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Edited on Thu Dec-23-10 10:03 AM by Cal Carpenter
How the money is spent:
Most of the food and money that they raise is used to support the network of national food banks. I think there are a couple hundred member food banks in total. The rest is used for their own staff salaries, fundraising (ads, mailers, etc). On paper they are a decently-run, efficient organization (95% of budget is ‘program expenses’). But what many people may not understand is that they are mainly an office in Chicago - they are one step removed from the food and a few steps removed from the person receiving food.
For a national umbrella group, I personally think they do a reasonable job with their budget. A lot of national campaigns for ‘raising awareness’ don’t really have much tangible effect, and Feeding America goes beyond ‘raising awareness’ (I describe in more detail below how local food banks benefit from their membership)
Excessive influence of corporations
I have a big problem with this personally. I understand that our food system is big and corporate, so to get resources from that system it takes a big, sorta corporate attitude. However - I would much rather see (for example) Walmart pay their employees better so they don’t need food bank help rather than having Walmart donate money to Feeding America so they can get their logo in some advertisements as ‘helping the community’ along with big tax breaks, ya know?
But FA is what it is, it is a charity existing in a fucked economic system as a response to a basic human need. It’s not a revolutionary group or a real challenge to the status quo, it can’t be. No charity can be, or it’s tax-exempt status would disappear and it would get shut down and it wouldn't get any money from the big donors.
Fairness of the distribution:
On the national level, the food that FA actually procures for the food banks - I think they do their best to distribute it fairly throughout the country but it is based as much on the capacity of the food banks to store/distribute it properly as it is on the need in that community. A big food bank with very little refrigeration isn’t gonna get loads of produce and dairy. It’s not safe. Even if the low-income/needy people in that community could really use the food. (NOTE: In times of disaster, eg Hurricane Katrina - priority is to get lots of food/water ASAP to that region and other food banks will even contribute their own inventory and even send their staff drivers to help if needed)
When you break down how the food gets to the individual/household, there are too many variables to make a generalization. The food goes to the local/county food banks (who are getting much of their food from other sources than FA, btw). Those food banks may work with a few dozen or even a few hundred different food programs that are nonprofits serving low-income people (low-income daycare centers and group homes, soup kitchens, emergency pantries, etc). The local food bank sorta keeps an eye on those direct-service programs the same way Feeding America does for the food banks - making sure they have refrigeration available if they are getting dairy products, for example, making sure the food is stored properly and making sure the food gets distributed fairly to people who need it. They will cut off programs who are doing things improperly (storing food on the floor or outside, selling the food (!!), forcing people to sit through a sermon to get food, etc)
The network is certainly imperfect, but in my experience the overwhelming majority of people involved in getting food to the people are in it for the right reasons, try to do things fairly, and make a real impact in people’s lives. A LOT of the people at these direct-service programs are volunteers, many of them are low-income recipients of the food assistance as well.
Quality of the Food
Well, given the state of food in our country now, it’s basically comparable. On the local level (the food banks, not FA itself) the food varies a lot - some food banks do ‘food rescue’ meaning they collect perishable food from area stores, markets, bakeries, etc. So they have a much wider variety of food to distribute like dairy, produce, frozen meat, etc. But it’s way more labor intensive to sort it, make sure it’s safe and in good condition, etc than it is to just get USDA surplus cases of canned green beans or whatever. Some crappy food may slip through the cracks (eg a program gets moldy bread) but in my experience this is rare and the food bank will do whatever they can to remedy that when they hear of it happening.
Right now there is a big push within the food bank network to increase refrigerated storage and trucks, to start garden programs to increase fresh produce, host nutrition and cooking classes, and about a million other ways to increase the nutritional content of the food. But there is also the aspect that people have preferences, and it’s not up to the food bank to tell people what to eat. So FA and the food banks aren’t gonna refuse junk food or soda or candy when it’s donated which it often is - picture Santa on a Coke bottle in February or Easter candy in June- truckloads of that stuff, man. And failed experimental junk food like buttcrack-flavored Doritoes or whatever. They will, however, follow USDA nutritional guidelines for meal programs whenever possible, especially for kids.
Some food banks and programs are trying really hard to increase healthy food and educate clients, others have such a hard time just getting enough food distributed that they can’t spend the resources on it.
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I want to clarify the relation between local food banks and FA. The food banks are independent charities which, at least in theory, benefit from their affiliation with Feeding America in a few ways:
1 - Access to grants and other types of funding through Feeding America - sometimes these are grants that come straight from the Feeding America budget, sometimes they are more of a ‘pass-through’ situation where some other corporation or foundation relies on Feeding America to get funds to a deserving/needy/etc food bank. Let’s say a food bank in a poor area that struggles to get funding wants to start up some after-school programs because they know there is a gap, a need there that isn’t being fulfilled. Well, Feeding America may offer grants for new kids’ programs that year, so the food bank can apply for the grant and can now afford to start the programs. On the other hand, that funding may only last 2 years, so the food bank has to figure out how to raise the money to keep the program going after Feeding America’s grant runs out.
2 - Access to food for free or at very-reduced cost. Large scale donations (like an overrun from a national cereal company that fills a few truckloads, or a deliberate donation from some big food company) are acquired and then spread out throughout the food bank system. Sometimes it’s cereal, produce, other healthy important foods, and sometimes it’s junk food (more on food quality later). Feeding America handles the ‘donor relations’ side and logistics to get this food to food banks who need it, and have the ability to store it, etc.
3 - Program resources and staff training. By working with Feeding America, food banks can get information and guidance for new programs they want to start, grant writing, inventory systems, etc. If they want to start a garden program, a backpack program (where kids get a backpack full of food to take home from school), a community kitchen - someone else has already done these things so Feeding America can help determine ‘best practices’ and demonstrate what works, create handbooks, etc.. Link a food bank to some other food bank that has just gone through the same thing...
4 - Quality Control. Feeding America does an audit of each food bank every two years. So in addition to the local food banks’ inspection from the health department, their independent financial audits, etc, they have to follow the standards of Feeding America as well. Many of FAs recommendations are even stronger than the health department. If a food bank is struggling financially, has an out-of-whack budget, or crappy old warehouse space or whatever, FA can help them figure out how to get on track. Rarely, a food bank will be kicked out of the network.
5 - Donor lists. If people donate to FA, they will pass the donor's name/address along to the local food bank. It encourages people to give and participate locally.
Drawbacks - Every community is different, every food bank is different. Many of them existed long before this national network became so ubiquitous and FA's standards/rules/requirements don't always fit. There are a handful of food banks in the country who have left the network or refused to join because they found that they could get enough food/funding without FA and it wasn't worth the headaches. But obviously most find that the benefits outweigh the negatives because most are members.
My Opinion
I’ll be diplomatic here to respect this fundraiser and the admins here who kindly run it, and because I do believe there is a real impact from this organization (and beyond my ‘belief’, there are measurable results).
To tell you the truth, I prefer to support my local food bank and a couple of the programs it gives food to. I can go to the food bank and volunteer, and I know they do an awesome job because I see how well it is run, how efficient it is, how dedicated the staff is, etc. Not everyone can say that about their food bank - some of them aren’t run as well. It could be that they work in a poorer community where the ratio of donors/supporters to needy people is worse, or it could be that they have a crappy overpaid director, heh, it really varies.
I also have found that while FA gives some lip service to root causes, it is quite limited, whereas the local groups are doing this work on their own or with little or no support from FA. Like job training programs for at-risk youth so they can get jobs instead of food assistance when they graduate from school, or garden programs to get community gardens at low-income housing sites so they can grow their own food...FA tries to keep up but really it's the local groups that innovate and develop effective new programs.
I am of the opinion that we need radical change in our food system and our economic system so in that sense a lot of FA’s work (and the food banks, for that matter) is the proverbial band-aid on a gushing wound. And in some sense the very corporations that help cause poverty get some legitimacy and cover through the charity world, which is pretty twisted imo.
HOWEVER - as I have stated I don’t want to discourage anyone from donating to this fund drive. It is one important piece of the puzzle, and making sure some hungry kid gets lunch is really basic and important, and FA indirectly helps this happen all over the country.
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