Name: #GiveHealthy
What They Do: #GiveHealthy is a data-driven online platform that enables people to donate real food and ensure that it’s the kind of food people really need.
How They Do It: #GiveHealthy partners with food banks and food pantries across the country. In the NYC area, their partners include City Harvest and the West Side Campaign Against Hunger.
#GiveHealthy is powered by Amp Your Good’s crowd-feeding technology. Food banks and food pantries set up free accounts and specify the kinds of food they want donated to them. People and organizations set up #GiveHealthy drives for the food bank or food pantry they want to support. To donate to a specific drive, people select food items based on what the organization has said they need and make a standard e-commerce purchase. After the drive is over, the food is delivered directly to the organization it was supporting.
Mission: #GiveHealthy is a movement to change how and what people donate to food drives. By making the donation of fresh fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods easy as well as socially and environmentally friendly, they help to ensure that donated food makes the biggest impact for people in need.
Latest project/campaign: COVID-19
For food banks and food pantries, the changes wrought by the COVID-19 Pandemic are dramatic:
- An increasing number of people who need help
- Fewer volunteers (because many volunteers are older and at higher COVID-19 risk)
- Extra measures being taken to protect the people working
- Spring food drives cancelled
A number of food banks and food pantries have turned to the #GiveHealthy platform to address these challenges and, specifically, to encourage organizations and individuals to sponsor #GiveHealthy dives as an alternative to the traditional spring food drives they have cancelled.
Major Funding: Revenue from food purchases
Profit/nonprofit: Profit + Purpose. Traditional food drives are extremely inefficient. Through data, #GiveHealthy has made improvements that are helpful to the people making donations to food drive sponsors and to the food banks and food pantries. All of these improvements ultimately increase the help received by people in need.
Annual Revenue: N/A
Interesting fact about how they are working to positively affect the food system: #GiveHealthy seeks to change and improve the food drive system. Donating food to food drives is one of the most popular forms of giving in the United States. People make billions of donations to food drives each year to help those facing hunger.
Some of the food donated through food drives is not as helpful as people think. In fact, some of it can actually hurt those facing hunger.
- People facing hunger are at disproportionately high risk of diet-related diseases including obesity, type-2 diabetes and heart disease.
- Donations to traditional food drives are often limited to non-perishable foods. While non-perishable items can be healthy, they are often highly processed and include ingredients harmful to people living with diet-related diseases.
#GiveHealthy’s goal is to ensure that people who want to support those facing food insecurity choose to donate the food items that will have the greatest impact.
FACT SHEET:
Location: Mendham, NJ
Core Programs: Online food drives
Number of staff: 4
Number of volunteers: 20+
Number of coworking members: N/A
Areas served: Continental US
Year Started: 2014
CEO: Patrick O’Neill
Contact Information: info@givehealthy.org
Website: https://givehealthy.org
