Feeding America

“The Audit and Risk Management Committee and the Executive Compensation Committee of the Feeding America Board of Directors reviewed the prepared Form 990 during the first quarter of 2021, followed by a sign-off by the full Board of Directors in February 2021. All bodies reviewed the data and had the opportunity to offer refinements to narrative language. Our accounting firm, RSM US LLP, 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.”

“Annually, Executive Team members (currently the fourteen 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 Resources 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.”

“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 Resources Officer (or designated Executive team member) and approved by the Committee. The Committee approves all compensation noted above in advance of their implementation and documents its discussions and determinations in the Committee's meeting minutes. Line 15b: The Executive Compensation Committee of the Feeding America Board of Directors and Feeding America work with a consulting firm that specializes in compensation services to not-for-profit organizations, with a primary focus on executive leadership. 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 Committee's meeting minutes.”

“Financial Statements are made available on the Feeding America public website as well as other charitable rating agencies. 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.”

“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. A 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.”

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

“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 2020 the national produce program distributed 94 million pounds of fresh produce to our member food banks. Additionally, Feeding America regional sourcing personnel generated 78 million pounds of produce for the network making the total generated by Feeding America national office 172 million pounds. The Feeding America network collectively secured more than 720 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 2020, 172 members participated in the national grocery program, with purchases of $117.7 million in food and grocery products that resulted in more than 171 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 1.9 billion pounds of product. Food manufacturers donated more than 763 million pounds of food to our member food banks. In total, the Feeding America network distributed approximately 6.0 billion pounds of food and grocery items in fiscal year 2020 to people in need. This represents greater than 24 percent growth over fiscal year 2019.”

“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 FY20 budget helped to provide grants to member food banks supporting development of innovative charitable feeding programs, response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 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 $240 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; offers fundraising capacity building opportunities, 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 and engagement programs in addition to media relations and publications initiatives. All of which all aim to mobilize the public and drive awareness and support of both the issue of domestic hunger generally and Feeding America specifically. We believe the American public has a significant role to play in ending hunger. We have seen that people do indeed want to help people in need when they better understand who is affected by food insecurity, 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 delivering this information through targeted initiatives such as Public Service Announcement (PSA) campaigns, media outreach and additional marketing programs designed to reach people during relevant time periods. These initiatives are created and supported by world class creative agencies, media partners and content distributers.”

“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 157 million meals through programs that feed children, such as kids cafe, backpack, and school pantry programs; by providing eligible families access to over 232 million meals through supplemental nutrition assistance program (snap) application assistance; and by providing 220 million meals worth of nutritious food to food-insecure seniors through senior programs. 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 2020, Feeding America's legislative focus was on increasing funding for federal nutrition programs in response to Covid-19, including increased funding for TEFAP, an increase in snap benefits and flexibility for child nutrition programs. We continue to build advocacy capacity and engagement across our network by developing advocacy training programs for food bank staff. We also mobilize advocates online who generate tens of thousands of phone calls and emails in support of policies that reduce hunger in America. We are building civic engagement programs that ensure the people we serve are active participants in their community from encouraging them to register to vote to ensuring they participate in the 2020 census.”

“Lines 5 to 24c include the following allocation of indirect expenses: Program Services $7,089,492 Management & General ($10,113,584) Fundraising Expenses $3,024,090”

“Change in Value of Gift Annuities -165,288. Write-off of Pledges -765,490. Accretion of Sublease -5,280. Other -371.”