In 2021 the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank began working on a new Mission Framework to help drive our organization’s future programming and priorities. Together, across departments, we developed a new Mission Framework grounded in our shared values. We envision a just and equitable society that nurtures a resilient community. We envision a community where everyone will have access to nutritious food of their choosing and will be uplifted by a network of support that is centered on: VOICE, CHOICE, QUALITY, and POWER!
The Food Bank is rebuilding our community capacity so we can continue to serve as many people in the community food programs as possible with the limited resources, we have available.
Our mission is to end hunger – not just lessen its symptoms, and we are on a three-year journey of transformation:
Through the learnings and implementation of Equity Center Community Design (ECCD) principles, we are committed to co-developing and reimagining our community the way we work for sustainable food access.
We are reimagining our services and reinvesting in the community through one-time grants. With a reduction of pandemic-era funding, the Food Bank is rebuilding our community capacity so we can serve as many people in the community programs as possible.
The Food Bank is committed to co-creation and collaboration with community partners so that together, with our community, we are investing in initiatives that are focused on reopening food pantries, reimagining how we serve our community, and recommitting to advancing lasting policy solutions that address the causes and consequences of food insecurity.
Before the pandemic, the Food Bank committed to working actively with partners to create better food programming for our community. During the pandemic, the need for food programming doubled in scale and has not receded. The Food Bank was able to meet the increased demand because of an unprecedented influx of support from government and private donors. With pandemic-era funding going away, and a decrease in overall funding, we need to reimagine food programming in our community and work together to maximize our impact and coordinate efforts. We cannot just return to “business as usual” — we need to evolve the way we come together as a community of support to provide services. This is about transformation of services, not just expanding services. It is about serving people differently. It is about us supporting our partners in rebuilding and reimagining services.
With this, we also need to work with our partners to align on a systems coordination approach, which also includes the adoption and implementation of the Pantry Enrollment System to support the services provided by our pantry network.
Community Markets are large-scale, multi-day pantries that are equity centered and community led. They feel similar to a grocery store with community residents able to browse, touch, and choose products. Planning grants provide partners with the resources to design, with support and in community, their personalized plan to launch a market.
The Food Bank plans to award 5 planning grants at a $5,000 award level.
Capacity Seed Funding is an opportunity for existing partner organizations to accelerate their efforts and increase the number of households served at their pantry. The Food Bank will provide a one-time funding resources to partners, who lead their own work to grow their capacity and receive participant transfers from the Food Bank to fill that capacity. Partners lead. We support! The Food Bank will make awards based on a formula of how much UOS the partner is able to increase to, in combination with how much UOS the Food Bank will be able to fulfill.
Organizations can apply to either the Community Market Planning Grant or Capacity Seed Funding, but not both.
Capacity Seed Funding is only available to current Food Bank partners. Community Market Planning Grants are open to any organization.
If an organization is interested in applying, but feel that they’d be better suited to participate as a collaborative than alone, we encourage them to reach out to us. You can use either of the contact emails below.
You can reach out to Irene Garcia (igarcia@sfmfoodbank.org) or Jesus Benitez Gomez (jbenitezgomez@sfmfoodbank.org) if you have questions.
