Strong roots bear sweeter fruit: matching your land with your mission and values

When you start your farm business, community garden, school garden, or educational farm, you’ll spend the first couple of years trying on and refining the values and goals that led you to create it in the first place. Maybe that means adapting different farming practices, perhaps starting a new apprenticeship program, or shifting the curriculum of your education program. At some point you will need to decide what is most important to you and how you want to evolve (usually more than once!).  If you are anything like me, problem-solving sounds a lot better than processing.  However, when it comes to the success of your organization or business, taking a little well organized time to process and vision together will lead you to surprising discoveries that yield sweeter fruit.

Food Banks in the Good Food Movement

When you hear “food bank,” how many of you think of the Good Food Movement?  We know food banks are an increasingly important safety net, but they give away low quality, low nutrient food right? 

While that is sadly the case in some instances, some food banks are creating innovative programs to improve their clients’ access to fresh, healthy foods. More than that, people like Cori Walters, the Director of the Issaquah Food and Clothing Bank, have helped to create “Nourishing Networks” made up of community, nonprofit, school, and government representatives who combine their resources to take strategic actions to end hunger in their communities.

Re-Framing your Membership Program

Membership programs can be tempting income streams.  Why not invite people who believe in your work to join your organization through a paid membership? However, there are some common challenges that might make you regret you ever started one.

• Administrative workload:  Building and maintaining memberships requires dedicated staff and resources.  Even after inspiring someone to join, you still need a solid system to process payments, renewals, and to troubleshoot the common snafus that will occur.  Depending on your database and payment systems, you may be required to do significant and ongoing data entry just to keep people’s information up-to-date. 

• Bang for the buck:  I’ve heard from more than one colleague that the effort doesn’t always feel worth the income generated.  Memberships as a fundraising strategy require a lot of admin for a fraction of the operating budget.  Even membership driven organizations are depending more on corporate sponsorships and major giving.

• Donation killer:  Sometimes members have a sense of “I’ve paid my dues,” once they’ve joined.  That can work if you really are a membership based organization, but for many, the membership is only one part of a bigger fundraising strategy.  If people only give once, you’d better hope they choose your highest membership level.

• Service provider mentality:  Memberships usually include some sort of exchange.  I like to think most members join because they believe in your mission and want to support the work financially. However, once you shift from donation to membership, you are shifting the expectation.  It’s easy to get sidetracked trying to create enriching membership experiences that don’t necessarily serve your mission.  Or, you may find that you are attracting temporary members who only join to get a discount on a class or other cheap service.