Last Mile Food Rescue
1775 Mentor Avenue, Suite 403
Cincinnati, OH 45212
Doubling Impact by 2024 to Close the Hunger Gap
Grant Application:
As a leading organization fighting food insecurity and food waste, Last Mile Food Rescue is committed to solving our region’s hunger gap and environmental challenges in an innovative way. Last Mile uses volunteers and cutting-edge technology to rescue fresh food being sent to a landfill and deliver it directly to nonprofit organizations and social service agencies that feed our community. Our goal is to rescue 5 million pounds of food by 2024 and to get there, we need to double our budget, grow our team, increase our volunteers and food donors, and build our infrastructure. Through new investments in technology, equipment, and staffing, Last Mile will be positioned to double impact in the next three years, and in doing so, play an even bigger role in reducing the hunger gap.
Last Mile developed an ambitious growth plan to significantly increase impact through investments in technology, equipment, and staffing. This grant from the Charles H. Dater Foundation was specifically requested to support this three-year growth plan. Growth goals were as follows:
• Staffing: Growing the team from 7 (2022) to 12 (2024) to build capacity, allow our staff to identify and partner with more food donors, support more nonprofit partners, expand reach geographically, and effectively manage the growing base of volunteers
• Technology: Enhancements in the Food Rescue app technology and our internal Salesforce database would allow our team to remain efficient as operations scale.
• Vehicles: Purchase five refrigerated box trucks/vans by 2024 to meet the increasing demand. Some rescues are so large they can’t fit into one volunteer’s car, requiring several volunteers to complete the rescue when one truck would do. Several food pantries and smaller agencies have asked Last Mile to pick up their large food donations from stores like Target and Wal-Mart, so they don’t have to purchase a new truck.
Grant Evaluation Report:
As outlined in our proposal submitted in June 2022, we projected reaching 2.5 million pounds of food rescued in 2022, 3.5 million in 2023, and 5 million in 2024. We were only 125,000 pounds short from our 2022 goal, coming in at nearly 2.4 million pounds rescued. Achieving this amount still shows incredible growth – a 45% increase from 2021. The leadership team evaluated results from 2022, pivoted, and adjusted goals aligned with the revised approach to reach 3 million pounds rescued in 2023.
In this past year, leadership identified core areas where growth is required to find more food, beginning with securing partnerships with enterprise-level food operations that can’t currently be reached (like hotels, universities, local events) and in tandem, increasing the average pound of food per rescue. We added a Food Donor Relationship Manager as well as a Food Donor Solicitation Manager to our team in 2022. In 2023, we hope to hire 3 additional staff members, including an additional driver.
Last Mile is also growing its service footprint. We currently partner with nonprofits and agencies that serve our most at-risk populations in Kenton and Campbell counties (KY) and Hamilton Butler, Warren, and Clermont counties (OH). In 2021, we focused on formalizing partnerships in Cincinnati’s central city core; 2022, increasing reach in Northern Kentucky. In 2023, our goal is to strategically expand to reach more people in northern and eastern Cincinnati counties (Northern Hamilton, Butler, Warren, Clermont) including partnering with the local Feeding America food bank, Shared Harvest (Fairfield) and expansion to West Chester, Middletown, etc.
Last Mile is well-positioned to continue the revised glidepath to increase our impact in the Greater Cincinnati region and meet our expansion goals. With the revised plan, we have the systems in place to find and rescue more food, efficiently manage our team and volunteers, and continue to provide much-needed, healthy food to our hungry neighbors.
Results:
• Staffing: Last Mile hired 3 additional staff members in 2022, including a dispatcher, a food donation solicitation manager, and a full-time driver, bringing our total team to 10. The addition of these positions to our team has been incredibly impactful and has allowed us to increase the number of food donors we work with, continue to efficiently support our nonprofit partners, and find new sources of donated food by expanding our reach across the region. Last Mile has also been able to manage the growing volunteer base more effectively. The growth of our team will continue into 2024 to support our expansion goals.
• Technology: Last Mile licenses the app technology platform, called Food Rescue Hero, from 412 Food Rescue to manage volunteers, complete rescues, and track program outputs. This platform is a best practice standard for large scale food rescue and provides the mechanism to both manage the process and measure the impact. Last Mile leverages this innovative app technology to track pounds and types of food, number of meals, food donor locations, where/when it was delivered at partner sites, and number of rescues completed. The app also collects pictures from the rescue and monitors any changes in the quantity of food available. Last Mile reviews these metrics regularly to ensure numbers are on target and food is high quality. We have also engaged a Salesforce consultant, Prolocity, to build out our Salesforce system – the first phase of work was focused on the dispatch team, the second phase will be focused on sales, and the third phase will be focused on the donor development database. Enhancements in the food rescue app technology and our internal Salesforce database as a result of this grant support have been essential to establish foundational infrastructure that will be required as we scale operations and serve more people in the coming years.
• Vehicles: In 2022, Last Mile purchased a refrigerated van and plans to purchase an additional refrigerated vehicle in 2023 that will support rescues too high in volume for a volunteer or that require refrigeration due to the distance the food must travel. The addition of these vehicles allows us to have the bandwidth to execute our strategic plan to get more food to more nonprofit partners so we can evolve to keep up with the need.
Website:
http://www.lastmilefood.org Amount: $75,000
Date: June 2022
