FUNDING RATIONALE
HarvestBridge — 9-State Food Access Initiative
A funding rationale that answers "why $32.1M?" as a reason to invest — not a spreadsheet. Built with the For Impact funding-rationale coach.
The Guidepost (campaign level)
$96.3M over 3 years — at $32.1M/year — to reach 120,000 households/month with fresh food across 9 states, rescue 25,000 tons/year from the regional food chain, and move 12,000+ families from food access to food independence.
Coaching note: "Here's how we spend $32.1M" is a treasurer's report. "Here's what $32.1M does over three years" is a reason to invest. The guidepost reframes the annual ask as one chapter of a destination the funder can see and name — so $32.1M/year stops feeling like overhead and starts feeling like the price of the story.
Three Initiatives (the math)
1 · Mobile Market Hubs — ~$15.5M/yr
$15.5M/year to put fresh food within reach of 85,000 households — twice weekly, 47 routes, 23 refrigerated trucks — in communities where the nearest grocery store is a gas station.
- $15.5M ÷ 85,000 households = $182/household/year for reliable fresh food access ($15.17/month)
- 47 routes × 2 visits/wk × 52 wks = 4,888 route-visits → ~$3,170 per community delivery event
The $182/household widget stacks cleanly ($18,200 reaches 100 households for a year). The per-route-visit frame serves corporate sponsors who want to "name" a truck or route.
2 · Farm & Food Rescue — ~$12.2M/yr
$12.2M/year to rescue 20,000 tons from 140+ farms, grocers, and manufacturers — turning waste into 33M+ meal-equivalents, and structurally keeping the all-in cost at $1.17/meal.
- 20,000 tons = 40M lbs → $0.31/lb rescued → $0.37/meal-equivalent
- This is the cost-efficiency engine: without rescue, per-meal cost likely rises past $2.
Lead with this when a funder questions the logistics scale: every $1 invested in rescue reduces the cost of every other dollar spent — plus 40M lbs diverted from landfill is a real climate frame.
3 · Lasting Food Security — ~$4.4M/yr
$4.4M/year to move families from food access to food independence — SNAP navigators unlocking $21M in federal benefits for 8,700 families, and HarvestCorps placing young adults into living-wage careers.
- SNAP: ~$230/family navigated → $2,414 in federal benefits = ~10× federal leverage
- HarvestCorps: 65 young adults × 78% placement = ~51 living-wage placements/year
This answers the question a sophisticated funder always asks: "Are you ending the cycle, or feeding it forever?" The 10× SNAP multiplier is the single most powerful number in the package — and HarvestCorps documents that HarvestBridge creates fewer future clients, not more.
What $X buys (widgets)
| What it buys | Amount |
|---|
| 1 meal (all-in) | $1.17 |
| 1 household's fresh-food access for a year | $182 |
| 100 households for a year | $18,200 |
| 1 ton of food rescued | $610 |
| 1 family navigated through SNAP (unlocks ~$2,414 in benefits) | $506 |
| 1 community delivery event (a single route-visit) | ~$3,170 |
The master widget — $1.17/meal — anchors every calculation. Every dollar given to HarvestBridge moves 85 cents of food.
Funding math summary
| Initiative | Annual | 3-Year | % of budget |
|---|
| Mobile Market Hubs | $15.5M | $46.5M | 48% |
| Farm & Food Rescue | $12.2M | $36.6M | 38% |
| Lasting Food Security | $4.4M | $13.2M | 14% |
| Total | $32.1M | $96.3M | 100% |
Per-initiative allocations are working hypotheses based on program scale, not a line-item budget — replace with confirmed splits and every widget above sharpens automatically. (The coach flags the SNAP-navigator budget as the first number worth confirming, since the 10× leverage claim depends on it.)