Friday, August 11, 2006
Learning from the American food bank experience: You have to start from somewhere
In a two-week trip to the U.S., I visited America’s Second Harvest and Northern Illinois Food Bank in Chicago, and Second Harvest Heartland in St. Paul. My first impression of them was, “Are these non-profits?” They have very excellent offices and efficient organizational structures really like the ones of major corporations. Their operations are huge; for example, Second Harvest Heartland distributed 30,000,000 pounds of foods to agencies and individuals in 2005, while Second Harvest Japan distributed 300,000 pounds of foods to needy people in the same year.
The large scale of their operations means that American food banks need to be as professional and as efficient as possible. And that makes it necessary for them to have highly sophisticated organizations. The more I knew about them, the more worried I got that we could not overcome the gap between them and us. But a lot of people there said to me, “You have to start from somewhere.” That really encouraged me.
Aside from the scale, I was impressed by their attitudes as professionals. For example, America’s Second Harvest, which functions as the networking central office of all food banks in the U.S., has many departments. A woman in the public policy department spoke very enthusiastically about their lobbying in Washington, D.C. Another woman in the agency relations department explained to me how much time and effort they put in to make agency agreement documents and to make affiliate food banks compliant with regulations—only six staff members in her department have to cover all the states and visit every food bank in the U.S. I met many people at the U.S. food banks I visited, and they were all real professionals. They are proud of what they are doing and they all have in their minds same goal: ending hunger.
I was thrilled and inspired by what I saw. I think what we, Second Harvest Japan, need to do from now is:
-Expand our scale
-Improve food safety
-Strengthen our relationships with donors
-Strengthen our relationships with agencies
-Cultivate individual financial donors
-Make receiving food as easy as possible for clients
A couple of people I met at America’s Second Harvest have decided to leave the organization and give their energy and expertise to a recently founded international networking organization called the Global Food Bank Network. They facilitate networking within foreign countries like Argentina, Ghana, Mexico, and South Africa. To join this network, a country must have a national network and elect a food banking representative of the country. I hope we can join them in the near future.
Writer/Photo: Yusuke Wada
RSS
Keep up to date with the latest news.