for Shared Insight to collect, reflect and act on feedback in two food bank communities. This fall, the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank and Alameda County Community Food Bank surveyed more than 1,200 people to get their feedback on food pantry wait times, respectful treatment and safety. In both communities, follow-up meetings and interviews allowed people who provided feedback to discuss the survey findings and possible next steps. Participating food pantries and meal programs are committed to modifying their services to address the findings and close the feedback loop. As we test other methods for collecting feedback, Feeding America will share recommendations with all network food banks so they can develop lasting cycles of feedback collection, reflection and action.
Special thanks to the Fund for Shared Insight for its commitment to supporting this initiative.
Feeding America, in collaboration with The University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research and with funding provided by The Howard G. Buffett Foundation, has awarded grants to three universities to expand our understanding of hunger in America and solutions to help end hunger. Columbia University, Rice University and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center will utilize data from Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap project to conduct new research. Their studies will focus on the geographic distribution of food insecurity and its consequences, as well as local policy interventions that seek to alleviate hunger. This coming fall, Feeding America will convene hunger experts from around the country to discuss the research findings and implications for future research.
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