Closing the Gap(s)

Over the years, Colleen Brinkmann has seen hardworking people struggle with the decision to pay bills or buy food, and schoolchildren so hungry they ate pencil erasers or sneaked home strands of spaghetti from the school cafeteria. Happily, Brinkmann also saw, and played a large role in creating, a hugely successful anti-hunger campaign that dramatically increased the number of meals available to hungry North Texans.

Brinkmann, the chief philanthropy officer for the North Texas Food Bank, was the driving force behind Close the Gap, so-called because the three-year fundraising campaign began in 2009 with the goal of closing the 29 million-meals-a-year gap between what undernourished people in North Texas needed and what they could access. This meant NTFB had to double its impact by increasing its output from 26 million meals to 50 million meals annually.

The task was daunting, largely because the campaign coincided with the largest economic downtown in America since the Great Depression. But it was doable, because NTFB is a well-organized nonprofit hunger-relief organization that distributes donated, purchased and prepared foods through 1,146 affiliated programs in 13 North Texas counties. As its website explains, "NTFB supports the nutritional needs of children, families and seniors through education, advocacy and strategic partnerships."

Throughout the campaign, NTFB reminded North Texans of the many ways in which they could help close the gap on hunger — by making donations, volunteering time, hosting an "E-Food & Fund Drive," or simply by being an advocate for the organization. In a nutshell, advocacy involves contacting U.S. representatives and senators and urging them to write legislation that will keep people in the United States from going hungry.

NTFB's multifaceted approach was effective, as Brinkmann notes.

"Our annual fundraising increased by 120 percent during the campaign," she says. "The Food Bank had to add more drivers and trucks in order to keep up with the growth.

"In fiscal year 2011, we exceeded our goal, providing access to 50.5 million meals to hungry children, families and senior citizens in our service area," she adds.

Brinkmann, who has been with NTFB for 11 years, says the organization's fundraising team, which includes communications and marketing specialists as well as fundraisers, grew from about 10 to 25 people during the campaign.

"It makes sense that we have all our personnel in the same location rather than having separate departments for marketing and communications," she said.

In all, NTFB has about 150 employees, working out of three large warehouses and a small office in the Dallas area. The most recently built warehouse doubled NTFB's storage capacity. The organization also operates a fleet of 26 trucks.

According to Brinkmann, the success of Close the Gap was largely due to the fact that it was run as if it were a capital campaign, and the same approach must be taken in future campaigns in order to ensure NTFB's continued success.

"We use a supply-chain business model … but it's not as if we're a Walmart," she says. "We're here mostly out of altruism. I tell the employees in the warehouse they do an amazing job. We're interlinked. I can't fundraise if the warehouse isn't functioning properly."

Brinkmann notes the high value that NTFB places on in-house creativity and cooperation: "It's about building the right team," she says. "You have to find the right combination of talented people who are passionate about the mission and willing to go to the edge with you."

Part of a bigger picture

That is not to say that NTFB operates in isolation. It is one of more than 200 member organizations of Feeding America, the country's largest domestic hunger-relief organization, which two years ago underscored the severity of the economic downturn by conducting a study called "Hunger in America 2010." The study showed that Feeding America was at that time serving a million more people each week compared to the number it had served four years earlier.

NTFB President and CEO Jan Pruitt half-jokingly described the relationship between Feeding America and NTFB as similar to that between the National Football League and the Dallas Cowboys.

"It's a symbiotic relationship," she says. "Our national office is a critical piece of the puzzle, but we are partners."

By the time Feeding America's hunger study was published, NTFB's Close the Gap was already up and running. Reacting to the study in 2010, NTFB issued a news release stating that, "Locally, the picture is just as grim: In the 13 counties that NTFB serves, our member agencies have seen an increase in food insecurity in homes with children by percentage points, meaning more kids are hungry. An estimated 64,600 people receive emergency food assistance each week from a food pantry, soup kitchen, or other program served by the NTFB, a jump of 80.4 percent from 2006."

For Brinkmann, the study was a reminder of the importance of the goals NTFB had set for itself in the Close the Gap campaign, which was helped by two key initiatives — increased food distribution and expansion of the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Close the Gap was all the more impressive because it grew even as the economic downturn continued. Perhaps this factor was considered when the campaign was honored as "Fundraising Program of the Year" at the Feeding America 2012 Network Summit.

Pruitt, who is in her 15th year as CEO at NTFB, says the success of Close the Gap can be measured by the steady increases in the amounts of food directly distributed by NTFB and through the SNAP program. The fact that SNAP became easier to access by the needy is a tribute to NTFB's efforts to streamline the process through which food cards are issued by the state of Texas.

"It costs less for us to provide meals through SNAP than by moving it through our buildings," Pruitt explains.

The success of Close the Gap also had much to do with the eight months of planning that NTFB put into the three-year campaign. "We thought of it as a donor investment," Pruitt says. "People are more likely to invest in something if they think it's been planned well. People knew what our campaign was about. It resonated with the community, and we had an unprecedented response."

Pruitt doesn't mince words when she explains the purpose of NTFB's new campaign, ReThink Hunger: "With long-term unemployment, poverty, hunger and food insecurity rates at or near all-time highs, it was clear that we needed to do more than simply move more food out the door in order to make a significant impact in this environment."

She notes that NTFB's newest warehouse was built to accommodate ReThink Hunger, which was conceived in response to unrelentingly bad unemployment figures and alarming increases in the price of in-demand foods. The 100,000-square-foot warehouse has 25,000 square feet of cold storage space, which makes it easier for NTFB to distribute fresh produce and other nutritious foods.

Keeping up with the need

In general, the organization is making changes in order to develop long-term strategies for improving the lives of the growing numbers of people who are hungry or on the brink of hunger. As an NTFB news release put it, "Hunger may be getting bigger, but our solutions are getting better."

Hunger is getting bigger, and NTFB is tracking its growth. According to an informal survey conducted by the organization in fall 2011, 83 percent of NTFB's member agencies reported increases in first-time clients requiring food assistance, and 16 percent of the agencies have had to turn away some potential clients because of lack of food.

Brinkmann says NTFB is changing to cope with the new realities.

"People are OK with change when it's communicated that the change is for the good," she says. "We encourage team members who have new fundraising ideas to go ahead and pursue them — to at least give them a good try."

Brinkmann describes Pruitt as "down-to-earth, courageous and creative," and as the sort of leader who embraces change.

Pruitt notes the critical role that Brinkmann played in Close the Gap: "[She] was able to craft the words that made the message compelling to donors. It takes someone fearless to conduct a campaign that results in a 120 percent growth in fundraising. Year after year, the growth of Close the Gap was double-digit. There was a significant gift given at the end of each year. At the end of the first year, we received a $1 million unsolicited gift."

Brinkmann says that generating enthusiasm for a campaign depends on one's storytelling ability — in other words, on effectively conveying to donors, fellow employees and volunteers the reality of hunger in North Texas and the strategies through which NTFB can address this reality. She says her effectiveness as a team leader is directly related to the fact that she is a good storyteller.

"I like to say I'm in the friend-raising business as well as the fundraising business," she says. "I like to create friends for the food bank. In order to do this, I have to tell the story of what we do in a compelling way. Then people will step up to help."

But it's never easy. Any endeavor that depends on altruism poses special challenges and requires special talents.

"We have to maintain a constant drumbeat in order to build the brand," she says. "We're competing with an individual's desire to go play golf or something. We have to communicate to volunteers that the mission of our campaign is worth driving across town to our warehouses. We're not selling a product; we're selling an experience that will make them feel [good]."

Consistent messaging

In practice, building awareness of the NTFB brand carries with it the responsibility of making sure its many thousands of volunteers are well-treated. Throughout Close the Gap, NTFB worked hard to maintain an authentic, consistent message to volunteers who sorted food and ultimately helped provide about 92,000 meals per day to the hungry.

"You have to make clear to volunteers that you don't have anything tangible to offer," Brinkmann says. "Just your spirit and your promise that the work will be important to them, and that you need them."

Also, you have to deliver on the promises you make in your stories about the campaigns in which you're involved. If you say you can provide the best, most meaningful experience for those who want to help feed the hungry, you should be able to rely on facts to back up your claim. A few such facts: Each dollar donated to NTFB is converted into three meals. Ninety-four cents from each donated dollar goes toward actual distribution of meals, and the other 6 cents goes toward administrative and fundraising costs.

The same consistent, accurate messaging that helps recruit volunteers is also necessary in building a donor base, Brinkmann notes. NTFB's marketing people have to know where donors from previous campaigns are concentrated and where new donors are likely to be found, and which methods — direct mail, phone, social media, e-mail, corporate engagement, special events, media stories and so on — are most effective in reaching specific categories of potential donors.

"We did research on the 13 counties that we serve, on corporate and individual donors, on who might be approached for special gifts of $10,000 and above," Brinkmann explains in regard to Close the Gap. "We asked ourselves where they live, what are their holidays, their points of view on culture and family.

"For example, we might approach a prominent rabbi in a Jewish community for help," she adds. "We began to hear about kids who were turning their bar mitzvahs into fundraisers. A kid might ask those invited to his bar mitzvah to donate money for the hungry rather than give him a gift. He might tell them to put the money in a jar and give it to NTFB."

NTFB's focused efforts on branding during the Close the Gap campaign paid off in a big way.

"More people now know about NTFB," Brinkmann says. "Among North Texas residents, there is 81 percent unaided brand awareness of the food bank."

As brand awareness grows, more and more people are likely to contribute food products, money and volunteer service. This means NTFB's operational side will be better able to keep up with demand from those 1,000-plus affiliates, including soup kitchens and shelters, after-school programs, senior citizen centers, and other social-service venues.

The success of the affiliates depends to some degree on the effectiveness of NTFB's various feeding and education programs. In one program, potential donors are encouraged to give memorial gifts in honor of deceased loved ones and "honor" gifts to commemorate holidays, birthdays, and other personal or business-related occasions. This year, donors are being asked to give an extra $30 in honor of the NTFB's 30th anniversary.

Another program asks community groups to initiate food drives and conduct the food drives online in order to cut down on fuel costs and other expenses. Corporations are invited to organize and host employee giving campaigns and are given "employee campaign giving kits" that involve templates for fliers, e-mail blasts and other components.

Other NTFB initiatives include:

1. Free assistance to those seeking to apply for SNAP. This is important because residents of Texas who apply on their own often have to wait an inordinately long time to receive food cards even though federal regulations dictate that no one should have to wait more than 30 days.

2. Kids Cafe, a program that provides free meals to children who may not have access to food once they leave school. The program currently operates out of 27 sites, with funding from several donors. With every fourth child in Texas at risk for experiencing hunger, the Kids Cafe program plans for continued expansion.

3. Food 4 Kids, which helps ensure that no schoolchildren go hungry on weekends. The program operates in 330 elementary schools in North Texas and feeds up to 12,000 students weekly. Every Friday, each eligible child receives a backpack that includes roughly four pounds of nutritious food items.

4. The Mobile Pantry program, which provides enough emergency food to last two people up to four days. It is designed to serve those that are unable to get to a food pantry to receive food.

Pruitt says Close the Gap prompted NTFB to take a fresh look at its brand and its approach to fundraising. Most importantly, the organization was forced, due to the persistence of the economic downturn, to re-evaluate the criteria by which it gauges the relative success of its various campaigns.

Measuring success

"There were unprecedented numbers of people looking for help who hadn't previously been part of our calculations," Pruitt says. "We realized that we weren't only dealing with people whose incomes place them below the poverty line. We were also dealing with large numbers of people who were food-insecure but were not officially living below the poverty line."

Close the Gap was a reminder to NTFB that hunger's footprint in North Texas is larger than it once was, and that "closing the gap" is a tricky business when economic instability begins to affect large groups of people who aren't used to worrying about where their next paychecks are coming from.

ReThink Hunger was set to meet increased needs of those who are worrying and deal with the cost of providing fresh produce and other nutritious items that aren't as readily donated as, say, canned goods. The new campaign is also about developing more efficient programs and operations, and more effective collaboration with the community.

Pruitt says ReThink Hunger is "building on the principles" that underscored Close the Gap. It is NTFB's response to the grim facts about increases in long-term unemployment and hunger rates.

Brinkmann notes that NTFB employees know the facts but are the sort of people who are motivated rather than discouraged by obstacles — people "willing to go to the edge with you." She could be describing her own approach to fundraising and her attitude on any given day.

"I don't think about this as a job," she says. "I think of it the way I would if I was a mountain climber and I was told I was going to get paid for climbing a mountain. I'd think, 'Wow, I would have climbed the mountain anyway.'"

David McKenna is a Philadelphia-based author and freelance writer. Reach him at dmikemckenna@aol.com