526. Building a Modern Movement + Activating the Next Generation of Changemakers (NMS Replay) - Ben Collier, The Farmlink Project

Meet Ben. As CEO, he’s led the transformation of The Farmlink Project from a college dorm initiative into a national hunger relief movement 🌱 Theirs is a nonprofit fairy tale story: three college students who saw a problem in the world and built a scrappy, grassroots solution that's changing the world 🌍 The Farmlink Project connects surplus food from farms to food banks all around the U.S. and has rescued more than 200 million pounds of produce since its inception 🚜 Tune in for this replay of the insightful conversation we had with Ben during the Nonprofit Market Summit

💡Learn

• Overview + History of The Farmlink Project
• Insights into Building a Modern Movement 
• Activating the Next Generation of Changemakers

Today’s Guest
Ben Collier, CEO, The Farmlink Project

For more information + episode details visit: weareforgood.com/episode/526.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 3:05

transformational funding is something we're starting to talk about. What is the story that we can tell people? That's going to really build a movement around, not just believing that we can move a lot of food, but believing that we can move the needle on hunger as a whole. And to that end, we've spent so much of our time over the last few months thinking about how can we create something that lasts and is self-sustaining, standing hey, I'm John.

Speaker 3: 3:28

And I'm Becky.

Speaker 2: 3:29

And this is the we Are For Good podcast.

Speaker 3: 3:31

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Speaker 2: 3:40

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

Speaker 3: 3:49

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

Speaker 2: 4:00

So let's get started. Hey Becky, what's up man?

Speaker 3: 4:04

Oh, you know, I'm excited today because one of my favorite nonprofits and movements is on the podcast. Because here's the thing, guys there is a nonprofit fairy tale story and I want to take you back Three college students who saw this problem in the world and then they ended up building this scrappy, grassroots solution that's absolutely changing the world and the way we look at food. So I'm introducing you and not a first time guest to the podcast. The Farm Link Project, which really connects surplus food from farms to food banks all around the country, and y'all they have rescued over 160 million pounds of produce since its inception, which was just a couple of years ago. We were honored to sit down with Ben Collier, the CEO of the Farm League Project, at the Nonprofit Marketing Summit, and it was too good not to share with you guys here.

Speaker 2: 4:57

Yeah, we love this team so much and Ben has led the transformation of a college dorm initiative into this national hunger relief movement that's redistributed this nutritious food to communities facing hunger. We're so excited to have him with us today. Ben, welcome back to the podcast.

Speaker 1: 5:12

Hello Becca and John.

Speaker 3: 5:14

Hello Ben, it is so good to see you again. Thanks for making time for all of us here. We got to take it back and talk to us like give us the inception story, give us kind of the overview and the history of the FarmLink project. And we're not talking about many, many years ago, we're talking about what happened in March 2020, with you and a small band of committed people.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Yeah Well, february, march, april of 2020 was a time unlike no other, and for myself and so many of my contemporaries, we were being sent home from college. At the time, I actually was recovering from this major reconstructive foot surgery, so I couldn't really participate in normal life. And then the pandemic happens. Everyone else is suddenly right there alongside me on Zoom, but we saw story after story as this commercial food industry shut down, about food piling up on farms, and, at the same time, there were just as many stories being told about food banks facing the longest lines they'd ever seen, and we knew nothing about this space, and we thought naively which continues to be a quality that I think drives a lot of our optimism today let's connect one farm with one food bank.

Speaker 1: 6:29

And so we started calling these farmers that we've been reading about in national news all the way down to local papers, just to see do you still have surplus? Is this real, is this true and can we help get it to a community that could benefit from it? And probably 200 calls in, we got through to this onion farmer that had just been written about in the New York Times that had just been written about. In the New York Times he had a pile of 2 million pounds of onions with nowhere to go and we called Shea. Shea Myers is his name and he says if you get a truck here, you can take whatever you can. And so that was the start of Farm League. We pulled together a little money, picked up 40,000 pounds of onions, brought those back to a local food bank.

Speaker 2: 7:06

And that was the beginning. I mean, I feel like I have this. Every time that I hear a piece of your story or get to watch the beautiful documentary we're going to talk about too, it's like thank you for not giving up. Like call number 200, like you casually say, we called 200 people. How many of us in the room would keep calling you know till you get to that 200th. I think the level of moxie, the level of belief that this was possible just shined through your story, ben, and I just love it so much. I want to talk about now, I mean, what started as this project. Now I mean you are working with some of the most dominant food players in the space. You're trying to figure out the way you operate in this massive charitable food space. What does that look like now for y'all at FarmLink?

Speaker 1: 7:48

Sure, well, you say we're working with these huge players. Everything we do is centered around collaboration. We as FarmLink, just to be clear, we are not a food bank ourselves. We are really positioning ourselves between the charitable food space and the for-profit food space to try and create more connectivity. And what we've recognized as the largest thing we could add in terms of value is, yes, those relationships, but the logistics and the transportation between the two. And so a couple of years ago, there were 30 truckloads of avocados with nowhere to go in Pennsylvania, and if you want to find this out, you can search Avageddon. There's a story about this.

Speaker 3: 8:28

I love the brand already.

Speaker 1: 8:31

Unintentionally caused a lot of traffic in a corner of Philadelphia. But regardless, you know there are these huge moments of surplus food all over the country and they happen with frequency and our goal is to figure out OK, why is that happening, why is that continued to happen for decades, and is there anything we can do about it? And the reality is not to the fault of any individual food bank. That's a lot to take on when your priority is getting the right amount of food to your community, and so what we can specialize in at FarmLink is saying, okay, 30 truckloads of cucumbers, that's great. One truckload or two truckloads are going to help 20 different communities. What we can do is make sure all of those communities are in the loop, connect the food banks to this food and coordinate the logistics to get it there and that's really our bread and of the reason why that fearlessness, that moxie that like drive for innovation, has really propelled FarmLink, because there was a lot of people telling you there wasn't a food scare.

Speaker 3: 9:40

You know that they couldn't tackle the food scarcity issue. There was rejection of working across systems, and you fundamentally rejected that and said no, no, this is the way it needs to be, this is what we're going to uncover. And you fundamentally rejected that and said no, no, this is the way it needs to be, this is what we're going to uncover, and I think that's such the beauty of the farm link story and we're talking a ton this season on the we Are For Good podcast about how do you build a modern movement, and for us there's a really simple formula and it's start with one person and I feel like you all started that and it's just the plotting, the planting of the seed to the next, to the next, and then people start to bring others into the fold. So talk about this commitment that FarmLink embraced to just have a gentle voice as a part of building this mission and how it influences your message and your community building.

Speaker 1: 10:34

Well, I think we entered FarmLink at a period of time that was actually perfect for the type of movement building that we did. I don't know how easy it would be to replicate it with different conditions. Now, before I jump there, I will say something you said at the top there, becky, of challenging and not settling for being told. This is the way it's always been. I don't think that we reject all all truths or reject all assumptions of how things that was a high superlative.

Speaker 3: 11:01

Yes, good clarification what?

Speaker 1: 11:04

I agree with you, is the answer to the question. Why should never be? That's the way it's always been and that's what we were told a lot upfront, and I think that we just have worked on our values, refreshing them at FarmLink and this one is forever students, and it centers around this principle of there should be an answer to any of the questions that we have, and we shouldn't settle even for our own solutions at FarmLink with ever being able to explain them by saying that's the way it's always been. But, rewinding back to the start of FarmLink, we had an entire generation of people that were basically sidelined and not just sidelined from making a social impact from community, from their school, from their internships, and so FarmLink wasn't just something that three people were working on.

Speaker 1: 12:57

Within a week it's so hard to even tell our founding story because dozens of people were immediately a part of it and within a month and a half we had 150 students working on FarmLink with 30 kids calling I say kids, my contemporaries, my peers, but there are 30 of us calling farmers and trying to understand the intricacies of food banking and logistics. And just how could we be additive and supportive? And so it combined this movement, building, giving people a space to be a part of something really meaningful. And also this forever students mindset, where if we didn't have a learning mindset early on, we would have just been really unsuccessful and really wrong, because we had so much to learn in those early days that we needed to be, we needed to be asking questions.

Speaker 3: 13:41

That abundance mindset in Gen Z is like I want to bottle it and sell it to people.

Speaker 2: 13:47

So yeah, jump in there with talking about, kind of like, some of the generational voices that we're bringing in, that that started to influence your message and started to build the community.

Speaker 1: 13:56

I think we didn't, in the first month and a half of FarmLink, realize how important the community would be to our overall success. Truthfully, a month and a half into FarmLink, we weren't even sure what that next step should be been sure what that next step should be. I mean after a week. After we moved those onions, we then moved the next day about 11,000 eggs to a local food pantry that a couple of my teammates picked up in a U-Haul and I was looking at the chat here which it means after about a day we could have made a lot of omelets. But for the next month we then set this goal of saying, okay, well, if we can move a million pounds of food, that's going to be amazing. And within a month we'd moved a million pounds of food. And so it kept feeling.

Speaker 1: 14:37

It felt like we kept setting a goal for ourselves and then realizing, okay, with this group of people focused on it in the way that they're able to, we're going to reach it a lot quicker than we thought.

Speaker 1: 14:46

And so I think that about a month and a half in, we recognized, oh my gosh, there's more student and young person capacity to be a part of this than has ever maybe been possible before. Let's just take on as much of it as we can, and so we sent out these posts on LinkedIn, on all of our social media, and just invited almost anybody who was interested to be a part of it, and what came out of this? I think the movement at the beginning was just a bunch of students who believed in this before, maybe even a bunch of farmers and food banks and others did, and all they needed was this space of community and the ability to feel so connected to others. I think you can talk about movement building in layers, though, because if students and student buy-in is the first step, food banks and farmers and, I'd say, broader society are these layers on top of it that are a lot more nuanced and something where it's very much entrenched in now.

Speaker 3: 15:41

Well, I think that you really picked up on something that was really critical, which is like sequencing and we talk about.

Speaker 3: 15:48

Modern movements are best grown when they start from within.

Speaker 3: 15:52

So so smart of you to start inside, looking at the students and the network that you had, and I think that is such a good starting point.

Speaker 3: 16:01

But foundational to movements has got to be storytelling, and I need to brag on you guys for a second because I think some of the differences I've seen in we talked to so many nonprofits on the past these modern nonprofits, these social enterprises that are coming up now, are looking at story and media in a completely different way. You were even able to get a grant to create your first video to get your story out there first. And, by the way, friends, there are foundations out there funding media and funding video and grants because they believe that it can scale the mission even faster. So you've got to talk about this deep commitment that FarmLink has to storytelling and flexing the narrative in media, because you all gather a full swath and a full documentary called Abundance that launched last year that we are such big fans about, and we want to talk about how you were storytelling that in community and how that lift your mission and PS such a big fan and I totally shared it on Reddit many, many times.

Speaker 1: 17:12

Thank you. We have plenty of Reddit super fans now. Becky, you and I have talked about this before.

Speaker 1: 17:19

I really believe that FarmLink's purpose is to try and prevent systemic progress. No example of systemic change in the last few years that I can think of that doesn't include a successful shift in social perspective about whatever problem it is that this change is about. And zooming in on this, on food access and hunger and nutrition and agriculture and climate and how it relates to the food space, I didn't know anything about this four years ago and I don't assume most people I speak with even know the difference between a food bank and a food pantry. But FarmLink is trying to create the space for this entire industry to grow, and if that's going to happen, we need a lot of conversation. We need a lot of challenging existing perspectives. We need people to both feel a sense of urgency that these problems need to be addressed more or in a different way than they are now, and we need a sense of optimism that that is possible.

Speaker 1: 18:27

And so I think that philosophy has driven why we believe that storytelling is not just a part of our marketing and fundraising efforts. It's a core part of our theory of change, our storytelling work to date, I actually think, has just scratched the surface of what it intends to be where abundance. Thank you for the plug. That's our founding story. It tells the story of how a bunch of college students got off the ground at the beginning of the pandemic. It doesn't tell you anything about where we're trying to go from here, and that's okay, I think that's our next documentary.

Speaker 3: 18:58

That's right.

Speaker 1: 18:58

It's actually what we're working on right now. It's our theory of change. It's what we envision this looking like in five years. But I think that storytelling for FarmLink in the future is taking this community, this movement that we're trying to build, alongside and being a platform through which great community voices can be heard. You know there are such great displays of what food access with dignity looks like at small levels. That aren't necessarily the way all food access should look like in every community around the country, but they are really great templates and models that people could learn so much from, and FarmLink OneDay can be a storytelling platform through which people can understand what food access with dignity looks like in all of the ways it can exist. I think that is a huge way that we're going to be able to drive forward systemic change. How many missions are talking about creating a storytelling culture?

Speaker 3: 19:48

How many missions? Are talking about creating a storytelling culture. How smart is that, John?

Speaker 2: 19:55

It's deep, it's the moment. And what I love about how you're phrasing this, ben, that you talk about, these big systemic issues are not going to be solved unless we really change people's perspectives. It's not like media is a vanity project, and I think there's a lot of board members, board seats around the country that think that marketing is an expense and it's like it's not what it could be. When we say marketing is mission, we talk about how can we actually use it to change people's hearts and minds and open up their eyes, and do that through dignity and uplift and not adding more harm or pain to the situation, but to provide solutions and talk about the collective. And Y'all do that, and so I love that. Even you're owning that.

Speaker 2: 20:37

This is chapter one, because one film is not going to solve everybody's opinion. One film is going to capture you know this movement and I want you to talk about the movement because a lot of people came to this session about that piece and if you haven't watched abundance, becky just dropped the link like go home, go click it. It's like what? 15 minutes, it's not even a huge amount of time.

Speaker 2: 20:56

20 minutes but you, you'll feel like you're, like the energy is just growing as more and more people link together and get involved in this, and that's what it feels like inside of a movement. I want to ask you, ben, what have you learned, you know, now, looking back, about what it really takes to build this movement, how, what are those hallmarks that you would call out?

Speaker 1: 21:22

this movement. What are those hallmarks that you would call out? I think that FarmLink entered a space that was more territorial than it expected, and when I say territorial, I mean food banking Not again to the fault of any individual food bank, but there have not historically been a lot of incentives for food banks to do everything they can to get more food to another community than the one they're serving, and, as a result, we experienced a lot early on this sense that FarmLink is threatening the balance that has existed for many decades in certain communities, and I will comfortably say it's a balance that is not a level of success that I know is the ultimate goal. And so, in building a movement, there's nothing that Farmland can do without partnering with food banks and, at the same time, we seek to point out the ways that we want to see progress, and that's such a delicate line to walk. I think that it's important for us to recognize and never point fingers at, those who have less control than you might think for the problem that you want to see changed. And so, for FarmLink, be very vocal about the ways that we want food banking to become more collaborative and more innovative and more open to tech adoption.

Speaker 1: 22:33

That's something that I would comfortably say, and, at the same time, I'm not going to point to any individual food bank and say you're the reason that the system is the way it is, and that's hard, and I think that there are certain people that are very open to hearing that kind of perspective, and there are others who have taken it more personally, despite the intent there.

Speaker 1: 22:51

And so I think, when it comes to movement building with the peers in the space, with farmers, with policymakers, with food banks, we're pretty in that journey, but our path is one of as much collaboration as possible.

Speaker 1: 23:06

In the next few weeks, I'm going to be publishing this pledge, which I guess I'm speaking about oh good, and it's a set of commitments that FarmLink is making to making this space as innovative and democratized and collaborative as possible in a way that I really, truly believe aligns with the mission of everyone who gets into food banking or hunger fighting as a whole. And despite that, I know that this pledge is not something that is actively being followed by everyone in this space today, and so this is our attempt to say we're not here to call people out, we're not here to make people feel like they are the problem, but as much as we can. We're here to show this is a series of steps that if we take we could go a lot further. So I guess it kind of falls back to this abundance mindset of there is enough food, there are the options available, there are the solutions there. How can we bring as many people as possible into finding them?

Speaker 3: 24:05

I'm so dang proud of you. I mean, only Gen Z could look at a 10,000-foot view and say, knock, knock, nonprofit, you're really behind. You're not innovating Hello Not a newsflash to any of us that have been in the sector 20 years but also saying the way forward in collaboration and not resting on the. This is the way it's always been done. And leaning into these tech solutions, leaning into collaborative partnerships, media, we can go further together because we all know this, we're all marketers your audience plus my audience, we can have double the audience and you start to layer those partners on and I and I want to give like an example here of what I thought you guys did. That was really smart. That's practical for our audience.

Speaker 3: 24:53

I mean, when you launched this documentary, we just ironically happened to be together presenting at another conference in Napa and as I was about to watch this thing get launched, I got an influencer toolkit. I got images and graphics. I got little nuggets and facts. I got an entire kit that said, if you just want to spend like two minutes on this, like here's the cut and paste and how you put it in there and how you socialize it. That was so easy. Of course, I didn't want to do that because I'm a writer and I want to personalize, but making it frictionless for your partners has got to be one of those great tactics.

Speaker 3: 25:33

And so talk to us about what you've learned and what I would call like partnerships 2.0, to us about what you've learned and what I would call like partnerships 2.0, which marketers? This is our moment. This is our moment. I'm so excited about the way partnerships are evolving now, because it's so much less about hey, we really need this gift and we need this funding. It's more about we need the funding, we need the social proof, we need your volunteers and your employees to come in, we need your network, and it's really asking them to think creatively about what they can bring to the table, and that's not even one dimensional. We can bring things to their audience too, and I feel like FarmLink is such a beautiful example of this thing out in real time. So talk about this strategic partnerships and how it's really helped you guys scale.

Speaker 1: 26:19

Sure, thank you, and thank you for walking through some of the actual tactical things we did.

Speaker 3: 26:22

Oh, it's so brilliant. We loved it.

Speaker 1: 26:24

I'm not giving them any of that right now, but I think that these types of partnerships are such an easy way to build community and I think for us we go after the partnerships that seem the most strategic with the time that our small team has. But I think we are particularly open minded with the partnership ideas that people bring to us. For instance, we have someone in Los Angeles that's doing a fruit and vegetable tattoo flash sale and I don't have any tattoos.

Speaker 1: 26:54

I know that only a lot of people here, have tattoos, but there are a huge audience of people who that might really resonate with them, actually have the space for them to learn about FarmLink through what might otherwise not be a very common nonprofit marketing space.

Speaker 1: 27:10

I love that I'm super proud of any of those ideas as they come about, and we've had some really successful larger corporate partnerships that have been great for FarmLink's brand. Chipotle just wrapped up their I think fourth roundup campaign with us and that's where you order on the app. You can round up to the next dollar and it's an amazing way that we've benefited from their huge community supporting FarmLink with millions of dollars of funding over the last few years.

Speaker 3: 27:37

And total value. Alignment too, ps with Chipotle, like brilliantly.

Speaker 1: 27:42

And I think what we've tried to do for Chipotle in return is say we, as much as possible, are channeling this younger generation and celebrating your support of us in a way that feels authentic. So most times when a roundup has ended, people get really excited about the Chipotle roundup. They'll send us screenshots or pictures of them with their burrito or with their order. We'll compile it all into videos and we'll send it back to Chipotle and they love that because it's cute and charming and it's not actually getting us another donation, but it's something that is, I think, only made that relationship much stronger.

Speaker 2: 28:16

Absolutely. I mean that's stewardship and partnerships 2.0. This whole conversation is not about money as the only denominator to get people involved and I love seeing you in the comments. I mean talk about a mission that's just fueled by ambassadors that are around your mission. Go follow Andy's work too.

Speaker 2: 28:34

So I want to talk about your team a little bit.

Speaker 2: 28:37

And, ben, I want to say I quoted you and Aiden. Y'all came in a couple of seasons ago and I always try to have an open hand, but when I got schooled from Ben and Aiden that they said our greatest contribution I'm going to misquote you and go back and get this right Our greatest contribution is not in this mission that we're working right now. In this mission that we're working right now, it's in what's going to happen with the people that are part of this mission and how they go out and change the world, and I think that's the kind of culture building that gets me excited, that it's so bought into the long game. It's not just about what's happening within our walls, but like how are we treating people in a way that gets them excited to go out and pour into whatever mission or passion or interest that they have? And so I want to tap that brain of yours again. Get your wisdom around. How do you activate team? How do you activate volunteers? What really matters right now?

Speaker 1: 29:27

Well, one thing that we've really tried to preserve over the last couple of years, as FarmLink moved from an organization that was self-governing college students to one that now has 20 plus full-time employees and a fellowship commitment, is create a super intentional and clear space that young people have to be a part of our mission, beyond working full-time for us, these fellowships we've created there is so much energy that has gone into how can we create a fellowship with the sole purpose of taking someone who's passionate about this work and teaching them everything we know at FarmLink is facing solved, but to rather present all of these fellows with the problems that FarmLink has reached four years into and to say to them you're going to come up with a completely different set of solutions than we are, but go and think about it and figure out and come back to us and present what you think this could be.

Speaker 1: 30:37

And that wasn't the best pitch I've ever done for a fellowship, but the takeaway there is that our only goal is to bring more amazing people into the space and give them the opportunity to be a part of it, and we've had 700 students come through FarmLink over the last four years, and I can think of dozens who have let me know directly or shared with the FarmLink community that their entire trajectory in life has pivoted because of it, and some might have only been a part of FarmLink for a few months, but what you now see people who are going into work that isn't necessarily in the food space, but is mission driven or is related to policy or is about advocacy through storytelling or working with young people, and it is really exciting.

Speaker 1: 31:27

And I don't think that we've necessarily figured out how to capture that and share it as a product of FarmLink and it's not fully a product of FarmLink but to think that in the future we'll have thousands of students who have now become leaders in their respective areas, who have a mind for sustainability and food access and climate.

Speaker 1: 31:46

They're the ones who are really going to create that generational shift in perspective and I talked about that shift in perspective earlier as a part of systemic change. I think that that comes through great storytelling and it comes through at a certain level of generational buy-in and you'll just reach generations. My generation grew up believing it was reprehensible to drink and drive, because that was something that was ingrained in us through the Nickelodeon ads. We watched from day one, all the way to how it was taught in school, and I know that wasn't the case 50 years ago. That is a generational shift and I think that if all of these people who've been a part of FarmLink can go on and embody the values that we have in their future careers, that's going to be a generational shift as well.

Speaker 3: 32:31

I mean, let's just talk about the 700 people, because even if you're doing nothing more and I'm just going to cast a white net to the audience in this even if you're doing nothing more and I'm just going to cast a white net to the audience in this even if you're doing nothing more than saying this is what's happening. Here's what we're about, here's how you can help. You have 700 human beings going out and telling their friends, posting about it, wearing your merch, sharing your videos. Every single time they come out, they have a true purpose and when I think about Gen Z, they are driven by purpose. They want to live in mission, they want to live in impact, they want to feel like they have put some kind of a stamp on the world.

Speaker 3: 33:16

And y'all this is not just like happening within the Farmlink family. I mean, you've been on every nightly news program. You've been on Ellen, you've been in People Magazine. I mean this has started this absolute domino effect that I'm just so proud of you for starting, and I think that a lot of people are probably sitting in their spaces right now listening to this, thinking how do I engage the next generation of changemakers? I'm literally thinking, john, we need to manifest. We are for good ambassadors, immediately just to talk to them about what they're doing and how they can help us. And so what have you observed that really connects with this next generation of donors and leaders? And any tips would be icing on the cake.

Speaker 1: 34:05

I don't know if I have the perfect answer to that one, becky. I think that what we're going to try and do over the next year is help people understand the journey of $1 with FarmLink. That's something we've started talking about recently is one of my teammates just sketched up a 30 to 60 second video which is much shorter than all of the other stuff we've ever made which, just through an animated little journey, shows how $1 is going to lead to, you know, 20 pounds of food on different people's tables, and I think to actually see that process is something that will be really grounding for people. When we have engaged the most with young people, though, it's been one degree of separation away from fundraising, and I think that's okay. You know we'll have the most. Young people will reach out to me about our Chipotle partnership, about Selena Gomez putting us on her story, which we only got eight new followers from, even though she has 400 million followers, but that's besides the point.

Speaker 3: 35:08

Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. We prepare for it either way.

Speaker 1: 35:11

People saw it. They see us on the things that don't necessarily mean it's equal to transformative funding, but those are the things that have made FarmLink more of a household name, and so I think there's value there, because we don't need that person to donate all the money they have today. They might have $25 and some textbooks. That's okay, but if the theory holds that in 10 years they're going to be well-established in whatever career they're on, and in 20 years they're going to be well-established in whatever career they're on and in 20 years they're going to be leading it, then we'd love for them to know who we are right now, and so I think that our fundraising philosophy is not as much tied to how well and how much we're engaging with younger generations as just our intention of having it be something people care about, are willing to promote, are willing to believe in, and I guess maybe this time next year, hopefully, we'll figure out a little bit of a better way to fundraise around it, but that's.

Speaker 2: 36:07

Oh yes, you will Forever students. I mean, y'all got this in space.

Speaker 3: 36:11

And I would think the ripple would just continue as you continue to put out content, put out meetups, put out ways that really elevate the conversation beyond just farm link. It's about all of us and I just think you've done a great job with that.

Speaker 2: 36:27

I mean, ben, you know us, we love to just sit and talk about philanthropy, transformative power. You've gotten to have a front row seat to this unfold in front of you. Is there a moment that you've just seen philanthropy, big or small, that's really stuck with you.

Speaker 1: 36:42

It's a good question. I have a small example, while I think of a big one. In our first year we were a good story at the end of a newscast that was full of really hard to hear news and a lot of young people really connected with us because we felt like they felt like we were closer to them than we were to their parents. And there's this one eight or nine year old girl named Chloe who saw our story and then had this flower stand in Washington and all summer she fundraised. She just had to take whatever flowers you want and, if you want, leave money, sent us $900. Go, chloe.

Speaker 1: 37:22

And she called herself Farmer Hots and Plots. And we have this letter in crayon that she wrote us and it made me cry when I first saw it and it's on our Instagram deep down there somewhere. But that's an example of small philanthropy, where she wrote in the letter I wanted to fundraise for you guys because it felt like, uh, you're closer in age to me and you know you, you're, you're a kid like me and that um that I loved.

Speaker 1: 37:51

Um, I think, when it comes to big philanthropy, I'm actually trying to step into that space now where we're at the stage as farm link, where, um, transformational funding is something we're starting to talk about. What is the story that we can tell people? That's going to really build a movement around, not just believing that we can move a lot of food, but believing that we can move the needle on hunger as a whole. And to that end, we've spent so much of our time over the last few months thinking about how can we create something that lasts and is self-sustaining, and so I could go into the whole elevator pitch of where we think that's going, as that's actively being crafted right now. But I think, when it comes to big philanthropy, I got to be honest. That's where my mind goes right now is how do we tell that story of lasting and consistent impact?

Speaker 3: 38:45

about this. We had the privilege to sit down with Scott Harrison, the founder of Charity Water, and he says it's much easier for me to go to a $10 million donor and ask for that big mega gift when I have a bank of thousands of $10 donors who are already bought in that are creating the base underneath it, because mega donors don't want to feel like they're the only ones pushing the movement forward. But when you see that you have that historical background of champions giving a little, then little by little a little becomes a lot. So we are absolutely rooting for you in that and I just I want to share one little story, as I brag on Ben and I'm totally going to ruin the end of the documentary as a result of it, but I think it's a brilliant storytelling angle. But as you're going through the FarmLink documentary, you're seeing faces of these students and I see this one girl's face popping up. She comes in at the very end and she says this is my story.

Speaker 3: 39:45

I used to have to go dumpster dive for my mom and my sister because we didn't have enough food, and now at college and now I'm able to work on the front lines of eradicating the thing I never wanted a child to have to do. That is the type of person your mission is attracting. That's who saw your value, and I just really commend you for the way that you lift community and cognitive story whether it's pots and tots I don't remember what that was, but what a great example of how diverse the community stories can be in adding to the farm link story, because it's not about any one of us. So, okay, ben, we got to wrap it up with a one good thing. You know we're going to ask you this what is one piece of advice? Maybe it's a life hack or a quote. What's one thing that you could leave with this community today that will kind of give us a little boost, as if we haven't had a boost already.

Speaker 1: 40:40

I had a long conversation with someone last week about how I tend to not get super angry before I figure out what other emotions I'm really trying to get through, and we talked about the idea that most people are less in control of what you're upset about than you want them to be. We were at a restaurant and we watched someone next to us snapping at the waiter because something was wrong with the food that obviously had nothing to do with the waiter, and we talked about this concept of most people are less in control of the thing that you're upset about than you'd like for them to be, and I think that reflecting on when you're upset with someone and asking, all right, what do they really have control over and what are you asking them to do, it's been pretty helpful for us at farm link, and I think that's the one good thing on my mind right now.

Speaker 2: 41:34

Ben.

Speaker 3: 41:35

Collier yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:38

You can see why we just love hanging around you, um, lifting up the sector, asking a bigger, better question, gathering people around you. So we're going to asking a bigger, better question, gathering people around you. So we're going to have a little bit of time. We got like five, six minutes left so we'll have some time for Q and A. But as as you're putting them in the Q and A, vote up what you want us to hear, take to Ben, and we'll take it to the lounge after this too. But how can people connect with you, Ben? Like, what's on the radar for farm link? How can people plug into what you're doing right now and find you.

Speaker 3: 42:05

What do you need? How can we help you?

Speaker 1: 42:07

What do we need? Oh, man, oh, first of all, please uh, you know, hop on our website, make sure you're signed up for our newsletter. That's where all of our new fellowships, it's where our big updates, it's where our conversations about an earth day and other things like that are happening. Please follow us on our socials and add me on LinkedIn and let's talk if there's anything that we've talked about today that could be worthwhile. What FarmLink needs I've done this exercise in person with a group before and it was one of the most useful things I ever did with a group of people I didn't know, and it was challenging people to think of the one person that they think should be a part of this.

Speaker 1: 42:46

Almost everybody has a network that they underestimate, and you take something like FarmLink in this hunger space. We're trying to connect with major USDA policy leaders right now. We're trying to work with food banks on the ground, community partners, major farmers and major fundraisers, major donors. Is there one person that resonates with this or is so well connected to this that you think they should know what FarmLink is and they should be a part of it? Because if 300 people did that, farmlink would probably raise well over a million dollars. We'd have a bunch of new followers, we'd be connected to a bunch of new articles and opportunities and future fellows. So that would be the one thing I would ask for.

Speaker 3: 43:30

That's a one good thing. We can all get around. So thank you for that. We're going to go to the Q&A. And Matt Elston, I just want you to know that I even upvoted your question because I can't wait to hear what Ben says here. But Matt says how do you change people's perspectives with issues that are dominated by denial of reality and human equality? Is that like the biggest question on all of our minds right now? Ben? I would love to hear you tackle that.

Speaker 1: 43:52

That's a good question, matt. I think that in mission-driven work we have the opportunity to boil things down to values in a way that is harder to do when the bottom line is a bottom line. And for our space, for instance, there's this concept that we've struggled with at times of donorship, and I don't mean financial donor, I mean food donor. You have food banks that will say that's my donor, even though the farm will be coming to FarmLink and saying I can rescue way more food if we can work in this way and we'll try and get as much food as possible to that food bank. But that food bank will still say you're stealing our donor.

Speaker 1: 44:38

And to me there's an element of denial and an abandonment of the original mission there to the actual value of why we're doing that and standing on those values and standing on. If there's anything that we can actually communicate in terms of the impact, it's there. And so for me, in those conversations, actually bringing up what the goals of those food banks are and explaining how we think that we can be helping fulfill those goals truly by working the way that we are, even though it is contradicting the way that they want it to be, um, it's. I think it requires a lot of patience and empathy to see it the way that other people see it, but ultimately that's, I think, the best I got.

Speaker 3: 45:18

I actually think that was pretty brilliant.

Speaker 2: 45:21

I mean, when we talk about storytelling, it's we're fascinated by it, that it's like this age old practice, but it's brilliant too. I mean, when we talk about storytelling, it's we're fascinated by it, that it's like this age old practice, but it's still like the thing that cuts through and like we have a superpower in nonprofit missions to like all of our stories connect to value, like deep core value, levels of people, and those are the things that resonate, those are the things that we fight for, the things that we want to invest our money in. It's just like we have that superpower of connection, and so I think we need to lean into that. I think that's a brilliant way to think about it, and it's going to be a long game to really change minds and newsflash from this recovering major gift officer.

Speaker 3: 45:56

No one owns a donor, no one holds claim over a donor. A donor chooses to be the captain of their own sales, and so I'm pretty sure everybody knew that, but I had to double click on it.

Speaker 3: 46:09

Okay, we've got a great question here from Winter. She says we are an aging services organization. We serve older adults and adults with disabilities. Primarily, we are trying to engage younger generations as they enter caregiving or impacting by aging issues, especially ageism. Is there any advice you may have for reaching younger generations about these issues and engaging them as partners?

Speaker 1: 46:33

That's a really good question too. Thank you for that work, winter. I would say that we've found champions for our work, even amongst the 700 fellows that are the reason this whole community has succeeded. So we'll have stretches of time where our farms team has 30 fellows calling farms every single week for a year. It's going great. It's because we had two fellows that were actually leading it, who knew exactly what they needed to do, who knew exactly what they were needed to do. And I think if I were in this position, leading this organization, I would try and find one or two young people that really cared about being there for the right reasons, and then I'd task them with figuring out how to engage young people from there, because they'd probably know how to relate with their friends. But then you have the tie to them of knowing that they're there for the right reason and they're there because they really care, and you can hold them accountable. Again, coming back to the values piece Um, but I don't know, if I'd have the direct answer, I'd probably want to ask.

Speaker 3: 47:36

That's great, can I?

Speaker 3: 47:37

throw one in there too, john? Um, okay, this is very specific, but what if you, winter, started a campaign that said post a photo of you with your grandparent and tell us one reason why they're so special? All of a sudden, not only do you have content, but you have someone's why? About why spending time with and maybe it's not just grandparents someone that is an older person in your life that you've gained wisdom from, you get content, you get community, you can get such I would even think, a peripheral view of how that generation speaks and values that sort of population of people. So, and again to Ben's point, what a brilliant and beautiful mission that you serve. Keep going Y'all. My heart's full. I hope you've loved this. Show some love to Ben. Thank, what a brilliant and beautiful mission that you serve.

Speaker 2: 48:24

Keep going Y'all my heart's full. I hope you've loved this Show. Some love to Ben. Thank you for being here. Thanks so much for being here. Friends, and you probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before.

Speaker 3: 48:41

We'd love for you to come join our good community. It's free and you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. Sign up today at weareforgoodcom. Backslash hello.

Speaker 2: 48:52

And one more thing If you love what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating interview? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find this community. Thanks so much, friends. Can't wait to our next conversation.