Our Impact

By powering the ideas and innovations of local leaders, we help move our food systems toward efficiency, inclusiveness, and sustainability.
coral circle
volunteer food items

How do we
measure progress?

No single metric can define our progress. The number of food banks we support, the number of people who access food from a partner food bank, and the number of community service organizations strengthened through food bank partnerships—these all point to the impact we’ve made, but that’s not all.

We also measure our success by listening to feedback from GFN member food banks—about our quality, depth, and breadth of our services. Because for us, when GFN partners meet the markers of success that they’ve defined for themselves, that’s also what progress looks like. And we point to the range of deep relationships we’ve built with partners in the corporate sector, governments, academia, and more as evidence of impact—because no one organization can solve food insecurity alone.

With our partners, we create lasting change—and you can see some of that change captured in the following data, which represents GFN and member food bank activity from calendar year 2021.

*The following data represents GFN and food bank member activity from CY2021.
39 million
People Served
59,000
community service organizations strengthened
eggs
317,000 volunteers provided
8 million hours
of support
bags of beans
Fernando Mendoza, Executive Director, Red Argentina de Bancos de Alimentos
We are very happy to have been part of the birth of GFN, together with Mexico, Canada, and the United States 15 years ago, and to see the enormous growth of the global Network, which today connects food banks in more than 40 countries around the world. We have to continue working to recover and deliver food to more and more people on the entire planet.
boxed food goods

Our Track Record

Since 2006, GFN has provided food banks with the knowledge and support they need to be successful. GFN accelerates the impact of the Network by offering services that drive efficiency and scalability, which leads to an increase in nutritious food distribution. This has led to strategic food bank growth and expansion in nearly 50 countries.
Since our beginning, we have:
Granted approximately
$42.7 million
to food banks.
Trained and guided more than
580 food bankers
at the annual Food Bank Leadership Institute.
Connected food banks in more than
50 countries.

Lasting Food Systems Change

GFN has supported the launch of new food banks in approximately 20 countries.
In 2021, GFN started the New Food Bank Development Program to help even more visionary local leaders improve food access in their communities through food banking.
In 2020, GFN members operated 38 child hunger programs.
GFN’s Child Hunger Program helps food banks establish, develop, and expand programs that provide food access and supporting services to children, adolescents, and mothers facing food insecurity. We offer technical assistance, information, resources, and links to partner organizations, experts, and best practices.
More than 25 GFN members partner with farmers to provide fresh fruit and vegetables.
Through agricultural recovery programs, food banks partner with local farmers to ensure fresh, wholesome but unsalable produce is distributed to people facing hunger. GFN connects food banks interested in starting these programs to other food banks that are already running thriving agricultural recovery programs, in addition to providing technical support.
Read Our FY2022 Annual Report: Transforming Food Systems. Building Resilient Communities.