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Partnering for New
Resources:
The Evaluation Report of the Funding Diversity Partnership Project. An
Executive Summary
By Pam Mavrolas, External Evaluator, August 2002
Introduction
This
Executive Summary highlights the key accomplishments, growth, challenges and
impacts of the participating organizations (partners) and the mainstream
agricultural organizations, commodity associations and boards, and public
institutions they worked with to expand and develop human and financial
resources for sustainable agriculture and community-based food systems
efforts. The Funding Diversity Partnership (FDP) was a four-year (September
1997 – December 2001) collaborative project of 13 sustainable agriculture
non-profits operating in different regions of the county. Each group pursued
local projects tailored to its needs, context and resources under the
umbrella of the FDP’s three overarching goals. FDP was administered by the
Center for Rural Affairs with primary funding from the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation.
The FDP participating organizations are:
Alternative Energy Resources Organization (AERO) (Montana)
Center for Rural Affairs (CRA) (Nebraska)
Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS) merged with the Burley Tobacco Growers
Coop in 2001 (Kentucky)
Kansas Rural Center (KRC)
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute (MFAI) (Wisconsin)
Michigan Agriculture Stewardship Association (MASA)
Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society (NSAS)
Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA)
Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI)
Rocky Mountain Farmers Union (RMFU)
Palouse Clearwater Environmental Institute 1997-1999 (PCEI) (Idaho)
Rural Roots (RR) (Idaho) and Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network
1999-2001 (WSFFN)
The Food Alliance (TFA) (Oregon)
FDP Goals:
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FDP
organizations will develop and improve working relationships with
commodity boards and associations and public institutions that will result
in increased understanding and acceptance, funding, and human and other
in-kind resources for sustainable agriculture production, research,
marketing, and economic development in their geographic areas.
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Each
FDP collaborating organization will develop a richer and more diversified
funding base that can better sustain it for the future. These resources
can be garnered from private and public sources new to each organization's
funding profile.
-
FDP
organizations and sustainable farmers will actively participate in the
development of new policy options to increase both public and private
financial support for collaborative sustainable agriculture initiatives.
Existing sustainable agriculture policy networks will be utilized to
advocate and mobilize support for these options.
Accomplishments
New
Resources
Partner organizations in the FDP project made significant headway in both
creating new and developing existing relationships with a variety of
mainstream agricultural organizations and institutions, that directly
resulted in cash and in-kind resources for sustainable agriculture.
Partners reported that collectively they were instrumental in garnering
$208,323,630 for sustainable agriculture from a diverse set of new sources.
Of this, $207,042,772 was in dollars and $1,280,858 in the form of in-kind
services. $7,331,309 went directly to the partner organizations and
$199,711,463 was allocated to other sustainable agricultural and rural
development efforts that partner organizations engaged in.
New Relationships
For the partners, their ability to develop solid working relationships and
strategic alliances with mainstream agricultural organizations was the most
important and lasting impact of this project -- one that will continue to
reap long-term benefits for sustainable agriculture. These relationships
included: state commodity groups, land grant institutions, departments of
agriculture, Farm Bureau, economic development agencies, and federal
agencies, especially USDA, to mention a few.
In the course of working with these agricultural organizations and
institutions, partner groups made several significant shifts or changes that
prepared the ground for them to think and work in new and successful ways.
Significant Shifts by Partner Organizations
-
FDP
participants successfully employed a collaborative, relationship-building
approach in meeting the goals of this project. No group publicly demanded
or directly advocated that commodity groups, universities or government
agencies give sustainable farmers and organizations their fair share of
the resources. Although some groups may have employed some gentle backroom
arm-twisting, the carrot won the day over the stick.
-
Partners changed how they scanned the political horizon to identify
potential allies and resources. Mainstream agricultural organizations and
institutions no longer fit neatly into adversarial boxes.
-
Partners were honest and open in their working relationships with the
mainstream agricultural sector, creating openings that built personal
trust and led to better acceptance and understanding of sustainable
agriculture.
-
Partner
groups grew more bold, confident and strategic in asking for resources
over time.
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Partners found that their initial ventures had significant multiplier
effects. Relationships with one new institution opened the doors to other
entities, and to new avenues for funding. Once partners made a commitment
to move in this direction, the snowball effect was both surprising and
rewarding.
-
As the
project progressed, partners saw themselves as legitimate players, having
“chits” to bring to the table that traditional/conventional agriculture
need right now. Partners expressed the importance of seeing themselves as
legitimate and much needed players with creative answers for the future of
agriculture, not as “outsiders.”
-
Partners went on to become “the creators of the table,” initiating
projects of multiple and diverse players. Groups become more sophisticated
in how they garnered resources. At the project’s outset, the strategy
seemed to be to get dollars directly to their individual organization. By
year three, partner organizations were creating larger projects with
multiple partners and resources to accomplish broader pieces of work.
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Partners learned new ways of talking about their goals and vision for
agriculture and food systems change. The external evaluator noticed that
language and issue-framing, and subsequently strategy, changed over the
course of the project. Groups moved from talking about “saving the family
farm” to promoting sustainable agriculture as viable economic development
in both rural and more urban areas.
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As the
program progressed, partners recognized that the real pay-offs were not
the short-term grants or allocation of services, but the longer-term
political alliances and cooperative ventures that, if played smartly,
could win support for sustainable agriculture at a significantly higher
level.
Feedback from Mainstream Agriculture
The FDP
Evaluation Team interviewed 11 external stakeholders, representing a
cross-section of the organizations and institutions that individual partner
organizations worked with closely. All expressed that their experiences had
been positive. Honest communication, respect and trust were developed, over
time, with the partner groups. Much of what was learned from these
interviews mirrored what partners learned about creating relationships with
new constituencies. Several expressed the importance of the “hope” and “new
possibilities” for agriculture and rural communities that sustainable
agricultural groups provided for them personally and for their organization.
Most were able to articulate tangible benefits to their organizations and
institutions from their work with partner organizations.
Program Challenges
Overall,
the Funding Diversity Partnership met its collective goals, achieved success
and created a body of new learning. But, it had its challenges and
struggles.
-
Although most partner organizations did invest time and resources to
better understand how commodity groups work (their values and culture,
their assets and limitations), they were disappointed to find that state
commodity board and association were largely not available for sustainable
agriculture at the state level.
-
Partners struggled to stretch their $6,375 per year grant to support local
project implementation and reporting, as well as evaluation and
communication among partner organizations.
-
Ongoing
communication among geographically distant partner organizations proved to
be difficult. The Project Coordinator tried a variety of strategies,
including regular conference calls, monthly summary updates, project
listserves and directly encouraging contact between individual groups
pursuing similar strategies. All met with limited success. Partners
expressed that the limited resources of the grant didn’t allow for a high
level of interaction and communication with each other.
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Operating successfully in situations with non-traditional allies requires
a high level of skill and sophistication, and partners found that they had
too few leaders of this caliber.
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At the
project’s outset, partners needed to better orient their key staff and
board members to the project and its expectations and integrate it into
the culture and strategy of their organizations. Requiring that more than
one person from each organization attend gatherings would have helped
create more institutional, rather than just individual, relationships
between the partner organizations.
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Partner
organizations that experienced staff turnover found it difficult to
re-create the relationships of the previous staff person, losing time and
tight resources in the transition.
Acknowledgments
The
partner organizations diligently worked to keep accurate records of their
accomplishments and new financial resources. Frankly, it was not always an
easy or fun task. Their efforts have paid off in the evaluation’s ability to
document the financial impact of this project. This evaluator is very
appreciative of their efforts.
I would like to give special thanks to the FDP’s Evaluation Team members:
Jerry Jost, Allen Mathews and Colette DePhelps. They never lost sight of the
big picture and their thought-provoking questions, analysis and
participant-oriented perspectives enriched the group learning and this
evaluation report. Brooke Davidson deserves a hardy thank you for her
careful attention to the details of the funding matrix and the telling
graphs produced from the data.
Again, my thanks to all involved,
Pam Mavrolas
External Evaluator |
