Feeding America

“The executive compensation committee and feeding america work with a human resources consulting firm that specializes in compensation services to not-for-profit organizations, with a primary focus on executives. They provide data to the committee to evaluate the reasonableness of each executive's total cash compensation. Compensation decisions are consistent with feeding america's board approved executive compensation philosophy. Compensation decisions are documented in the minutes.”

“Part viii, line 10b does not include the following direct costs related to support the national grocery program: salaries, technology, occupancy and office expenses.”

“Part i, line 7a the organization's unrelated business taxable income for fiscal year ended june 30, 2018 was solely from income created under irc 512(a)(7) related to qualified transportation fringe benefits. As such, no unrelated business taxable income is reflected on form 990, part viii, statement of revenue.”

“Form 990, part iii, line 4a: food procurement program food procurement program includes supply chain, logistics and product sourcing services. Supply chain services facilitate the acquisition of food and grocery products for free distribution to americans in communities across the country. The feeding america national office augments donated food and grocery products with produce procured from farmers and growers to ensure a nutritional and well-rounded mix of product is available to the network. A portion of these procurement costs are offset by fees paid by member food banks to the donor/service provider, which may include the cost of packaging, transportation, and processing fees. During fiscal year 2018 the national produce program distributed 99 million pounds of fresh produce to our member food banks. Additionally, feeding america regional sourcing personnel generated 45 million pounds of produce for the network making the total generated by feeding america national office 144 million pounds. The feeding america network collectively secured more than 841 million pounds of fresh produce (produce sourced through our other channels is not included in this number). During fiscal year 2009, the supply chain team launched a national grocery program to obtain lower prices for purchased groceries by leveraging the collective buying power of our member food banks. During fiscal year 2018, 146 members participated in the national grocery program, with purchases of $50.1 million in food and grocery products that resulted in more than 96.5 million pounds of purchased food. Product sourcing facilitates the donation of food and grocery products from major national and regional manufacturers and retailers. Through the efforts of food sourcing staff across the network, and the help of our trusted retail partners, the grocery rescue program (retail store donation program) secured more than 1.8 billion pounds of product. Food manufacturers donated more than 879 million pounds of food to our member food banks. In total, the feeding america network distributed approximately 5.0 billion pounds of food and grocery items in fiscal year 2018 to people in need. This represents greater than 2 percent growth over fiscal year 2017.”

“Member services advance the operations of network food banks through capability development, consulting, assessment and training. The feeding america national office inspects each network member every 18-36 months to ensure compliance with the highest standards of food safety, management, governance and accountability. Significant portions of the member services fy18 budget helped to provide grants to member food banks supporting development of innovative charitable feeding programs and strategic initiatives. Of all food and funds raised by the national office, more than 98 percent goes directly back to network members to support programs and services, including more than $94 million of direct support in the form of grants to the network. Our member services program also advances logistics and service capacity through information technology; prepares our network for responses to natural disasters through planning, information sharing and product deployment through disaster services; and shares best practices and wisdom among network members through knowledge and learning.”

“Public awareness and education services advance awareness of and engagement with the issue of hunger through marketing, media relations and other outreach means. We believe the american public has a significant role to play in ending hunger. We have seen that people do indeed want to help their neighbors in need when they better understand who is affected by food insecurity. They need sufficient information about the extent of the problem, how it relates to their everyday lives and what they can do to address it. Feeding america is focused on elevating engagement through targeted initiatives such as public service announcement (psa) campaigns and additional efforts that reach people during relevant time periods. These initiatives are created and supported by world class creative agencies, media partners and content distributers. Keeping hunger in the news continually reinforces the urgency of the issue and helps keep solutions on the national agenda. Feeding america works with journalists to place stories about hunger and the feeding america network in national broadcast, print and online outlets. In fiscal year 2018, feeding america was featured in more than 93,000 stories in top outlets such as time magazine, the today show, the washington post, the new york times and more. Our public awareness and education services fund our media relations and publications initiatives, which all aim to mobilize the public and drive awareness and support of both the issue of domestic hunger generally and feeding america specifically.”

“Our research and evaluation team spearheads critical research initiatives to better understand hunger and to continually improve our strategies to end it. We analyze the dynamics at play among the nation's food insecure individuals and families, the patterns surrounding their use of our services, and endeavor to utilize this data to ultimately create better local feeding programs. Additionally, we investigate our own organizational operations as a network, identifying opportunities for continual growth and refinement. During fiscal year 2018, we released the eighth consecutive edition of map the meal gap, our signature study on overall and child food insecurity in every county and congressional district in the united states. Not only does this study allow our partners, policy makers, donors and the public to understand the picture of hunger in their communities, it provides our food banks with data that enables them to target their services to people most in need. Additionally, feeding america produced the state of senior hunger in america in 2016 which documents the prevalence of food insecurity among the senior population age 60 and older in the united states. Programs and policy feeding america's national programs are targeted, scalable distribution models that increase access to meals, groceries or benefits to children, families and seniors. We strengthen our network by providing grant funding, program standards, technical assistance and training resources that increase capacity and build awareness. We have expanded the reach of our national programs by providing 133 million meals through programs that feed children, such as kids cafe, backpack, and school pantry programs; by providing eligible families access to over 230 million meals through supplemental nutrition assistance program (snap) application assistance; and by providing, through senior programs, the equivalent of 151 million meals to seniors who are food insecure or are at risk of becoming food insecure. Our public policy and advocacy programs educate federal lawmakers and policy influencers about hunger in america and identify and advance policy solutions that assist americans who are struggling with hunger and strengthen food banks. Our non-partisan efforts help protect and strengthen federal nutrition programs that provide meals to families, children and seniors in need and policies that facilitate and support charitable giving of food and funds to non-profits providing meals to hungry families in america. In fy 2018, feeding america's legislative focus was on increasing funding for federal nutrition programs in the disaster appropriations and agriculture appropriations bills and protecting charitable giving incentives, tax incentives for low income taxpayers, and other issues through tax reform legislation, and advocating for strengthening funding and access to federal nutrition programs in the 2018 farm bill. We continue to build advocacy capacity and engagement across our network by developing advocacy training programs for food bank staff and providing grants to our network for advocacy. We also mobilize advocates online who generate tens of thousands of phone calls and emails in support of policies that reduce hunger in america.”

“Form 990, part vi, line 10b each member food bank is an independent 501(c)(3) organization that enters into a legal and binding contract with feeding america. The contract defines mutual accountability between both parties and outlines a set of compliance standards that detail administrative, operating, and non-compliance policies. An in-person compliance audit is conducted by feeding america every 18-36 months based on a member's compliance history. The visit allows feeding america to verify compliance with the member contract. Failure to maintain compliance can result in probation, member sanctions and even termination, but typically only after steps are taken by feeding america staff to assist the member in achieving compliance.”

“Form 990, part vi, line 11b the audit committee and the executive compensation committee of the feeding america board of directors reviewed the prepared form 990 during the first quarter of 2019, followed by a sign-off by the full board of directors in february 2019. All bodies reviewed the data and could offer refinements to narrative language. Our auditing firm, kpmg, also reviewed these forms. The final form 990 was submitted to the internal revenue service shortly after review. The complete form 990 is provided to the entire board of directors before it is filed with the internal revenue service.”

“Form 990, part vi, line 12c annually, executive team members (currently the eleven highest-ranking staff members) and board members are required to sign a conflict of interest form disclosing any such issues. Executive team member forms are reviewed by the chief human resource officer and the boards' are reviewed by the secretary to the board to ensure compliance. Any areas of concern are thoroughly discussed and remedied at this time and throughout the year. Board members with a conflict are required to recuse themselves from voting on such matters in which they have a conflict.”

“Form 990, part vi, line 15a the executive compensation committee of the feeding america board of directors is charged with overseeing issues surrounding executive pay and benefits. Committee members are fully independent of feeding america management, have no personal interest in executive compensation and are not related to or under the control of any individual whose compensation is under review. The committee determines the chief executive officer's compensation based on a competitive market analysis. Compensation determinations are also based on competitive market data for disqualified persons - recommended by the ceo with assistance from the chief human resource officer (or designated executive team member) and approved by the committee. The committee approves all compensation agreements noted above in advance of their implementation and documents its discussions and determinations.”

“Form 990, part vi, line 19 financial statements are made available on the feeding america public website. The conflict of interest policy is available to the general public upon written request to the feeding america national office. Governing documents are not currently available to the public.”

“Lines 5 to 24c include the following allocation of indirect expenses: program services $3,251,645 management & general ($5,184,625) fundraising expenses $1,932,979”

“This line includes the following non-operating expenses: provisions for uncollectible contribution ($185,231) accretion of sublease ($11,351) change in value of gift annuities $36,941 ---------- total ($159,641)”