Hawaii Good Food Alliance
Communities uniting to grow, eat, and share
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
The Hawaiʻi Good Food Alliance is a diverse hui of individuals and organizations who share in the production, aggregation, and distribution of food, and share in the practice of mālama ʻāina to re-build thriving community food systems. We join together—with a sense of urgency—to raise community voice and support one another in the belief that each and every person in Hawai’i can share in healthy, locally produced food. Good Food is: ● Just – Easy access to nutritious food is a matter of fairness, equity and social justice. ● Community-based – We work in and with communities to develop knowledge, build capacity, facilitate autonomy and foster resiliency, which leads to community-led economic and social development. ● Culturally grounded – Food connects to who we are—our culture, our community, and our heritage—and connects us to one another. ● Health & Medicine – Food is a foundational part of our health and well being as a society.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Hawaii Food Hub Hui
The Hawaii Food Hub Hui is a local organization in Hawaii that focuses on supporting local agriculture and providing access to fresh, locally-grown food to the community. The organization works with local farmers and producers to distribute their products to schools, restaurants, grocery stores, and individuals in Hawaii. The Hawaii Food Hub Hui is committed to promoting sustainable agriculture practices and supporting the local economy by keeping food dollars within the community. Through their efforts, they aim to increase food security and promote healthy eating habits for individuals and families in Hawaii.
Where we work
External reviews
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Average grant amount
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of convenings hosted by the organization
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of people within the organization's service area accessing food aid
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Context - describing the issue we work on
Direction of Success
Increasing
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
The Hawaii Good Food Alliance (HGFA) is a coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to creating a just and sustainable food system in Hawaii. The primary goal of the alliance is to promote the production, distribution, and consumption of healthy, locally grown food in Hawaii.
Specifically, the HGFA aims to:
Increase access to locally grown, healthy food for all communities in Hawaii, especially those that are underserved or food insecure.
Promote sustainable farming practices that preserve Hawaii's natural resources and support the long-term viability of local agriculture.
Build a robust and resilient local food economy that supports farmers, ranchers, fishers, and other food producers, as well as small businesses that process and distribute food.
Advocate for policies that support a just and sustainable food system in Hawaii, including policies that promote local agriculture, protect natural resources, and ensure food security for all.
Foster community engagement and education around issues related to food and agriculture in Hawaii, including nutrition, cooking, farming, and food waste reduction.
Overall, the Hawaii Good Food Alliance seeks to create a food system that is healthy, equitable, and sustainable for all residents of Hawaii.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Our Measures of Success:
● Justice, Fairness & Thriving Local Economies: Our concern is not growth for growth’s sake, rather we want to see measurable improvements in how good food is distributed fairly to all, and in ways that rectify past and current injustices with lasting solutions.
● Strong Communities & Healthy People: We care about results that are measurable at the community level, in the form of healthy, connected, thriving individuals and families.
● Vibrant Farms & Sustainable Ecosystems: We measure the health of our ʻāina as the most fundamental determinant of our ability to grow food that is truly good.
Our Overarching Areas of Focus include:
Nurture solidarity as an Alliance by respecting and honoring the uniqueness of each community, creating spaces for building a deep sense of aloha and trust, learning from one another and growing our shared understanding, making safe spaces for honest conversations, and being at each other’s side in times of need. Our current activities for pursuing this include:
1. Regular communication and support to Alliance organizations
2. Periodic retreats focused on Alliance strengthening
3. Ongoing succession planning with an open invitation to younger representatives of founding organizations
4. Developing a process to expand the Alliance
5. Exploration of HGFA sponsored events focusing on issues of value to Alliance organizations
Strengthen, support, and build community food systems — systems that include the production, distribution, and consumption of good food — through coordination, gap filling, innovation, and advocacy. Our current strategies/projects for pursuing this include:
1. DA BUX Double Up Food Bucks to increase access to fresh healthy locally produced food for lower income families
2. Hawaiʻi Food Hub Hui to organize and support the aggregation and distribution of foods from small family farmers to local buyers, creating and expanding resilient community-based food supply chains
3. Hawaiʻi Farmers Market Association to support the growth and viability of community-based direct-to-consumer farm marketing
4. Hawai’i Good Food Fund for additional capital resources to support enterprises across the food value chain that provide equitable access to quality food and stimulate community-based economic development
5. Policy analysis that provides education about and advocacy for initiatives that advance the production, distribution, and consumption of good food
6. Exploring a new initiative focusing on workforce development that supports the growth of community food systems and healthy families
7. Exploring an initiative focusing on community food system resilience through the lens of disaster preparedness.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
HGFA formed in 2010 and became a formal 501c3 in 2020. We are a network of community- based organizations working to rebuild Hawaiʻi’s local food system to the benefit of all Hawai‘i residents with a focus on assuring that underserved populations have access to healthy food. The staff, board members, and collaborating organizational leaders have extensive experience developing and implementing programs and projects through all aspects of the food value chain on all the major Hawaiian islands. Our Alliance members and staff have decades of experience, which include managing hundreds of federal and other grants, worth well over $100MM. In our first two years of formal organization we have secured and managed approximately $5M to support statewide initiatives, including the , Farmers Market Association, Double Bucks, and other related projects and have just received a $30M award from the USDA to implement a Regional Food Business Center to serve Hawai‘i, Alaska, Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands, and Guam.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
As noted above, in just two and half years of operation HGFA has been able to greatly expand a Double Bucks program throughout Hawai'i; start and maintain a statewide Hawai'i Farmers Market Association; develop and manage the Hawaiʻi Food Hub Hui, currently a state-wide collaboration of 14 food aggregation centers, both not for profit and for profit, providing over 2M of direct grants for individual food hub development; provide scholarships to grantwriting seminars for local food system leaders.
Next is the creation and management of a Regional Food Business Center, providing technical assistance and direct investment to develop and expand local food system capacity in Hawai‘i, Alaska, Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands, and Guam, along with on-going expansion and strengthening of the Hawaiʻi Food Hub Hui, and the development of a Hawai‘i Good Food Fund to expand access to catalytic capital for local food system enterprises.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We share the feedback we received with the people we serve, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don’t have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Hawaii Good Food Alliance
Board of directorsas of 03/18/2024
Elizabeth Cole
The Kohala Center
Term: 2022 -
Monica Esquivel
University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture & Human Resources
Kristin Frost-Albrecht
The Food Basket
Tina Tamai
Daniel Leung
Kaui Kanaka'ole
Ala Kukui
Alex Kazlausky
MA'O Organic Farms
Elizabeth Col
The Kohala Center
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 06/01/2023GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.