In 2012, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) updated school meal requirements to reflect the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Many schools initially struggled with these new meal requirements but found ways to adjust. However, legislative and administrative actions delayed the full implementation of milk, whole grain and sodium requirements. Additionally, the disruption of regular school meal services during the COVID-19 pandemic decreased many students’ access to meals.
This is the context in which the Illinois Public Health Institute (IPHI) launched the new Lake Michigan School Food System Innovation Hub (Innovation Hub) program as part of the USDA Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative.
IPHI’s proposal to the USDA emphasized the critical need for the multistate project team to design and implement a project that could help address communities’ varied nutrition challenges. With organizations serving in each of the four Innovation Hub states—Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin—as “State Leads,” as well as national and local nonprofit organizations, the partners decided to launch a committee that would develop a distinctive Request for Applications (RFA) for the Innovation Hub.
In order to ensure that the program design focused on communities that could benefit most from school food system innovation, the partners endeavored to create an RFA-Development Committee composed of at least 51 percent members who represented potential grantees, and less than 50 percent of the State Lead and Innovation Hub staff. By focusing on shared interests and collaboration, the RFA-Development Committee created an RFA over the course of five months and released it in February 2024.
Level Setting: A Collaborative Approach to RFA Development
Across all the members of the Innovation Hub’s RFA-Development Committee is a shared trend of exemplary individuals leveraging their personal experiences—and the experiences of
others—to foster change in food systems. For Kathryn Bernstein, the Director of the Innovation
Hub, this mindset is exactly what drew her to the USDA’s grant opportunity in the first place. She saw its alignment with her greater work done with the Illinois Alliance to Promote Opportunities for Health (IAPOH) at IPHI:
“IPHI has developed innovative grantmaking approaches that engage community partners and potential applicants to assist with the design of grant programs and selection of grantees. This ensures a process that meets real-life, community-identified needs.”
The committee’s creative consideration during the RFA-development process is noteworthy. They engaged consultants who worked with the farms, food businesses and school districts they aimed to serve.
“Only one consultant [per state] was not enough,” said public health advocate and community organizer Tatiana Maida. “[Tokenism] is harmful to the process.” The group pushed to ensure more than half of the committee would represent all the people, organizations and businesses within the school food system.
Grants and Contracts Manager Mariela Medina highlighted some additional challenges the RFA Development Committee faced in striving to make sure community voices were heard while also ensuring all grant requirements were met. As a solution, IPHI engaged two independent consultants, Rachel Gooen and Kim Gilchrist, to play a neutral convening role and move the group through difficult conversations.
Familiar with challenges faced within dynamic working groups, Rachel outlined the conflicting reality of “verbal contracts built off a network or professional relationship versus actually constructing a working group aimed at getting the legwork done for the project at hand.” Rachel and Kim were vital mediators, constantly emphasizing the importance of realistic goal-setting and trust-building among committee members to achieve their objectives effectively.
Defining Other RFA Components
When developing an RFA, “getting on the same page” as a working group of experts is only half the battle. There also needs to be clarity behind the content, themes and ideas discussed in the work.
Tatiana emphasized the importance of “having good conversations.” She also highlighted “getting back to the ‘why’ behind the program,” focusing the RFA’s development on the initial “mission statement of this project.” Difficult and intentional conversations held among working partners illustrated the importance of dialogue in community-focused initiatives.
This approach was also integral in the committee’s development of other RFA components aimed at creating a fair opportunity for all applicants, such as allowing both written and audio responses from applicants, as well as the creation of short, informational videos, and offering technical assistance support.
Progress and Lessons Learned
With the inaugural cohort of Innovation Hub grantees announced and their projects just getting started, it’s time to look back on how a collective of public health leaders, community organizers, educators, parents, public servants and school food system change advocates successfully started an effort to strengthen the Lake Michigan K-12 food system and improve schools’ access to the nourishing food they need to thrive.
To help shed light on their innovative approach and how this collective came together, interviews were conducted with seven members from the Innovation Hub’s RFA-Development Committee: Kathryn Bernstein, MPH, RDN, LDN (IPHI), Mariela Medina (IPHI), Jenna Kaczmarski, MPH, RDN (Action for Healthy Kids), Tatiana Maida (healthTIDE), J.R. Reynolds (author of Something Bigger Than Ourselves), Rachel Gooen, MS, MSW (Rachel Gooen Consulting) and Kim Gilchrist, MS (KG Consulting LLC). From their responses, it is clear that the Innovation Hub’s RFA-Development Committee has shown how innovative systems change can only occur when there is a shared commitment to community-driven approaches.
The Committee underscored critical lessons from their experiences, including:
- Have a full grasp on what grant funders require and simplify this information for the intended audience.
- Acknowledge that this grant’s target audience are individuals who may have limited experience applying for grants.
- Seek out new thought partners and skilled experts who bring important, unheard perspectives to the discussion.
- Balance a team by establishing familiarity. This includes understanding the different levels of expertise on an ad-hoc team, creating a welcoming environment, and recalibrating meeting structure to build authentic trust.
- Take a community-centric approach—especially when making important decisions—by uplifting people doing “hands-on” work as guiding consultants.
- Build out a timeline, determine clear methods of communication, and share enough background information to get everyone on the same page.
“Move at the speed of trust. We were operating on the timeline we originally proposed. But ultimately, we decided to request a revised timeline because we couldn’t do the work effectively with the timeline we were operating within.”
— Kathryn Bernstein
Having worked in school food systems since 2004, Jenna Kaczmarski, Program Manager with Action for Healthy Kids, said:
“We each have a unique set of life experiences that help us contribute to a process like this. We feel like we need to have all the answers, but in reality, each of us brings value to the table, and the only things we need to do are contribute and share our voice and help uplift the voices of others.”
Envisioning the Future: Beyond the Next Five Years
The Lake Michigan School Food System Innovation Hub’s Committee is laying the groundwork for a healthier future for all students and a stronger system for the people who feed them. Their journey is a testament to the power of collaboration in overcoming systemic barriers and creating meaningful change in food access and nutrition.
This effort has paid off! IPHI received applications from a variety of organizations aligned with the Innovation Hub goals. After hosting a series of listening sessions, the Innovation Hub team learned that, overall, the RFA felt accessible and that applicants of all backgrounds felt well-supported to apply.
As the Innovation Hub prepares to launch its next cycle, committee members express hope for sustainability and growth. Both Kathryn and Mariela also hope this adventure will go beyond strengthening the local school food system to supporting the achievement of greater health and well-being across the Lake Michigan region—and by sharing best practices, even across the country.
Right now, there is no way of knowing for sure how the Innovation Hub will transform over these next four years. Only our future Stories of Innovation will tell. Though, one thing is clear: this work cannot be done alone. If you are interested in getting involved with the Innovation Hub’s future development, please get in touch.