The Better Food Foundation is committed to strengthening the movement for diet change as a whole. We build capacity for community-based advocates, faith-based institutions, and authors who are reshaping how we think about food through their writing.
Funding community-led advocacy
We observe that many of the most promising, vital, impactful and innovative strategies for transforming diets are being incubated and carried out by community-based advocates. These forms of dietary advocacy benefit from the cultural insights and knowledge these leaders have about their communities, as well as the trust and connections they are able to build. Regardless of whether these community-based diet change initiatives are based on a location, race or ethnicity, religion, or other type of communal identity, what they share is that they are approaching the challenge of changing people’s diets in ways that are unique, diverse, and that challenge assumptions about what “effective” diet change activism looks like. They are also deeply underfunded as a result of systemic inequity in philanthropy at large, as well as the lack of resources available for diet change work more broadly. We have observed that these resources tend to be concentrated in large organizations whose strategy is to reach “mainstream” audiences.
The Better Food Foundation provides grants to advocates who advance dietary campaigns in communities where they have developed authentic relationships with community members and possess immediate cultural knowledge of these spaces. After our early experiences with community-based grantmaking, we became advocates for larger capacity-building grants to these groups, and broadened our services to include nonprofit mentorship, technical assistance, and fiscal sponsorship.
Learn more about the groups we have supported:
If you would like to fund these groups, you can do so directly through their own websites, or you can partner with the Better Food Foundation who can direct your funds to any of these organizations. Please reach out to our Executive Director, Jennifer Channin.
Promoting Faith in Food
Religious communities and leaders play a vital role in shaping dietary norms and organizing people to work for food and animal justice. The Better Food Foundation has supported several faith leaders who are building movements for ethical diets and humane agriculture within their religious communities. Through our network of faith-based leaders, BFF also provides resources—such as DefaultVeg food policy toolkits, speakers, and educational events—that people can use to advocate for diet change in their own religious communities.
To learn more and get connected to this multi-faith coalition, visit our Faith in Food action page.
Supporting thought leadership
Through grantmaking, marketing, and project collaboration, the Better Food Foundation helps to amplify the voices of authors who are reshaping how people think about food. In particular, we support growing thought leadership on black veganism, which has already had a profound and positive influence on vegan education in universities and vegan activism. Authors include:
- Rev. Dr. Christopher Carter,>Spirit of Soul Food>
- Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé,50th Anniversary Edition Diet for a Small Planet>
- Aph Ko,Racism as Zoological Witchcraft
- Aph Ko and Syl Ko, Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism and Black Veganism from Two Sisters
- Dr. Matthew Halteman, The Vegan Imagination (forthcoming)
- Aaron Gross, Jody Myers, Jordan D Rosenblum, Feasting and Fasting: The History and Ethics of Jewish Food
- Dr. David Clough, On Animals: Volume I & Volume II