School Food FOCUS
28
7
"Up" is the number of experts who agree that the nonprofit has had the most impact in the
field. "Down" is the number of experts who disagree that the nonprofit has had the most impact in field.
Headquarters Location: New York, NY
Founded: 2006
Mission: FOCUS is a national initiative that helps large school districts (those with 40,000 or more students) procure more healthful, more sustainably produced and regionally sourced food, so that children may perform better in school and be healthier in life.
Tags:
national, childhood nutrition & health, nutrition programs, healthy schools, sustainability, education
Summary
Stories
Expert Reviews
Leadership
From the Nonprofit
Leadership
Toni Liquori.
Toni provides the guiding vision for the FOCUS team, networking with stakeholders and other change leaders to build collaborative partnerships. Her work today stems from her successful transformation of children’s food options in the New York City school system. She is a public health nutrition scholar as well as a skilled, experienced facilitator of large-scale institutional change across a variety…
See full bio.
Financial Data
Overhead Ratio:
n/a
Total Revenue:
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From the Nonprofit
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Contact Info
Website:
E-Mail:
arosenthal AT schoolfoodfocus.org
Phone:
646-619-6728
Address:
220 Church Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10013, USA
Twitter:
Story:
We wanted to share with you a little bit more about this organization so you can learn about what kind of work they do:
School Food FOCUS is a national initiative that will enable participating school districts with more than 40,000 students to purchase and serve foods that are healthier, more sustainably produced and more locally sourced than is typically the case. FOCUS was developed in response to a call by urban school districts to transform the quality of food served in schools. School Food FOCUS is led by Liquori and Associates, and is being implemented in collaboration with the C. S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at Michigan State University. Initial 3-year funding has been provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
(Read more at:http://www.liquoriandassociates.com/focus.html)
Expert Reviews of School Food FOCUS
Evidence of Impact Summary:
School Food FOCUS has mobilized a coalition to improve health outcomes for children through legislation and school-level nutrition initiatives. Educating food service directors is noted as an effective means of influencing eating behavior.See expert comments.
Organization Strengths Summary:
Multiple experts consider leadership/staff and collaborative approach to the program's major assets.See expert comments.
Areas for Improvement Summary:
Respondents believe School Food FOCUS needs to improve its awareness and provide more knowledge sharing/collaboration.See expert comments.
Expert Comments: Evidence of Impact
Select the boxes to display the results according to expert type.
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Foundation Professionals (F)
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Researchers and Faculty (R)
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Nonprofit Senior Staff (N)
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Other (consultants, journalists, policy makers) (O)
Impact |
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Their spread and policy impact are examples of impact. | ||
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It has created a network of food service directors and community partner organizations from large school districts (>40,000 children enrolled) around the country, to develop techniques and procedures for procuring healthier, and more environmentally sustainable foods. This has already changed products in healthy directions in large districts across the nation, (more whole grains, more fresh fruits and vegetables, more plant-based recipes, more legumes) and as the work grows and is replicated, there is potential for continued achievement. | ||
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They are finding ways to transform school meals. | ||
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School Food Focus is a national organization that helps large school districts with 40,000 or more students procure more healthful, more sustainably produced and regionally sourced food so that children perform better in school and be healthier in life. | ||
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School Food Focus has done an excellent job of recruiting and involving food service directors from large urban school districts. They have developed programs that are of value to food service directors and which advance the discussion about healthy school food. | ||
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They provide in-depth technical assistance to large school districts to enable procurement of sustainable foods on cafeteria menus. Such detailed assistance makes the changes happen at the school district and distribution systems can get set up that benefit other outlying school districts. | ||
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They have strong aggregation of purchasing power changing markets. | ||
Expert Comments: Organization Strengths
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Foundation Professionals (F)
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Researchers and Faculty (R)
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Nonprofit Senior Staff (N)
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Other (consultants, journalists, policy makers) (O)
Leadership & Staff |
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Their strengths include: leadership, a staff with extraordinary expertise, strong partners with local school districts, food service management companies, food companies selling healthy food, and an emerging community of practice among school food service leaders. | ||
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Their leadership is among the longest working advocates in child nutrition. Their operations are highly efficient (very few staff and significant reach into both locales and government). They have great connections to high level policy makers, as well as, work on the ground. | ||
Program Design |
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School Food FOCUS has excellent potential to deeply change what food is served at school meals in the largest cities in our country, which can trickle down to other communities. | ||
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Their strengths are their ability to work and make changes in school procurement and menus on a broad basis. They also have enough influence to work with food manufacturers. | ||
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They have a deep understanding of food systems, school systems, and its intersection. | ||
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Their leadership, grassroots members, urban school food service directors, and community partners are strong. | ||
Vision |
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They are a relative newcomer to school food, but have a great vision by targeting the nations largest school districts to help bring about meaningful change as it relates to bringing locally grown, healthy food to cafeterias around the nation. | ||
Collaboration |
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They exhibit creativity and strong network-building. | ||
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A set of 20 or so largest school districts have been engaged in this project. | ||
Leadership |
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They have great, knowledgeable, and results oriented leadership. They are high-powered thinkers, who know how to break down barriers, and assist districts in getting things done. | ||
Resources |
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The membership representing school districts is a strength. | ||
Expert Comments: Areas for Improvement
Select the boxes to display the results according to expert type.
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Show:
X
Foundation Professionals (F)
X
Researchers and Faculty (R)
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Nonprofit Senior Staff (N)
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Other (consultants, journalists, policy makers) (O)
Awareness |
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F
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They could improve their ability to offer more learning labs and communicate findings to larger audiences. | ||
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They would benefit from hiring more staff to expand their programming. They need to market more widely to new stakeholders who are not already school food advocates. | ||
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Getting higher visibility would help its work. | ||
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It’s a fairly new organization, and is currently strengthening its Strategic Plan to better assist districts. It’s also working to raise its profile across the country to bring awareness of how large institutions have been able to overcome traditional barriers to bring locally grown products into school districts. | ||
Communication |
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They could further improve by developing educational materials to compliment the meal change work they are doing. | ||
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They could improve their communications to make their work relevant on the local (urban) levels. | ||
Support |
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Since this program is growing, there needs to be a greater safety net. Schools need adequate support to move forward down this path. | ||
Advocacy |
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They need to clarify their policy agenda and how it supports and is connected to other aspects of their work. | ||
Knowledge Sharing |
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They could share their learning from the two sites so far assisted by this project with the larger school food service community. | ||
Collaboration |
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Their collaboration with other institutional sectors (though they are still young) could be improved. | ||
Leadership
Toni Liquori
Executive Director
Executive Director
From the Nonprofit
The nonprofit has not added any comments yet. If you are a representative of this nonprofit and would like to leave a comment, please email us at
feedback@myphilanthropedia.org
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