A Challenge to SAFSF Members: Invest Boldly in Policy Advocacy and Movement Building
The challenges facing our food system—spanning corporate consolidation, land loss, climate change, racial inequity, labor exploitation, access to adequate nutrition, and beyond—make clear that long-term change depends on shifting the policies, systems, and power structures that shape people’s daily lives. Building a truly resilient, just, and democratic food system requires sustained investment in policy advocacy and movement building.
Policy change unfolds over years, legislative sessions, and election cycles. Achieving durable policy successes at the Tribal, federal, state, and local levels requires patient, flexible, and sustained investment in a broad spectrum of offensive and defensive strategies. These include policymaker education, media engagement, public awareness campaigns, influencing agencies, and much more.
Year-over-year funding for grassroots organizing, coalition building, leadership development, and advocacy is essential to build and maintain the trust, relationships, capacity, and resources needed to grow power, influence, and ultimately drive institutional change. By resourcing this work, funders can contribute to lasting generational change that extends well beyond any one grant cycle.
We challenge all SAFSF members to respond to this call to action by initiating or expanding your funding for nonpartisan policy advocacy and movement building in 2026 and beyond. Please add your organization below to commit to the challenge and tell us why you are joining.
SAFSF Members Share Why They Fund Policy
SAFSF Policy Principles
Informed by SAFSF members, national non-profit coalitions, grassroots organizations, and movement leaders, SAFSF’s Policy Principles aim to:
- Inspire and guide sustained funder investment in policy advocacy;
- Mobilize resources to movement organizations that are advancing resilient, just, and democratic food systems; and
- Develop shared messaging that funders can amplify from their institutions when engaging with government agencies or policymakers.
SAFSF’s policy principles are presented as a cohesive and interconnected vision; each principle works together and reflects the comprehensive nature of systems change being led by frontline communities and supported by SAFSF members. The policy and funder opportunities included below each principle are not exhaustive but provide a menu of illustrative actions that could help advance each principle. These include voluntary, regulatory, and legislative options listed from the visionary to the concrete.
Member Briefing On Policy Principles
Join us at our regularly scheduled monthly membership meeting, Gather Round, to learn all about the new Policy Principles and the Policy Challenge to SAFSF Members. SAFSF’s Policy Program Manager Maggie Mascarenhas will share inspiring examples of how members are already advancing policy advocacy and movement-building in 2025 and beyond. Come share how you are already funding policy advocacy work, or learn how you can start this journey.
Interested in SAFSF membership? Email us and explore what membership means for you.
Meet the SAFSF Policy Working Group
The SAFSF Policy Working Group was instrumental in developing SAFSF’s Policy Principles and launching this funding challenge. More broadly, the Policy Working Group partners with staff to mobilize SAFSF members around a shared vision for policy change that centers and responds to calls to action and policy priorities of frontline communities, movement building, and coalition advocacy groups. Working Group members also help identify trends, gaps, and opportunities to increase funding for policy change and share insights with SAFSF staff on emerging policy developments.
For information about joining the Policy Working Group, contact Policy Program Manager Maggie Mascarenhas.
SAFSF Member-Only Webinar Series
Interested in funding policy but unsure of how to do this legally? This webinar series explored how funders can effectively support a wide array of advocacy strategies within a food and agriculture context. Organized in partnership with Alliance for Justice’s Bolder Advocacy Program, these 4-sessions provide funders with practical information and skill building opportunities in supporting election season advocacy and policymaker engagement, and how to structure policy related grants. The Alliance For Justice’s Philanthropy Advocacy Playbook is also a great resource to understand the many opportunities for funders to support advocacy and engage in advocacy themselves.
There is a misconception that funding policy advocacy is something to shy away from, given complex IRS compliance requirements and prohibitions on lobbying. This visual, developed by the Center for Evaluation Innovation, demonstrates the many strategies that can inform advocacy, many of which your organization may already be supporting.
Note: The information and resources provided are for general informational purposes only and do not constitute professional legal advice; we encourage you to consult a qualified attorney regarding your specific legal needs.
Hear Directly From Movement Leaders
The Food & Farm Democracy Initiative (FFDI) — a collaboration between the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, RAFI, Red Clover Collaborative, and the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation — recently hosted the webinar, “Withstanding the Assault: Strategies for Philanthropy to Support Frontline Organizations and the Communities Most Impacted.” This conversation, co-sponsored by Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Funders, Health & Environment Funders Network, Rural Climate Partnership, and the Platform for Agriculture and Climate Transformation, was an opportunity for funders to hear directly from frontline organizations, some that are focused on policy advocacy and others that are addressing the hardships created by this Administration. Panelists shared how their organizations and communities are responding to support farmers, ranchers, and families and how they are anticipating what comes next.
Join the SAFSF Movement-Aligned Funding Learning Community
Organized in collaboration with two SAFSF members, Chicago Food Policy Action Council and Michigan State University’s Center for Regional Food Systems, SAFSF’s Movement Aligned Funding Learning Community helps funders transform their practices to be accountable partners in multiracial, frontline-led movements.
Systems change requires centering the leadership of those most impacted by injustice—including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities; immigrants; workers; 2SLGBTQIA+ people; women; and disabled, low-income, and marginalized communities. This Learning Community supports funders in doing the internal work to examine power, privilege, and practices that shape philanthropy.
Learning Community Goals:
- Learn about principles of long-term movement building for systems change from experienced practitioners and through the examination of successful examples in food systems context.
- Better understand investment needs and funding practices that center the leadership of impacted communities, support movement building, and community-led food systems transformation.
- Learn and exchange best practices to increase frontline and grassroots organizations’ capacity (e.g., time, financial resources, communications infrastructure) so they can build leadership and power within the broader movement ecosystem.
- Explore the importance of organizing across the capital spectrum and across different issue areas (e.g., health, food, climate, environment) in alignment with frontline communities of color and movement organizations.
All SAFSF members are welcome, especially those newer to movement-building or movement-aligned grantmaking. If you are interested in exploring membership, please contact our membership team.