This week, MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving announced The Nashville Food Project as one of its Open Call awardees working with people and in places experiencing the greatest need in the U.S.. The Nashville Food Project received $1 million.
In March 2023, Yield Giving launched an Open Call for community-led, community-focused organizations that enable individuals and families to achieve substantive improvement in their well-being through foundational resources. The Nashville Food Project was awarded based on its track record, team capacity, community leadership, and commitment to equity.
“We are humbled by this affirmation of our work from Yield Giving,” said CEO C.J. Sentell. “This is an exciting moment for The Nashville Food Project: We have a dynamic staff, an engaged board, and dedicated volunteers working every day to nourish their community through food. This award will help us take the next step to create lasting change in the local food system.”
“The Nashville Food Project is a critical partner in our efforts to address hunger and reduce food waste in our city, and this award is reflective of the considerable impact they are making in Nashville,” said Mayor Freddie O’Connell. “Support from Yield Giving will amplify The Nashville Food Project’s important work to engage the community around achieving a sustainable and just food system where less food goes to landfills and more food goes to people who need it.”
“Support from Yield Giving will amplify The Nashville Food Project’s important work to engage the community around achieving a sustainable and just food system where less food goes to landfills and more food goes to people who need it.”
“Food is key to nutrition but also to social connection and this is the best example I have ever heard of that goes from food grown to food made to lessening food waste in the system, along with feeding people in body and soul,” commented a reviewer on The Nashville Food Project’s application.
The Yield Giving Open Call received 6,353 applications for 250 awards of $1 million each. In the fall of 2023, organizations top-rated by their peers advanced to a second round of review by an external evaluation panel recruited for experience relevant to this cause. In light of the incredible work of these organizations, as judged by their peers and external panelists, the donor team decided to expand the awardee pool and the award amount.
More information on the Yield Giving Open Call can be found here.
The Nashville Food Project’s video submission for the Yield Giving Open Call.
Dive Deeper
The Nashville Food Project
The Nashville Food Project brings people together to grow, cook and share nourishing food, with the goals of alleviating hunger and cultivating community. In 2024, The Nashville Food Project will share 300,000 scratch-made meals and 40,000 pounds of garden-grown produce to sustain after-school programs, immigrant communities, homeless outreach organizations and many others. The Nashville Food Project embraces a vision of vibrant community food security in which everyone in Nashville has access to the food they want and need through a just and sustainable food system. To learn more, visit www.thenashvillefoodproject.org.
Yield Giving
Established by MacKenzie Scott to share a financial fortune created through the effort of countless people, Yield Giving is named after a belief in adding value by giving up control. To date, Yield’s network of staff and advisors has yielded over $16.5 billion to 1,900 nonprofit teams to use as they see fit for the benefit of others. To learn more, visit www.yieldgiving.com.
Lever for Change
Lever for Change connects donors with bold solutions to the world’s biggest problems — including issues like racial inequity, gender inequality, lack of access to economic opportunity, and climate change. Using an inclusive, equitable model and due diligence process, Lever for Change creates customized challenges and other tailored funding opportunities. Top-ranked teams and challenge finalists become members of the Bold Solutions Network — a growing global network that helps secure additional funding, amplify members’ impact, and accelerate social change. Founded in 2019 as a nonprofit affiliate of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Lever for Change has influenced over $1.7 billion in grants to date and provided support to more than 145 organizations. To learn more, visit www.leverforchange.org.