Second Harvest Heartland

“The form 990 is prepared by our auditor with support from staff at second harvest heartland. The finance committee of the board reviews and approves the form 990 which is then provided to all board members prior to filing.”

“Upon hiring, employees are provided a copy of the conflict of interest policy. Human resources retains a signed copy from each employee stating they understood and accepted the terms of the policy. Members of the board are required to provide a signed agreement annually.”

“Shh periodically uses external surveys to evaluate all employees' compensation. Shh also uses other compensation sources as well as considering the cost-of-living adjustment per the federal social security administration guidelines, the consumer price index, and wage and salary trend reports to determine an appropriate average annual percentage. An average increase based on second harvest heartland's financials is approved for budgeting purposes. Employees are given a performance appraisal and a recommendation of an increase (if merited) is made to the executive team.”

“Copies of all information are available upon request. Form 990 is made available through the organization's website.”

“Our mission is to end hunger through community partnerships. In the years since our 2001 founding, second harvest heartland has evolved from a food bank focused almost solely on food distribution. Today, second harvest heartland is one of the nation's largest, most efficient and most innovative hunger-relief organizations. In fy20, we distributed more than 105 million meals. New and growing partnerships with retail donors, government agencies, healthcare providers, corporations, foundations and individuals, alongside increasing efficiencies within our organization, will allow us to continue to deliver more food. We invest in a range of efforts to fully address the problem of hunger in our communities. Through the snap outreach program, outreach specialists visit food shelves, soup kitchens and other organizations and events to help people understand the program and break down barriers to participation. In march of 2020, outreach efforts became completely virtual as the covid-19 pandemic restrictions prevented in-person support. Nearly 20% of minnesotans who qualify for snap are not accessing this benefit. That translates to millions of dollars of already-funded food and financial assistance that goes unclaimed because people are unaware of their eligibility or because they have difficulty with the application process. We also operate the usda's sfsp, a minnesota department of education-administered program that funds free meals to children during the summertime. We identify high-need areas annually in our collaboration with the minnesota department of education using school free and reduced meal program data. This data helps us promote our mini-grants program to eligible agencies and organizations and plan our outreach efforts for the year. Second harvest heartland has dedicated staff to conduct outreach in targeted communities and provides mini-grants to organizations to help alleviate barriers to participation. Fresh food as second harvest heartland works to develop new and more efficient ways of sourcing and distribution, the food that we supply is increasingly fresh. More than 63.5% of the food we distributed during the fiscal year was fresh, namely meat, produce, dairy and bakery items. In total, 35% of the food we distributed was produce. Food rescue beyond our primary goal of feeding hungry neighbors, second harvest heartland believes in the importance of our work to help sustain our environment and reduce food waste. By working with manufacturing, retail and agricultural entities partners, we can help divert safe, edible food from landfills and provide it to people in need. More than 500 stores donated 38.5 million pounds of food through our food rescue program in 2020. We also worked with minnesota growers to capture a portion of the 200 million pounds of crops that are either plowed under or unsold each year in our state. This year, we sourced more than 6.5 million pounds of produce from local farmers and processors, including 25 varieties of produce from 30 unique growers. We also sourced 5 million pounds of dairy, including 540,000 gallons of milk, and 1 million pounds of meat, all from local producers and processors. In fy20 we also launched minnesota central kitchen, a food rescue and covid-response initiative that turned 983,434 pounds of rescued food into ready-to-eat meals for those in need. An average of 29,254 meals were prepared and distributed each week through a network of kitchens and distribution partners, with more than 850,000 meals served in just over 6 months. Volunteer program our volunteer program is a vital component of second harvest heartland's efforts to bring more food to those who are hungry in our community. In the coming years, we will need additional support from volunteers to propel our growth. We expect our volunteer capacity to increase when we are fully operational at our new hunger-relief campus in brooklyn park, with the addition of a temperature-controlled clean room. To meet a rap”

“Community outreach: meanwhile our snap outreach specialists processed over 12,000 new client referrals and assisted 6,732 households with snap applications and re-certifications in fy20, adding over 5.1 million meals to families. Our minnesota central kitchen initiative was formed in march 2020 to reclaim abandoned food in commercial kitchens and restaurants, keep culinary workers employed, and provide prepared meals to those facing hunger. In fy20, minnesota central kitchen prepared through 15 kitchen sites and distributed at 60+ meal sites more than 854,000 meals. Finally, community outreach in fy20 consisted of incremental covid response, like purchasing additional food as prices rose and supply lines tightened, delivering food in brand new, covid-safe ways, and grant funds to food shelf and meal program partners forced to adapt to covid. Incremental response in fy20 also involved responding to the twin cities uprisings with distribution of not-commonly-sourced products like baby formula, diapers and toilet paper.”