FY 2021
Annual report

Innovate to
Alleviate

20 21
01

A Letter from our CEO:
15 Years of Advancing Food Banks

Fifteen years ago, Bancos de Alimentos de México, Feeding America, Food Banks Canada, and Red Argentina de Bancos de Alimentos created The Global FoodBanking Network (GFN) to power a local approach to improving food access. Their goal: Create a thriving network of food banks around the world, supported by GFN, which would build capacity, scale operations and services, extend geographic reach, rescue surplus food, provide meals and, ultimately, serve people facing hunger worldwide.

Today, this food bank Network thrives; however, visionary community leaders have spurred innovations that make the food banks in the Network more effective, efficient, and resilient. These leaders truly innovate to alleviate hunger in their communities.

This annual report celebrates our 15th anniversary by highlighting many innovations introduced by GFN and Network food banks. And it reviews our work from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021.

Just two years ago, GFN launched a new strategic plan that updated our mission—to nourish the world’s hungry through uniting and advancing food banks—and committed to supporting local food banks to serve 50 million people facing hunger by 2030. This work has become all the more urgent amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the heightened hunger needs that have followed. Indeed, this past year, approximately 40 million people relied on a GFN partner food bank, an increase of 132 percent over the previous year.

Our team is committed to further advancing local efforts to address hunger through food recovery and our partners in 44 countries demonstrate that food banking is a proven solution to address food insecurity, rooted in, responsive to, and respectful of local contexts.

Our work is made possible only through the generous support of donors and partners like you. On behalf of our Board of Directors and staff, thank you for your commitment to advancing hunger relief and building community resilience on a global scale. You make it possible for us to innovate to alleviate.

With best regards,

Lisa Moon

President & CEO

02
OUR MISSION

To nourish the world’s hungry through uniting and advancing food banks.

OUR VISION

A world free of hunger.

03

Our Impact

Throughout GFN’s history, each year of work has been impactful in terms of hunger alleviation. However, FY2021 stands out as our Network was called to meet unimaginable needs because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This past year has demonstrated that there is no question: Food banks are indispensable in the fight against hunger.

Our work necessitates innovation. GFN and the food banks we support are constantly seeking increased impact and efficiency; every day, we’re in a race toward a hunger-free future.

Our growing Network

Prior to COVID-19, food banks were steadily expanding across developing and emerging markets worldwide with the support of GFN. As community-led institutions that rely on local resources and capacity to address hunger and build resiliency, the growth of food banks in the last 15 years signifies more than an increase in food aid. Food banks serve as a bridge for government, private, and nonprofit sectors while offering solutions that reflect a community’s unique needs.

In 2017, food banking was a new concept in the Philippines. Rise Against Hunger Philippines was the first known food bank in the country, and donors were uncertain about our legitimacy. Our membership with GFN has given our partners the assurance they were looking for, and for that we are thankful.

People served by a GFN partner food bank

Food banks delivered crucial support in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, serving 40 million people in 2020, an increase of 132 percent over the previous year. To meet rising demand related to the pandemic and ensuing economic crisis, GFN partner food banks are serving an average of nearly 200,000 more people monthly than prior to COVID-19.

The simple fact is, that without the formation of The Global FoodBanking Network, more people globally would be hungry, more good food would be unnecessarily wasted, and far less would be done globally to tackle these issues now, to help our children in the future.

Food and grocery products distributed

Despite staggering challenges to the supply chain and regular distribution models due to COVID-19, food banks sourced more food than ever before. Food banks navigated these challenges with agility and tenacity, developing creative strategies and distributing 882 million kilograms of food and grocery products, an equivalent of 2.4 billion meals to families facing hunger.

Joining the Incubator Program helped us acquire a basic understanding of the food banking model. And thanks to continued guidance from GFN, we have established the tools needed to run the first ever food bank in Ethiopia and have started raising awareness on the issues of food loss and waste.

Community service organizations strengthened

Food banks power locally led partners to address immediate, short-, and long-term needs in their communities. In 2020, these partnerships made up a network of over 59,000 community service organizations that embrace the responsibility of feeding their communities. Partners include food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, daycares, afterschool programs, and many other organizations.

We are very happy to have been part of the birth of GFN, together with Mexico, Canada, and the United States 15 years ago, and to see the enormous growth of the global network, which today connects food banks in more than 40 countries around the world. We have to continue working to recover and deliver food to more and more people on the entire planet.

*In the charts above, data is collected in the previous calendar year and reported at the end of each fiscal year.

04

15 Years, 15 Innovations

Innovation is a core value for GFN. Below we share 15 of the most notable food banking innovations from our 15-year history. These innovations have been game-changers in the fight to address hunger. These 15 innovations have enabled GFN and the food banking movement to make positive social gains that are sustainable at scale while increasing our reach and closing the hunger gap. These innovations are transformational, inclusive, and empowering.

With each innovation, we’re gaining momentum. With each innovation, we’re advancing our mission.

A Movement in the Making

Strengthening Food Banks

Sourcing Food to Nourish and Sustain

Serving the Most Vulnerable

05

A True Test to our Innovative Approach:
COVID-19

Starting prior to the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 a pandemic, GFN and food banks were on the front lines of the crisis. Embedded in communities, food banks are a vital infrastructure for emergency response. At no time in history was this more evident than over the past year.

Collaborative innovation across our Network has boosted relief and recovery efforts amid this pandemic. Innovations around food sourcing, outreach, distribution, and more have arisen out of the urgent needs generated by COVID-19 and have offered all of us an opportunity to reorient our work and sector toward resiliency.

At the beginning of FY2021, we launched a global COVID-19 recovery campaign. To date, we’ve deployed $15.7 million in grants and provided more than 13,000 hours of technical assistance to scale capacity in high-need areas, empower community leaders at the helm of food banks, provide more child feeding programming, and secure the global supply chain of fresh food.

To learn more about our
COVID-19 response

click here
06

Innovation for the Future:
Transforming Communities

Just two years ago, GFN launched a strategic plan to guide our work from FY2020 through FY2022. At that time, we set an ambitious North Star goal:

To improve food access for 50 million people through food banking by 2030.

With one year remaining in our current strategic plan, we’ve reached the 40 million mark. COVID-19 dramatically increased hunger, making food banks all the more critical, while putting 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger nearly out of reach.

But for GFN, our drive toward our mission is only heightened by this dramatic turn of events. We are committed to reaching our goal set two years ago, and to doing our part to help the global community achieve SDG 2 by focusing on acceleration, impact, and scale in our quest to transform communities.

In the coming year, we’ll build our FY2023-FY2026 strategic plan which, we know, will focus on the key role food banks play in strengthening civil society globally and building resilient communities and stronger, more equitable food systems. As has been true throughout our 15-year history, innovation will be key. We will continue to foster locally grown, community-driven innovative solutions to hunger, and we will pool innovations globally. We know there are untapped opportunities out there—we’ll seek to harness those innovations yet to come, and continue to nourish the world’s hungry through uniting and advancing food banks.

Hunger is a solvable problem. Please join us to innovate to alleviate.

07

Our FY2021 Financial Overview

We close FY2021 in good financial health. Our organization received an unqualified opinion on our annual audit. Please find the following information on how we are stewarding donor investments to advance global hunger relief through food banking. Information is drawn from our Audited Financials for the years FY2019, FY2020, and FY2021, which are available at foodbanking.org.

FY2019-FY2021 Functional Expenses

Program
Services
General &
Adminstrative
Fund
Development

FY2021 Functional Expenses

Program
Services
General &
Adminstrative
Fund
Development