The Nominating Committee serves to recruit and nominate an annual slate of new directors willing and able to serve. The committee assesses current and anticipated needs related to board composition, including consideration of both organizational and individual diversity of expertise, skills, influence, background, and other elements deemed appropriate for the strength and success of SAFSF. The committee is responsible for communicating directly to the network about the criteria and opportunities available.

The committee is chaired by a member of the board and includes at least one additional director. Additional members of the committee must be current SAFSF members.

Meetings are convened as needed to accomplish the nomination process, approximately two to three (2-3) times a year. New directors are presented to the board at the May board meeting to start their term as of June 1, unless required on a different timetable to fill vacant seats.

DR. M. JAHI CHAPPELL is the Director of the Center for Regional Food Systems at Michigan State University. He is a scholar, organizer, son of social workers, and grandson of Michigan farmers. From 2020-2022, he served as the Executive Director of the Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network, or SAAFON, which offers direct support and organizing for Black, sustainable farmers in the Southeastern United States and US Virgin Islands. Jahi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, both from the University of Michigan.

Over the past 20 years, Jahi has researched and advocated at international, national, and local levels for participatory, socially just, and ecologically sustainable agrifood systems that center the voices of farmers, laborers, and the communities they serve. Pursuing this goal has taken him across sectors and continents, including positions as Associate Professor of Agroecology at Coventry University in the United Kingdom, and as Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Justice at Washington State University Vancouver, where he also served as Associate Director of the Center for Social and Environmental Justice. In the nonprofit sector, Jahi has previously served as the Executive Director of the 46-year-old think tank Food First, and as Senior Scientist and Director of Agroecology and Agricultural Policy at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Additionally, he was a Founding Board member of the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI), and is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Agroecology Fund.

TIM CROSBY leads the Thread Fund that focuses on investing multiple forms of capital to generate social and environmental returns alongside financial returns. Tim is Coordinator of the Cascadia Foodshed Financing Project, participant in the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, founding board member Partners for Rural Washington, and a partner with Social Venture Partners. Tim’s previous work includes Co-Chair for the Sustainable Agriculture and Food System Funders, Director of Slow Money Northwest, Board Chair for the Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network, Board Chair and Interim Executive Director for NW Sustainable Energy for Economic Development, Program Officer and Trustee for the Carolyn Foundation, and fifteen years as a professional photographer and graphic designer. Tim coached club soccer for eleven years and lives in Edmonds with his wife and two daughters. He holds an MBA in Sustainable Business from Pinchot University and a BA in Anthropology from Kenyon College. Tim will talk fly fishing with anyone.

KAYING HANG serves on the executive team for Sierra Health Foundation and is president of The Center. In this role, Kaying has authority over The Center’s operations and strategy.

She joined the foundation in 2013. A native Hmong speaker, Kaying received a bachelor of arts degree from Brandeis University and a master’s in public health from Boston University. Originally from Minnesota’s Twin Cities, she is the oldest of seven children and comes from a refugee family dedicated to social justice and racial equity. She and her family are proud to call Sacramento home.

MARK MULLER serves as the executive director at the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation. He came to RAF in March 2020 after spending over 20 years working on related issues including agricultural conservation, Midwest water quality, racial equity in the food system, and effective federal food and agricultural policy.

Mark served as director of the Mississippi River program at the McKnight Foundation, and prior to that he directed the Food & Community Fellows program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. He also spent two years teaching high school in New York City and 18 months volunteering in Honduras and Guatemala. He and his spouse and three children live in south Minneapolis.

MICHAEL (MIKE) ROBERTS, Tlingit, returned to the First Nations Development Institute as president in 2005 after serving as their COO from 1997 to 2002. First Nations works to strengthen and build a strong foundation for American Indian-controlled economies that support healthy Native communities.

In the interim Mike spent five years in private equity; he has also worked for Alaska Native corporations, and for local IRA councils, primarily in accounting and finance. Mike has taught at the MBA program of the Bloch School of Business at the University of Missouri Kansas City and at the Haskell Indian Nations University. He holds an MBA from the University of Washington with an emphasis in finance and operations management and a Bachelor’s of Environmental Design Degree in Architecture from the University of Colorado.

JEN ZUCKERMAN comes to the World Food Policy Center after eleven years at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation. Jen joined the BCBSNC Foundation in June 2006, where for ten years she served as the Senior Program Officer for Healthy Living, focusing on increasing access to safe active environments and on providing sources for healthy, locally sourced food, with a commitment to early childhood development and food systems.

In her most recent role with the Foundation, she served as the Director of Strategic Partnerships, which focused on spread and scale of best practice in healthy living initiated in North Carolina as well as bringing resources outside of North Carolina into the state for the benefit of improving the health and well being of North Carolinians. Prior to the Foundation, Jen administered federal and state grants at NC State University’s Recreation Resources Service where she worked with parks and recreation agencies across the state to help develop partnerships for the benefit of community health. Jen’s has also worked in a cross section of North Carolina nonprofits.

She currently serves as the Chair of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems Advisory Board, Vice-Chair of the National Academies of Medicine Early Childhood Innovation Collaborative, co-chair of the Steering Committee of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food System Funders Network and on the Board of Directors of the Triangle Land Conservancy and Jamie Kirk Hahn Foundation. Jen has also served on the Steering Committee for the North Carolina Institute of Medicine Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Task Force and the Statewide Prevention Task Force. She earned her undergraduate and masters degrees from NC State University in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management.