Tracking Green Regrantors: Six Funds Working to Remake the U.S. Food System

Food is sustenance. But it’s also money and jobs — plus a source of greenhouse gases. And the systems that take it from field to plate are, like so many others, shaped by racism and inequity.

For these reasons and more, U.S. foundations have long put their dollars toward efforts to remake food and agricultural systems at home and abroad. The Rockefeller Foundation famously — or infamously, depending on your perspective — seeded the Green Revolution. Today, the Gates Foundation is a goliath in global ag, and not an uncontroversial one. In recent years, though, foundations haven’t been the only ones cutting the checks.

A number of new regrantors have emerged over the last decade to move more money to the food movement — and to its less-funded flanks. These operations are responding to the climate crisis, but also to an influx of philanthropic support for racial equity and heightened interest in community-led processes for grantmaking. The rise of such operations is not an entirely new phenomenon, but mirroring a broader trend across environmental philanthropy, food- and ag-related funds lately seem to be popping up like spring flowers.

Groups of funders are launching them, as they long have, but so are nonprofits and activist groups. Some regrantors are global or national, but there’s also a large number of regionally focused outfits. Purpose-built funds also remain popular, particularly related to COVID response, natural disaster relief or for legislative implementation. They also vary in terms of how they make grantmaking decisions, with some leaning on teams of advisors from the field and others retaining professional grantmaking staff.

To make sense of this fast-changing landscape, I’m attempting to map the fast-growing field of food funds as part of a larger effort to track the broader landscape of green regrantors. My rough definition of these funds is that they bring together two or more partners, whether that’s foundations, nonprofits, activists or others, with the goal of creating a pool of funding for grants focused on food and agriculture.

Look closely at a few of these operations and you’ll find that food and ag philanthropy can be a small world. Many nonprofits participate in several funds, as do small funders. Certain major grantmakers — like the Rockefeller, Kresge and Waverley Street foundations, as well as the 11th Hour Project — back many such regrantors.

Here are six nationally focused food and ag funds to note.

Growing Justice: Field and funders create a fund for a critical decade

Let’s start with the newest of the bunch. Growing Justice: The Fund for Equitable Good Food Procurement is a multipartner effort to raise and spend $50 million over 10 years to transform U.S. food systems. Launched last October, the fund now has pledges totaling $15 million.

Its big-picture goal is to improve the conditions facing tribal, Indigenous, Black, Latinx, Asian and immigrant people at every stop in the food supply chain — whether as suppliers, producers, distributors, workers or consumers — and ensure they have the opportunities to thrive.

Administered by Amalgamated Foundation, the fund was designed by 16 food systems leaders, ranging from farmers and government aides to school district representatives and policy specialists. Members of that group, which tapped Black, Indigenous, people of color and allied leaders, now form the fund’s advisory council, along with a handful of newcomers and philanthropic representatives.

The fund’s founding partners are a cross-section of food systems funders large and small, including the Rockefeller Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the Panta Rhea Foundation and the Clif Family Foundation. Another is the Native American Agriculture Fund, which I cover below. Waverley Street Foundation, Laurene Powell Jobs’ climate fund, has also signed on.

Equitable Food Oriented Development: The community food movement starts a fund

At least a decade of conversations, gatherings and other work by food leaders from California and beyond grew a small peer group into the Equitable Food Oriented Development (EFOD) collaborative. Like other funds on this list, it’s grounded in the conviction that food is integral not just to the health of communities, but to their cultural and economic vitality.

In 2021, just a couple years after its launch, EFOD put together a first-ever call for funding applications. The demand was overwhelming, with more than 60 applications totaling $10 million in requests. The fund ultimately sent over $1 million to eight organizations.

Support for the collaborative, which is coordinated by DAISA Enterprises and overseen by a steering committee of food leaders, has come from the Kresge Foundation (more than $8 million between 2020 and 2023 issued in partnership with EFOD) and the Rockefeller Foundation ($1 million from 2022 to 2024), among others.

Native American Agriculture Fund: A legal settlement creates a Tribal-focused fund

Unlike the others listed here, the Native American Agriculture Fund does not rely on donations and foundation grants to do its work. It was founded in 2018 as part of the legal settlement from Keepseagle v. Vilsack, a class-action lawsuit that alleged USDA loan programs and services discriminated against Native American farmers and ranchers for decades. However, like others listed here, it is guided by a council of field advisors, in its case, drawn from academia, philanthropy, government and the private sector.

The fund, which had nearly $260 million in assets at the end of 2021, has become a critical supporter of tribal members who work the land, including as a founding funder of Growing Justice. The fund must distribute its assets within two decades, and it plans to issue $10 million in grants each year through 2035.

Last September, it took its latest step toward that goal, committing more than $100 million over 12 years to organizations in Indian country. Backing a mix of nonprofits, schools, tribal governments and community development financial institutions, the aim is to improve the health of land, people and economies by addressing food and nutritional disparities.

Better Food Foundation: Strategies and grants for plant-centered diets

This activist think tank — or, as the foundation calls itself, “action tank” — wants to change what people eat. The Better Food Foundation tries to accelerate the trend toward more plants and fewer animal-derived products on people’s plates through a mixture of research, movement-building and grants.

A nonprofit since 2017, the foundation has always been a regrantor. It is on pace this year to manage about $900,000 in grants and funding related to fiscal sponsorships, a service it provides for free to a small number of close partners, according to its executive director, Jennifer Channin. This year’s total is up from about a half-million dollars in past years.

Unlike most on this list, its partners are mostly from the animal rights movement, including the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition, Jewish Initiative for Animals, and Creature Kind. Like others in that space, it draws much of its support from individual donors. Other partners and grantees have included AfroVegan and Farm Forward.

Regenerative Agriculture Foundation: An intermediary for an increasingly popular cause

Don’t be fooled by the name. The Regenerative Agriculture Foundation has no endowment and must fundraise like nearly all the other operations listed here. Launched in 2016 with support from the 11th Hour Project, this Minneapolis-based fund has become a central player in food philanthropy.

It was a founding partner of Funders for Regenerative Agriculture and works closely with Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders, one of the space’s most active philanthropic support groups. It’s taken on a major role in philanthropy’s efforts on the Farm Bill, including guiding rapid-response funding, and it also has a pooled fund focused on BIPOC organizations in regenerative agriculture.

Backers include the Cedar Tree Foundation, TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation, Globetrotter Fund and Armonia LLC. And like many in the food space, it now counts Laurene Powell Jobs’ Waverley Street Foundation among its supporters.

Food and Farm Communications Fund: Helping get the message out

Transforming our agricultural and food systems will also require changing the stories we tell about how we feed ourselves. That’s the conviction behind the Food and Farm Communications Fund, which funds front-line organizations to hone their communications strategies and help them share their messages.

With more than a decade of operations under its belt, this fund is the oldest listed here. It has issued roughly $5 million in grants since 2012, all guided by an advisory team of field leaders. A wider group of funders, communicators and food movement experts, including most of the advisory team, supports the fund itself.

Compared to some of its peers, the fund has quite a long list of supporters. They include the Panta Rhea Foundation, Grace Communications Foundation, Nell Newman Foundation, Lumpkin Family Foundation, Stupski Foundation and Clarence E. Heller Foundation, as well as the Ceres Trust, No Regrets Initiative, 11th Hour Project, the Christensen Fund and the John Merck Fund.

Have a favorite national food and ag fund that is not listed here? Send its name to michaelk@insidephilanthropy.com.

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