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DRAFT DRAFT Revision – 1/18/2012

Wisconsin Local Food NetworkStrategic Plan Working Draft

MissionThe Wisconsin Local Food Network engages, connects, and empowers local, regional, and state organizations and individuals to build sustainable, equitable, and resilient food systems.

VisionWe envision vibrant local and regional food systems in Wisconsin that nourish the health and well-being of Wisconsin communities, conserve and enhance the natural resource base, and provide economic livelihood for a wide diversity of sustainable Wisconsin farmers and food producers.

The Wisconsin Local Food Network will play a support role to local, regional, and state organizations and individuals building such sustainable, resilient food systems. The Network will provide communication, capacity building, fund-raising, collective impact, and evaluation support to affiliated organizations and individuals.. These support functions will strengthen local organizational efforts, thus contributing toward the growth and viability of local and regional food systems.

We believe that Wisconsin can do a better job of providing affordable, healthy food to all Wisconsin residents while creating a profit for our farmers and entrepreneurs, without compromising the protection of natural resources that people and agriculture depend on. We envision a future where local and regional food systems are commonplace and celebrated and where small and mid-scale farmers and food businesses can compete on a level playing field.

We believe that a sustainable food system can and must include:- environmentally sustainable farming practices, - improved access and affordability of safe, healthy food for all people- equitable and fair practices throughout the food system, - economic viability of farm and food enterprises,- reinvestment in our local and regional economy, and- job creation through improved opportunities in food production, processing, distribution,

marketing, and preparation.

Organizations and individuals affiliated with the Wisconsin Local Food Network are working on all aspects of the food system – including, but not limited to, production, processing, transportation, distribution, marketing), consumption, composting and waste reduction. They are also working on nutrition education, farmer and business enterprise training, youth development, increasing access to food, and other issues. By creating ‘topic based’ and regional (geography-based) teams, we will assist organizations and individuals working on similar issues and in proximate locations with networking, communications, and capacity building.

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*Collective Impact Initiatives are long-term commitments by a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem. Their actions are supported by a shared measurement system, mutually reinforcing activities, and ongoing communication, and are staffed by an independent backbone organization. “Funding collective impact initiatives costs money, but it can be a highly leveraged investment. A backbone organization with a modest annual budget can support a collective impact initiative of several hundred organizations, magnifying the impact of millions or even billions of dollars in existing funding.”

Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2011, “Collective Impact” by John Kania & Mark Kramer


The Wisconsin Local Food Network will serve as an administrative “backbone organization” to help the many local food efforts in the state coordinate and increase their effectiveness. The Network’s main functions are to:

facilitate communication among food system organizations, coordinate and assist with fundraising efforts, facilitate collective impact* build capacity through education and training. inform policy to assure support for local and regional food systems development, measure, evaluate and document local food efforts in the state.

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Steering Committee

A Steering Committee will guide the efforts of the WLFN, and a part- or full-time director will be responsible for carrying out and coordinating many of the Network’s activities. Several organizations may act as fiscal agents and/or house staff for the WLFN. The Network will try to avoid depending exclusively on any one organization to manage finances and staff.

The composition of the steering committee needs to reflect both the geographic and content diversity of network organizations, and will include:

• up to 15 representatives• at least one representative from each region identified in the strategic plan • at least one representative from each identified topic area• a mix of business, government, education and NGO organizations, citizens, fundraisers, and

farmers, and will look for diversity in ethnicity, race, age, and other factors.

The steering committee is a working committee. Representatives are expected to attend monthly meetings and to assist in the main functions of the Network. Steering committee members will normally serve staggered 3 year terms. Steering Committee representatives can self-nominate or can be nominated by any WLFN affiliated organization or individual. If there are more nominees than spaces on the Steering Committee, the committee will select the new representatives. The Steering Committee will meet monthly by telephone and face-to-face on a quarterly basis. The quarterly face-to-face meetings will rotate among the regions. If a steering committee representative misses numerous consecutive meetings the committee may choose to replace that representative.

The steering committee can establish work groups to address specific tasks and organizational issues. Work groups must include at least one steering committee representatives, but can include people who are not on the steering committee.

Regions

Regional networks allow coordination and communication within smaller geographic areas within the state. Topic groups are sub-groups that work together for the purpose of advancing projects on specific topics. Both regions and key topic areas may be redefined by the Steering Committee with input and review from affiliated organizations and individuals.

Currently, the six regions are Central, Northern, Eastern, Southeastern, Southern, and Western Wisconsin, which are the regions as designated by the farm fresh atlases.

Topic Areas

At present, the Network identifies seven topic areas. As new topics emerge, different topic area groups may be added. Economic development and policy are important considerations for all of these areas. Many projects may and will cross several topic areas.

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1. Market Development: includes assessing and identifying demand, and creating market structures that connect producers and consumers, identifying new markets and expanding on current markets for all food and food-related businesses including producers, processors, and buyers. Market Development is the improvement and expansion of direct, intermediate, and wholesale local food markets. Direct marketing refers to the producer selling product to the end user, with no middlemen (Example – Farmers markets, CSAs, road-side stands). Intermediate and wholesale marketing refers to selling product through a middleman(s) before the product is consumed by the end user (Examples – Grocery stores, restaurants, institutions).

2. Producer/Processor Development: builds producer/processor capacity by providing business & technical assistance, and production assistance. Business & technical assistance can address business planning, accounting, label development, food safety and whole farm planning. Production assistance improves the product and crop production process by addressing common barriers such as understanding regulations, finding financing, gaining land access, post-harvest handling, and processing skills.

3. Infrastructure Development: includes development and support of shared resources to reduce individual costs, increase capacity, and increase efficiency for any individual, organization or business. These resources can address issues such as storage, transportation, distribution, packaging, labeling, marketing, and processing for all scales of local food and work to develop such things as food hubs, business incubators and kitchen incubators.

4. Food Security and Health: investigates the connection between the food people eat and the health effects associated with those choices. In particular, this includes not only assessing choice but also evaluate the types, price and quality (such as nutrition) of food available to residents in specific communities. This topic area includes efforts and projects that work to make local, healthy food accessible and affordable for all Wisconsin residents, including residents with low incomes and people who reside in rural and urban food deserts.

5. Community Development: in its traditional definition, community development includes many aspects that go beyond local food systems. In the context of the Wisconsin Local Food Network, this topic area will only focus on projects and issues of community development that integrate into food system activities. Many food system efforts - particularly those in urban areas - are driven by goals that are related to food production and access, but focus more on aspects of community development, including youth and leadership development, neighborhood enhancement, community engagement, community economic development, and integration of arts and culture into food system activities. Community development considerations also address how organizations and networks function, and how community groups and local and state governments are involved in promoting local food systems.

6. Consumer Education and Promotion: often takes what is gained in other topic areas and disseminates information out to the public for the purpose of informing and/or advocating. This topic area talks about both positive and negative impacts and consequences of various aspects of all types of food systems, such as environmental impacts of farming practices, nutritional aspects, social equity issues involved with food accessibility, economic impacts of retaining wealth by spending on local product, or other direct and indirect consequences of local and other types of food systems, such as global food distribution or commodity agriculture. This topic area mainly communicates with customers, but also shares information with organizations and politicians and is achieved through such channels as product labeling, nutrition education, and educational events and celebrations.

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7. Farm to School Initiatives: focus on getting more nutritious, sustainable, locally-grown produce and local food products into schools and to students. This topic area often has to deal with Producer/Processor Development to ensure adequate supply and Infrastructure Development to ensure that distribution, storage and on-site/off-site processing needs are addressed for the school or school system in question. This topic area also addresses Food Security and Health concerns; achieves Community Development goals, and utilizes the tools developed by the Consumer Education and Promotion topic area. However, this topic area is not unique in its cross-over nature; many projects will possess aspects that fall into multiple topic areas.

StaffAt least one part time, paid staff person is vital to sustaining the WLFN. Coordination takes time, and the expectation that collaboration will occur without a supporting infrastructure is one of the most frequent reasons why it fails. The Network may from time to time hire a consultant or additional staff if funding is available. In addition, individuals affiliated with WLFN, and especially Steering Committee members, will provide expertise, information, and support to the Network.

PurposeThe overarching purpose of the Network is to support affiliated organizations and individuals in their efforts to:

encourage innovation and collaboration in local food production, distribution, processing and marketing

ensure access to healthy, locally grown food for all Wisconsin residents, establish distribution systems that connect producers with consumers, • improve the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of farming • promote thriving farms and food enterprises that offer a diverse array of locally-produced

items for local and regional consumption,• create jobs in local and regional food economies, and• advocate for food policy that supports and promotes local and regional food systems

We will achieve our overarching purpose of supporting affiliated organizations and individuals by facilitating communication, fundraising, collective impact, capacity building, policy education and development, and evaluation.

Communication

Goal (1): Serve as a hub to provide information and facilitate exchange among regional networks, topic based networks, and local groups

Objective 1: Conduct inventory of training, mentoring, and information needsObjective 2: Develop and maintain a virtual resource center and communication system for information collection and sharing and to highlight the activities of affiliated organizationsObjective 3: Develop a process for collaborating with other organizations to provide training/in-service workshops

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Fundraising

Goal (2): Connect local and regional food projects with resources to foster innovation

Objective 1: To raise funding including grants, capital, and other monetary resources and make available for local, regional, and statewide food projectsObjective 2: To create a process for identifying statewide, regional, topic network funding needs Objective 3: To expand Buy Local Buy Wisconsin funding or develop new statewide program funding strategy for supporting statewide, regional and topic based network needs

Collective Impact

Goal (3): Identify common agenda with other groups and organizations to achieve collective impact, including those that may not be specific to local and regional food, by reaching across sectors including: (a) sustainable agriculture, (b) food sovereignty, (c) hunger/emergency food, (d) food industry, (e) job training and placement, (f) institutional food, (g) waste disposal/recycling, (h) culinary professionals, and others

Objective 1: To dialogue with these groups/organizations about the work of the WLFNObjective 2: To develop cross-sector relationships with these groups/organizations Objective 3: To create a strategy and process for exchanging information, leveraging resources, and enhancing policy advocacy initiatives

Capacity Building

Goal (4): Encourage and support regional and topic based networks and foster new regional and topic based networks where needed

Objective 1: To support regional network groups and to foster the development of new regional network groups where neededObjective 2: To support topic based network groups and to foster the development of new topic based network groups where neededObjective 3: To provide financial support to regional and topic based networks to enable each of these network groups to meet 4 times annually either in-person or via conference calls.Objective 4: To sponsor one annual summit for regional network groups, topic based network groups, local food system organization representatives, allies, and cross-sector organizations to foster networking, information sharing, and collaborationObjective 5: To compile an inventory of educational and technical assistance resources for local, regional, and statewide food projects.

Inform Policy

Goal (5): Inform policy development by educating leadership about issues around local/regional food

Objective 1: Provide information to assure that local leadership and citizens understand issues around local/regional foodsObjective 2: Provide trainings for network organizations on how to engage in policy and demonstrate economic benefits to producers, consumers and the stateObjective 3: Organize advocacy for local and regional food initiatives within the Wisconsin State Legislature by sending policy alerts, coordinating response, and other strategies

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Evaluation

Goal (6): Provide evaluation tools and aggregate data to provide relevant data to the Network and beyond about the impact of local and regional food

Objective 1: Provide a consistent set of evaluation tools for regional and topic based groups to measure the impact of local food project activitiesObjective 2: Create a consistent set of tools for regional and topic based networks to inventory and track assets and progress on local food system development activitiesObjective 3: Aggregate the data and present it to the Network, businesses, community leaders and policymakersObjective 4: Develop indicators and tools to evaluate collective impactObjective 5: Provide trainings annually for affiliated organizations and individuals on how to measure collective impact

The Steering Committee will develop and update a detailed action plan on an annual and need-to basis. Below is the proposed action plan for 2012.

Communication Fundraising Collective Impact

Capacity Building

Inform Policy

Evaluation

Annual WLF Summit

Policy updates/training at summit

Regional RFPs/grants at Summit

Needs assessment web survey1

Annual WLF Summit

Evaluation of initiatives to determine impact

Wiki/Wordpress website

Share information and action alerts on local food policy

Steering Committee

Annual inventory of organization activities and impact

Wiki/Wordpress website

Focus group style discussions with regions

Quarterly meetings in different regions

Polling on priority issues for members

Develop shared measurement indicators

Training at quarterly meetings

List serve Host Local Food Lobby Day at Capitol

Toolkit sharing

Monthly steering committee conference calls

The WLFN wordpress website, www.wilocalfood.wordpress.com, will include a monthly highlight and a map function showing location of network member organizations or projects affiliated with the Network.

The quarterly face-to-face steering committee meetings will be held in different regions, on a rotational basis with regional and topic group participation. The host region will be responsible for

1 Items in green italics are planned activities, items in black are currently ongoing activities

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http://www.wilocalfood.wordpress.com/


organizing the meeting and coordinating with the steering committee to set the agenda. These meetings may include a tour or local education activity.

Select steering committee members will be responsible for leading the fundraising effort, which includes identifying possible funding sources and securing $50,000 or more in grants.

The steering committee will ensure that the Network shares tools for implementation and evaluation.

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