We believe that reciprocal relationships are the foundation of this movement and that systems change only happens through trusting collaboration. Together we have over thirty years of experience starting and growing regional and national coalitions, networks and communities of practice - including the Eastern Food Hub Collaborative, the value chain coordination community of practice, and the Food Systems Leadership Network.

We have deep experience working with networks, nonprofits, university partners, and local governments to design and lead participatory research projects that capture impacts, challenges, innovations, and opportunities for policy and programmatic changes across the sector.

Recent publications include:

City of Boston Food Recovery Assessment (2024)

Initial Impacts of the USDA Local Food Purchase Assistance Program(2023)

Findings of the 2021 National Food Hub Survey(2023)

The Local and Regional Food Systems Resilience Playbook (2023)

The Latin root of "facilitation" means "to create ease." The work that we are all doing is rarely easy, but that doesn't mean we can't find ease in how we communicate, collaborate, and grow beautiful ideas together. This work relies on great meetings, brave conversations, and inclusive processes to develop shared visions, goals, and strategy - all of which takes excellent facilitation.

Value chain coordination is how we build relationships between the actors in a regional food system. Through these relationships we can share information and resources, create resilient and responsible supply chains, and build collective economic power. We’ve spent most of our careers cultivating a national understanding and practice around VCC and have deep experience supporting regional value chain development.

Too often, nonprofits design programs around funding opportunities. We believe that it needs to happen the other way around. We have a tremendous amount of experience designing impactful programmatic strategy and then finding the federal and philanthropic funding sources to turn those ideas into a reality.

Together we have designed, written, and managed over $5M in federal and philanthropic grants. We’ve also coordinated and provided over 60 hours in training and technical support on USDA LAMP grants. We break down the complexity of program design and grant opportunities so that you can focus on building them around what matters most: your values, relationships, and vision.