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Finance for Food: History

Generously supported by the 11th Hour Project, WK Kellogg Foundation‘s Food & Community Fellowship Program, the Woodcock Foundation, and Grace Communications Foundation, Finance for Food was a nonprofit project that Elizabeth Ü operated from 2010 — 2015.

Finance for Food focused on educating people about the wide variety of capital opportunities available to support them in identifying and securing values-aligned financing. Its ultimate goal: catalyze an increase in the pace and scale of the transition to a food system that restores the health of our bodies, families, communities, economies, and environment.

Over the course of the project, Elizabeth reached thousands of sustainable food system entrepreneurs and investors in the US and Canada via dozens of workshops and keynote addresses. As executive director of Finance for Food, she also authored the book Raising Dough: the Complete Guide to Financing a Socially Responsible Food Business (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013) and contributed to a range of articles, guides, reports, and radio shows developed in collaboration with other stakeholders.

Our vision
Staff & advisors
Fiscal sponsor

Our vision

Imagine a world in which:

Entrepreneurs across the United States are helping people solve environmental and social problems, domestically and abroad, through a wide variety of food-based businesses founded upon sustainable values, and
Lack of access to capital no longer stands in the way of their efforts to launch, maintain, or grow their social ventures.

This was the vision of Finance for Food.

Staff & advisors

Elizabeth Ü founded and was executive director of Finance for Food.

The Kitchen Cabinet of Advisors was comprised of thought leaders and innovators from a variety of fields, including social finance, sustainable agriculture and farming, food-based social enterprise, food systems philanthropy, and food justice.

These people graciously provided inspiration, mentorship, friendship and encouragement in the years prior to the founding of Finance for Food, and they served as guiding stars through the duration of the project.

(Please excuse broken links; these movers-and-shakers may have moved on to new roles!)

Brahm Ahmadi
Chief Executive Officer of People’s Community Market

Eric Becker
Chief Investment Officer of Clean Yield Asset Management and Founder of Greater Boston Slow Money

Leslie Christian
Integrated Capital Specialist at Outside Investments, a division of Northstar Capital

Virginia Clarke
Executive Director of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders

Jim Cochran
Founder and Co-President of Swanton Berry Farm; Roots of Change Stewardship Council; Co-Founder of The Food Commons

Kathleen Fluegel
Executive Director of HRK Foundation and Steering Committee member of the PRI Makers Network

John Katovich
Founder of Cutting Edge Capital and Cutting Edge Counsel; former Chief Regulatory Officer at Boston Options Exchange Regulation (NASDAQ OMX BX)

Warren Langley
Former President & COO of Pacific Exchange

Michelle Long
Executive Director of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE)

Mas Masumoto
Organic Farmer & Author; Member, National Council on the Arts

Martin Ping
Executive Director of Hawthorne Valley Association

Mike Roberts
President of First Nations Development Institute

Jeff Rosen
Finance Director of Solidago Foundation

Ricardo Salvador
Director and Senior Scientist of the Food & Environment Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

Leslie Schaller
Director of Programming, The Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet)

Simran Sethi
Journalist and writer

Don Shaffer
President & CEO of RSF Social Finance

Brian Snyder
Executive Director at Initiative for Food & AgriCultural Transformation (InFACT), The Ohio State University

Josh Viertel
Former President of Slow Food USA

Fiscal sponsor

Until the end of 2018, Finance for Food was a project of Multiplier (formerly the Trust for Conservation Innovation), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that served as the project’s fiscal sponsor. Royalties received from sales of Raising Dough: the Complete Guide to Financing a Socially Responsible Food Business are currently being directed to Kitchen Table Advisors, also a Multiplier project.