Excellence and Innovation in
Food Banking Awards 2024

Mạng lưới Ngân hàng Thực phẩm Toàn cầu
Excellence and Innovation in Food Banking
2024 Awards Program

The Excellence and Innovation in Food Banking awards program aim to:

• Highlight and celebrate exceptional programs and partnerships from throughout the Network.
• Provide a platform for food banks to demonstrate their expertise, share information and ideas, and evoke conversations around best practices, with their peers at the GFN Global Summit in September 2024.
• Elevate the vital role of food banking in alleviating hunger and reducing food loss and waste on the global stage.

Why apply? Awardees and finalists will honored and recognized at the GFN Global Summit 2024 and through GFN’s website, newsletter, social media, and media outreach. Awardees will also be provided with a toolkit to amplify this exciting news with their networks and local communities.

Please see the details and application process below. If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact Jennifer Wright at jwright@foodbanking.org.

Award Categories

Innovation Award
The GFN Food Banking Innovation Award recognizes a food banking organization that exhibits exceptional innovation and creativity to increase the food bank’s ability to meet hunger needs and reduce food waste in its community. These programs enhance and improve the food bank’s service to its community through an innovative, replicable, and effective approach.

Community Impact Award
This award recognizes a GFN member that is working collaboratively across its community to create strong partnerships with local organizations that bring food banking and community services together to build healthier, more resilient communities. These specialized programs go beyond food distribution to provide social service programs and increase equity and opportunities across the community such as school feeding programs, senior citizen services, cooking or nutrition classes, or workforce development services.

Outstanding Partnership Award
This award recognizes a partnership between a GFN food bank and a corporation or foundation. The partnership may include mobilizing volunteers in support of food banking; championing creativity and innovation in food banking; and/or leveraging influence and expertise to generate community awareness and engagement on food insecurity, climate initiatives, food loss & waste efforts.

Eligible Submissions

The following criteria must be met for a submission to be considered:

• For Innovation Award: submitting organization must be a food banking organization that is an active 501c3 nonprofit organization, including members of GFN, FEBA and Feeding America.
• For Community Impact Award: submitting organization must be a food banking organization and an active member of The Global FoodBanking Network.
• For Outstanding Partnership Award: submitting organization must be a corporation or foundation partnering with a food banking organization that is an active member of The Global FoodBanking Network.
• The featured project or program must have been active between January 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024.
• One application per submitting organization please.
• Note: Award recipients may be invited to present their winning program or initiative as part of the GFN Global Summit in September 2024, and therefore a representative from the winning organization must be present at the event. Please indicate in your application if a representative from your organization plans to attend the Summit.

Key Selection Criteria

Submissions will be evaluated anonymously by a committee of staff and Board volunteers of The Global FoodBanking Network. From each category, three to five finalists, including one final award recipient, will be selected.

All applications will be scored against the following:

• Innovation: Is the featured project utilizing a new or improved method or model to address hunger and/or food loss and waste?
• Replicability: Can best practices from this project be easily shared or replicated to enhance knowledge sharing across the Network?
• Effectiveness: Is the project providing a clear, measurable and effective solution to addressing hunger in your community and/or reducing food loss and waste?

NOTE: All finalists will be chosen by a selection committee made up of GFN staff, board members, volunteers and community partners. For the Community Impact and Outstanding Partnership awards, each committee will select three finalists and one award recipient. For the Innovation award, the committee will select five finalists and award recipient will be selected through a voting process open to all attendees at the GFN Global Summit in September.

Award Application Process and Timeline

All applicants will be required to complete a brief application form and submit photos and a short, informal video* that illustrates the featured project/program and highlights how the project/program is meeting the Key Selection Criteria listed above.

*Please note: videos should be created in-house, not professionally filmed or produced. A simple phone video is sufficient. The goal is just to visually share your project, not produce a professional video. All application materials may be shared via the GFN website, social media channels, or at the GFN Global Summit.

Timeline:

• July 1: Application process open for submissions
• July 29: Application portal closes – all applications must be submitted by 11:59pm EST on July 29, 2024.
• August 28: Finalists notified of selection
• September 9-11: Voting opens for Innovation Award at GFN Global Summit. Deadline to vote is 5pm AEST on September 11.
• September 12: Final award recipients are announced at GFN Global Summit in Sydney, Australia.

Application

Applications are due by 11:59pm EST on July 29, 2024. If you have any questions, please contact Jennifer Wright, jwright@foodbanking.org.