Good Food

On Reflection

What We Are Learning From Our Food Work

Learn first, join second, build last.

As a science-based philanthropy, we often invest in research that will help us understand how an intervention can improve people’s lives. This belief is central to our Food is Medicine strategy.

But we have also learned that the most compelling evidence often does not come from research. Rather, it comes from the life experiences of people, like Veterans, who make it clear how and why access to healthy food matters. Staying close to these experiences — and making sure large institutions hear and act on them — is critical for success.

Stand behind — don’t stand in for — leaders of unlikely partnerships.

Getting Good Food to those who most need it requires working across many sectors — from agriculture to health to education. We are learning the best ways to promote multi-sectoral collaboration and increasingly see that forging a leadership body that represents multiple perspectives is a powerful way to encourage collaboration across a coalition. 

For example, in shaping leadership for our Periodic Table of Food Initiative, we knew that agricultural and health sectors would have to both build the science but do so in ways answers questions being asked in both disciplines. We are learning a singular focus in leadership can lead to a singular focus in the work, at the expense of uptake and impact.