GLOBAL FOODBANKING NETWORK
70 E Lake Street 1200, Chicago, IL 60601 www.foodbanking.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: To nourish the world's hungry through uniting and advancing food banks.

In FY 2020, the GFN network recovered over 919M kilos (2B lbs.) of food and grocery products and re-directed this surplus to more than 16.9M food insecure persons, half of which are women and girls. From February through June 2020, the GFN network provided critical food relief and other essential services to an add'l 5M people impacted by the global health emergency, bringing the total number of people served to almost 22M people in 44 countries. GFN successfully aided members' capacity, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness through training, assuring food safety and equity in distribution, and good management through the GFN certification process. GFN members are food banking organizations in 44 countries, operating across multiple socio-economic and cultural contexts, primarily in emerging market economies in Latin America, Asia, and Sub Saharan Africa. The GFN system is comprised of 900 community-based Food Banks and local networks of more than 56K local charitable agencies

COVID-19 Response: In FY 20, the rapid onset and global spread of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic produced a public health, economic and humanitarian crisis unprecedented in modern times. The pandemic has, and continues to, severely impact lives and livelihoods worldwide, destabilizing economies and food systems with devastating effect on the most vulnerable populations. As a result, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned of a "looming food crisis" accompanying the Pandemic, and the COVID-19 public health crisis becoming a hunger crisis. In FY 20, GFN was actively engaged in support of member food banks impacted by the coronavirus beginning in East Asian countries, approximately forty days prior to the UN World Health Organization's declaration of the global pandemic on March 12, 2020. Between March and June 2020, GFN supported member food banks in emergency response and provided critical food relief in 51 countries on six continents in response to COVID-19. GFN worked to assure food banks were open and able to provide relief in all countries; deployed crisis management interventions for members at risk due to internal or external factors or extreme local conditions; provided data and information sharing to inform, quantify scope, adjust actions, and secure resources to deploy globally; shared information throughout the network and with partner networks, provide technical assistance and share best practices and innovations that may implemented locally; and supported members through unrestricted financial assistance to procure and deploy resources adequate to need from private and public sectors. During FY 20, all (100%) of GFN members reported increased demand for emergency services by May 2020. Nearly half (49%) of members report the increased demand was 51% or greater of pre-COVID rates and more than one-third (37%) report increased demand of more than 91%. Food and hygiene products were delivered to an estimated 22 million people facing hunger, up from 16.9 million pre-crisis. Between March and June 2020, GFN deployed more than US$11 million in COVID-19 relief emergency response grants to food banks in 51 countries and an estimated 7,800 hours of technical assistance and programming activity to the network over 15 weeks (March-June). These financial resources, complemented by technical support, enabled food banks to purchase key staples, hire additional staff to cope with rising demand and the loss of volunteers, and expand service to new communities and hard-to-reach populations. GFN continues to mobilize a humanitarian response that both addresses the immediate COVID-19 crisis and support the recovery efforts in communities for a more resilient future.

Capacity Building and Technical Assistance: GFN provides on-going technical assistance and strategic investments in member food banks under the "Powering Food Banks for Growth" program model. The Powering Food Banks for Growth model is tailored to the specific socio-economic, cultural, and food security needs of the communities served by member food banks. GFN conducts objective social, food system and organizational need assessments in conjunction with the objectives of the food bank and assists in the development of their services. The capacity building assistance GFN provides includes assisting in operations infrastructure and logistics capacity to expand the geographic reach of food banks, increasing the volume and variety of surplus food recovery, strengthening of local civil society networks, and improving the efficient and equitable distribution of food and nutrition assistance to people in need. The programming broadly aids food bank effectiveness and expansion as food bank leadership indicates and community needs require. This approach sets broad objectives for assisting food banking organizations in advancing their capabilities and more strongly developing key food bank operations. GFN utilizes a data-driven approach accentuated by focused-field assistance, deployment of various technical assistance strategies and interventions, and in most instances aided by strategic grants. GFN applies an objective measure of food bank organizational capability, the Food Bank Development Spectrum 2.0 (DS2), a diagnostic tool to assess food banks on 17 criteria to measure organizational effectiveness. GFN-aided support is determined in consultation with the food bank, and implementation is evaluated to the DS2 metrics for efficacy. In FY 20 pre-COVID, GFN focused technical assistance on priority countries with high prevalence rates of food insecurity, provided in-field consultation, engaged executive leadership and Boards in a stronger peer-to-peer learning network, and encouraged these organizations to apply for competitive grants offered by GFN. The demonstrable effect of GFN's targeted "Powering Food Banks for Growth" approach, culminating in FY 20 pre-COVID, was a significant increase in persons served, with year-over-year increase of 76%, from 9.6 million food insecure persons (FY 19) to 16.9 million (FY 20, pre-COVID) - 6.2 million children (45%) and 8.9 million served women or girls. Similarly, food procurement, recovery and distribution by GFN member food banks increased 82% year-over-year, from 448 million kilos (FY 19) to 919 million kilos (FY 20, pre-COVID).

New Food Bank Development - GFN Food Bank Incubator Program: In FY 20, GFN established the Food Bank Incubator Program, a 3 year project to help accelerate food banking operations in under-served communities and where no meaningful food bank presence has been established or sustained previously. The program was focused on countries in South Asia, South East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The project identifies a promising cohort of food bank founders and their key partners (a board member or senior staff member) from a specific community or country and provides intensive, focused training on all elements of food banking operations, resource sourcing and community support, and distribution efficiencies. GFN's Food Bank Incubator Program is modeled from lessons learned from other incubators that have sought to replicate and support new organizations on a global scale. Experience from other sectors suggests that convening a smaller number of founders on a regional basis and then connecting them to both the expertise and the players that will be needed to start and move through early stage operations can be effective method to advance organizational development for social impact and sustainability. The Incubator Program includes the recruitment of promising food bank leaders and founders through research, in-country recommendations from government and civil society, and in-field assessments by GFN staff. Once entered in the program, the food bank leaders are assisted through convening, coaching, and concerted training, support in establishing sustainable and effective food banking organizations. Introduction of these founders early on to corporate and multilateral partners interested in supporting a food bank in their home country, to allow opportunities for collaboration and early stage financial investments, product donation, and company partner - employee engagement. The Food Bank Incubator program is the first formalization and strategic targeting of a process that has taken shape over time at GFN for the development of emerging projects. Our goal is to target those regions with high or persistent rates of food insecurity, identify potential organizational partners that are promising in their operations, or enhance collaboration with existing entities that have initiated outreach to GFN. Incubator Program participants in Asia include organizations in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam; and participants in Africa include food banking organizations from Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, and Nigeria. In-person Incubator Program sessions were held in Seoul, Korea and Cape Town, South Africa in FY 20 pre-COVID, and intensive remote training by regional cohort and individual food banks have been conducted throughout FY 20.

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Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202002889349301475_public.xml