Strengthening
Our Team and Organization
Food First NL’s work and role in the community require strong internal capacity, a supported team, and a clear vision, goals, and guiding principles. This is why strengthening our team and organization remains one of the most important things we work on every year. 2022 was no exception.
In 2022, our Human Resources work focused on building internal capacity and growing our team. We also create a new Food First NL Strategic Framework: 2023–2026. This new iteration better reflects Food First NL’s current work and the direction we want to move in the next several years.
Human Resources
Food First NL’s Human Resources work had three main focuses throughout 2022.
One focus was building towards an exciting future for Food First NL by adding new folks to our team in an incremental and strategic way. Our new staff members infuse our organization with energy, passion, new skills, and experience from different sectors and, ultimately, make our organization stronger.
Another focus was supporting our staff by building internal capacity. This included setting up our existing staff to succeed in their leadership roles by bringing in support staff to work with them and prioritizing professional development.
The final focus was considering how our human resources and staffing can support our new Strategic Framework. Into 2023, we will continue to gradually build the team in thoughtful ways to advance the Strategic Framework’s goals and support our new vision and mission
Food First NL staff having a laugh at our annual holiday lunch. Missing from photo: Kim Budgell, Ashton Lane, and Kerrin Rafuse.
2022 Highlights
Seven people joining the team, adding capacity to our communications, administration, and programming
Bringing on staff to support the launch of two new projects: Great Things in Store and Food on the Move
Building internal capacity to eventually support regional staff across the province, particularly as our team becomes more remote and hybrid in how it operates
New Strategic Framework
Newfoundland and Labrador’s food systems and food security landscape have changed dramatically in the 4 years since we created our previous Strategic Framework. Food First NL’s priorities, approaches, and team dynamics have also shifted during that period, as we grew and responded to the world around us. Amongst these shifts and changes, it’s clear that the time is ripe for a new Strategic Framework — one that better reflects where we are and where we want to go as an organization.
Over the past 10 months, our Board of Directors and staff carefully and thoughtfully created Food First NL’s Strategic Framework: 2023–2026. We engaged with our partners, held a staff and board retreat, and worked with multiple consultants to make sure this new framework represents our work now and moving forward. The conversations were thoughtful, often challenging, and iterative. The conversations were also threaded with excitement and cautious optimism as we created our vision for the future of food systems in N.L. and identified pathways for achieving it.
We strongly believe that our vision is possible. We look forward to the hard work ahead and to the progress that we will make alongside our partners and our communities.
Our Vision
A province where everyone can eat with joy and dignity.
Our Mission
To advance everyone’s right to food in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Pathways
We accomplish our mission by:
Advocating
Goals:
Meaningful reductions in food insecurity
Establishment of a universal school food program
Increased local food procurement from public institutions
Strengthened food sovereignty of Indigenous communities
Evidence-based action on the climate crisis within our food systems
Organizing
Goals:
Established and visible networks at the community, regional, provincial, and national levels to support collective action
Ample, accurate, timely, and accessible information about NL food systems
An emergency food sector that is more equitable and oriented towards poverty reduction
Food system players convene regularly to think critically, plan, and celebrate
Taking Action
Goals:
Well-developed programming and infrastructure to support access to affordable, local, and cultural foods
Retailers identified and engaged in action to reduce food insecurity
Food First NL providing diverse supports (financial and in-kind) for local food initiatives
Food security embedded in municipal strategies, programs, and policies
Resources available to support thriving, sustainable school food systems
Valuing People
Goals:
Food policy and programs that are meaningfully informed by lived experience
Food First NL a leader in progressive and inclusive HR policies and procedures
Equity embedded in all aspects of Food First NL’s work
Equity
Food First NL recognizes that systemic barriers related to gender, race and ethnicity, Indigeneity, ability, physical and mental health, age, and socio-economic status limit or prevent people’s equal access to power and resources within society. In order to address these barriers within our own organization and broader community, Food First NL is committed to practicing equity in all aspects of our work. Food First NL understands equity as an ongoing practice. Therefore, this statement is a starting point to a continual process of self-assessment and learning.
Our Guiding Principles
Honesty and Accountability: To shift systems of inequity internally and externally, we must be honest about what those systems look like, where the gaps and flaws are, and what it would take to overcome them. This will sometimes mean having challenging conversations, changing course, and taking risks. It also means being accountable for our own choices and mistakes.
Provincial Impact: We support action that makes a positive impact across the whole province, but also recognize that the food system functions differently throughout Newfoundland and Labrador and place-based voices and solutions are also important.
Supporting Indigenous Food Sovereignty and Leadership: We recognize the deep damage that colonialism has done to Indigenous food systems and support Indigenous communities in their work to reclaim sovereignty over them.
Amplifying Community Strengths: Prioritizing community-based knowledge, engagement, and decision-making is a crucial part of meaningful and sustainable change. We work to emphasize and enhance the strengths in our communities.
Collaboration: We know that our mission can only be achieved in partnership with many others and so we take a welcoming and inclusive approach. We are open to participating in and fostering non-traditional, cross-sector collaborations.
Ways of Knowing and Communicating: We recognize that the issues we engage with are complex and not experienced the same by everyone. We strive to include many perspectives, by valuing traditional knowledge, lived experience, quality and current research and data, diverse engagement strategies, and out-of-the-box thinking.
Appreciation and Celebration: We recognize the immense efforts that have come before, particularly from equity-deserving groups, to improve our food system locally and beyond. We celebrate the milestones and achievements of our movement today. We do this work because we believe a better food system is possible.
Accountability, Transparency, and Implementation
The implementation of this Strategic Framework will be guided by these deliverables:
An annual work plan and budget that lays out objectives and indicators for each of our goals
A partnership framework used to assess partnerships against our values and goals
A communications plan and style guide that aligns our communications with this framework
An equity lens that asks key questions about how equity shows up in our decisions and direction
An outreach strategy that lays out how we support and connect with folks working on food
An evaluation plan with standards and tools for evaluation of common organizational activities
We are committed to reporting back to our community with an annual community update and associated report that reports on progress on our strategic goals, outlines our funding and spending, and provides an overview of our day-to-day work. We also commit to sending out regular newsletters and to always being open to questions and challenges from the community about our work and our priorities.