City Harvest was able to take a leap of faith thanks to strong branding

By Margaret Battistelli Gardner

Fundraising Success at City Harvest

Kevin Duffy, vice president of development, talks about some of the key takeaways from the organization’s fundraising success story:

What is the key to City Harvest’s fundraising success?
“Several factors are key to our success, including a clear, relevant mission, consistent communication and a commitment to transparency. One of the ways that we tie these factors together is by connecting supporters directly to our work. For instance, donors ride on City Harvest trucks, rescue food at local farmers markets, distribute food at our mobile markets, repack food for distribution at our facility and can get trained to conduct nutrition education programs. Collectively, these experiences make it easy for donors to see the value of their gift, help bring our work to life and provide a strong measure of transparency.”

What can other organizations learn about fundraising from City Harvest?
“Our success has been based on a fairly simple concept: Cultivate a diverse portfolio of donors through regular, open and personal communication. Grounded by the belief that ‘people give to people,’ our team remains in close contact with supporters and works hard to ensure that they are up-to-date on City Harvest’s work. Staying close to our supporters throughout the year — not just when it is time to ask for another gift — has been instrumental to our success.”

Not every organization has the opportunity to show donor love in as big a way as City Harvest. The New York City food-rescue program’s iconic delivery trucks roll through town as gigantic green-and-white love letters on wheels to its donors. Supporters see them and know it’s their money that keeps the trucks gassed up and running, the drivers on payroll, and the food flowing to fellow New Yorkers who need it.

City Harvest

6 East 32nd St. 5th Floor
New York, NY 10016
646.412.0600
cityharvest.org

Mission (from cityharvest.org):
City Harvest exists to end hunger in communities throughout New York City. We do this through food rescue and distribution, education, and other practical, innovative solutions.

History (from cityharvest.org):
City Harvest is the product of common sense. In the early 1980s, a group of ordinary citizens became troubled by the large number of fellow New Yorkers who didn’t have enough to eat. When they saw that local restaurants were discarding perfectly good food, these volunteers responded by enlisting friends and borrowing cars to transport the leftover food to where it was needed most. This idea led to the creation of City Harvest in 1982. City Harvest has distributed more than 300 million pounds of food to a network of nearly 600 community food programs throughout New York City. The organization now delivers an average of nearly 115,000 pounds of food daily and more than 42 million pounds this year. City Harvest’s common-sense, cost-effective approach remains unchanged, because by working efficiently we can help the greatest number of people possible. Picking up and delivering food the same day keeps costs down and allows us to focus on fresh, perishable foods that are often in short supply at soup kitchens and food pantries. Currently, our cost to deliver a pound of food is just 25 cents, making City Harvest a smart, simple solution to ending hunger in New York City.