Rooted in Evidence

Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition (GSCN) intends to fund innovative and dynamic programming and/or initiatives that seek to improve dietary quality among food pantry and food bank clients. These approaches could include existing or new/adapted programming that may include various:

• Settings and distribution sites (e.g., mobile or other “pop-up” pantries, college campuses, schools, traditional pantries, clinics).
• Components or levels of the emergency food system (e.g., distribution, procurement, food environment, client interactions to target knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors).
• Target populations (e.g., children, adults, families, seniors, college students, staff/volunteers, cancer survivors or other disease conditions, urban/rural).

Expires: April 26, 2019

Five grants up to $25,000 each.

To be eligible for funding, organizations must meet the following criteria:

• Non-profit 501(c)(3) food bank organizations in the U.S. are eligible to apply. Individuals are not eligible to apply. Food pantries are encouraged to collaborate on proposals, but the primary applicant must be a food bank organization.
• Applicants must propose programming, policies, and/or practices that are innovative and dynamic which aim to improve the health and dietary quality of emergency food recipients in partnership with pantries or another distribution/client serving setting. We are interested in funding both existing and new/adapted programming that will benefit from a robust evaluation that will be conducted in collaboration with the GSCN team.
• Active participation in data collection in partnership with GSCN is required. This means that there should be dedicated staff time (in-kind, matching/leveraged funds, or within the budget) in order to help facilitate data collection and management. Data will be co-owned by GSCN and the grantee organization, and we intend for grantees to work with GSCN to receive guidance about the evaluation throughout the grant program.
• Active participation and coordination with the GSCN marketing team is also required. This means some dedicated staff time from a team member at any level as appropriate for your organization (e.g., marketing personnel, executive director, program manager). We intend that your participation will help to provide connection with local media outlets and assistance with grant promotion at a local level (e.g., provide promotional content such as human-interest stories; help disseminate information; provide promotional content as needed for website, social media, newsletter). Some of these marketing activities may include: copy writing, sharing of short videos or photography, and participation in 3-5 calls with the GSCN marketing team.