Though the U.S. is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, food insecurity remains altogether too prevalent, with 12.8% of households — 17 million — being food insecure at some point during 2022, according to the most recent data from USDA. Earlier this year, the Urban Institute published a brief that found that food insecurity increased further in 2023, largely due to high food prices and the lapse of nutrition support programs.
It’s the government’s purview to address the issue, but philanthropy has a longstanding tradition of doing so as well. However, while support for direct services through food banks and pantries can make a big difference, it fails to address the root causes of food insecurity, which include poverty, inequality, high cost of living, expensive housing, low-wage jobs, discrimination and systemic racism. For instance, USDA found that Black and Latino households are disproportionately impacted by food insecurity, with 22.4% of Black households and 20.8% of Latino households experiencing food insecurity in 2022.
The Center for American Progress aptly notes that hunger is “further exacerbated by policy decisions that reduce funding, restrict eligibility, put time limits on participation, and create other onerous burdens that force low-income people to prove need.” These policy decisions undermine food and nutrition safety net programs.
With that in mind, one way philanthropy can potentially make a big difference is by supporting relevant policy advocacy efforts, including policies that address the root causes of food insecurity, as well as policies that provide assistance for families experiencing food insecurity. A recent analysis by the Urban Institute, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits remained too low to help families afford food in 2023.
Last year, SNAP benefits did not cover the cost of a modestly priced meal in 98% of all counties in the U.S. In 2021, the federal government reevaluated the Thrifty Food Plan (which determines SNAP benefits) and increased SNAP benefits. This significantly reduced the share of counties with inadequate benefits (from 96% in 2020 to 21% in 2021). However, those gains were wiped away by food price inflation in 2022 and the lack of “significant benefit adjustment” last year.
USDA also found that 13 million children in the U.S. experience food insecurity. Despite helping to address food insecurity among children and their families, numerous Republican politicians oppose universal free meals for children in schools. In addition, while corporate philanthropies have long been among the top providers of direct food aid in the U.S. and deserve credit for that, policy giving to address food insecurity’s root causes and upstream determinants is not an area where they shine.
Here are some of the funders – mostly private foundations – who do support policy advocacy to address food insecurity and hunger in the U.S. today.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Based in New Jersey, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is not only a major bellwether for health philanthropy in the U.S., but one of the biggest foundations in the nation overall. Its grantmaking spans dozens of initiatives under four main focus areas: health systems, healthy communities, healthy children and families, and leadership for better health. It’s been the top foundation advocate for giving to address the upstream social determinants of health, a theme that definitely applies here given the many interrelated root causes of food insecurity.
As part of its work, RWJF funds research and policy briefs related to food security and health. Earlier this year, for example, it published a policy brief that offers recommendations for the expansion of SNAP benefits in the 2024 Farm Bill. RWJF also supports healthy school meals for all children and notes that they offer a range of benefits, especially when offered for free. Through its Healthy Eating Research program, RWJF published research showing that healthy school meals “improve food security among students and families with lower incomes.” The foundation also funded research from the Urban Institute, which, in 2022, found that the majority of adults in the U.S. support permanent, free school meals for all students — a policy that expired in June 2022.
RWJF’s president and CEO, Dr. Richard Besser, provides commentary on proposed and enacted policy changes, such as a proposal to update WIC food packages and policy advancements related to food and nutrition, including WIC and SNAP benefits.
At the state level, RWJF is working with grantee partners to increase access to healthy foods around its home base of New Jersey by supporting efforts to end hunger, increase access to healthier food retail options in under-resourced areas, and improve food security.
Some of its grantees include Nutrition Policy Institute, USDA’s Economic Research Service, Food Research and Action Center, Urban Institute, New Jersey Food Security Initiative, among others.
Stupski Foundation
Founded in 1996 by Larry and Joyce Stupski, the Stupski Foundation is a spend-down foundation that serves the San Francisco Bay Area and Hawaii. Its areas of focus are food justice, health and postsecondary success. Stupski believes that everyone has “the right to healthy, just and culturally relevant food” but that systemic issues like structural racism and economic and environmental injustices have prevented many from realizing that right, in particular those from BIPOC, low-income, immigrant and refugee communities.
Through its Food Justice program, Stupski funds organizations that seek to return land to community control, enhance community climate resilience and ensure that community priorities shape policy. The foundation supports organizations that train and amplify the work of emerging food justice champions; advocate for the protection and expansion of social safety nets like financial food assistance and nutrition benefits; and shift local and national policy to support agricultural workers’ rights.
The foundation prioritizes grantee partners that work at the intersection of food justice and food sovereignty, as well as those that are “grounded in place-based knowledge; shift power; and recenter the wisdom of Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities and leaders.” Some of its grantees include Nourish California (formerly known as California Food Policy Advocates), the Berkeley Food Institute, Purple Mai’a Foundation, and the Hawaii Public Health Institute.
Angell Foundation
The Angell Foundation was established in 1996 and carries on the legacy of screenwriter and television producer David Angell and his wife, Lynn Angell, both of whom died during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The foundation’s current grantmaking is focused on three major areas — education as opportunity, food equity and transformational leadership — and is centered on Southern California and New England.
Through its Food Equity program, Angell seeks to tackle food insecurity and inequitable food systems by funding hunger relief organizations, as well as broader efforts that promote equitable and sustainable food systems, and educating the public about the realities confronting communities that struggle with food insecurity.
Several of its grantees work to advocate for policy that addresses food insecurity and hunger. These include Nourish California, the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, Social Justice Learning Institute, San Diego Food System Alliance, Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry California, and the Rhode Island Food Policy Council.
Hellman Foundation
The Hellman Foundation was established in 2011 after the death of Warren Hellman and is rooted in the legacy of Warren and Chris Hellman, the latter of whom passed away in 2017. The Hellman Foundation merged with the Hellman Family Foundation in 2013. The foundation gives broadly, but emphasizes education and youth development, and health and basic needs programs.
As part of its health equity work, Hellman announced its first strategic investment last year as it begins spending down its assets to sunset in 2034. The $20 million, five-year initiative will fund the Food for Health Collective San Francisco, which will seek to improve health outcomes for vulnerable communities in San Francisco. Its three-part strategy consists of expanding clinic infrastructure for food interventions at up to 30 community health clinics, advocating for policy that ensures food and nutrition services are covered by Medi-Cal, and providing support to build capacity and increase coordination between local clinics and nonprofit organizations. The initiative builds on the foundation’s earlier work through its Hellman Collaborative Change initiative.
Better Food Policy Fund
In 2022, the Tides Foundation partnered with Jane Schmitz, who has spent 20 years in the food security space, to launch a Tides collective action fund called the Better Food Policy Fund. The fund aims to increase food security and civic engagement to address the nation’s inequitable food system, which disproportionately affects Black and brown communities, food workers and farmers.
The Better Food Policy Fund works with impacted communities, seeking to support local, regional and tribal groups who are working to effect better food policy through civic collaborations, which the fund calls food policy councils. These food policy councils address a variety of issues, such as food access, local food production, food safety, environmental sustainability, social equity, and local economics, among others.
The initial commitment for the fund was $1.5 million. Other current donors include the From Now On Fund, which seeks to eliminate systemic inequities in health and well-being outcomes for people in the U.S. and focuses especially on care workers and the food system, the Smith Edmonds Family Foundation, and anonymous individual donors.
Rockefeller Foundation
One of the oldest major foundations in the U.S., the Rockefeller Foundation counts food as one of its main focus areas. Its grants support work around the globe, but Rockefeller prioritizes giving in the U.S., Africa and Asia.
Its Food program’s U.S. initiatives include the Food is Medicine program, which supports food-based interventions (such as produce prescriptions and medically tailored meals) to “help prevent, manage and treat diet-related diseases.” There’s also its Periodic Table of Food initiative, which provides “tools, data and training to evaluate the quality of the world’s food supply for a global ecosystem of scientists, practitioners, consumers and policymakers,” and its Power of Procurement initiative, which seeks to work with institutions to change how food is purchased so that markets shift from “lowest cost to best social value.”
The foundation seeks to transform the U.S. food system. In 2020, it published a report that looks at steps the U.S. can take to change its food system to address the hunger and nutrition crisis. The report offers recommendations related to public policy around food insecurity, including streamlining public benefits (such as SNAP and WIC) and investing in school nutrition programs and other front-line community institutions like colleges, universities and child care centers.
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Other funders working in this space include the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Walter and Elise Haas Fund and The California Endowment. These funders don’t have dedicated food programs, but they have made grants to support policy advocacy related to food insecurity. Haas, for example, supports organizations engaging in this work through its Safety Net grantmaking, including the California Association of Food Banks, Nourish California (both of which the Packard Foundation and The California Endowment also support) and the Western Center on Law and Poverty.
