TJ's Response to Post Kick-off Next Steps

Actionable hypotheses about improving the food system collaboratively ~ High-impact/high-feasibility outcomes that are systemic, measurable versus peers, and yield specific tactics ~ Collaboration platforms

Thanks so much for all of your and others’ work in getting this great resource started. At the risk of raising my hand too soon as a newcomer to this conversation, I figured I’d add a few thoughts.  

1. I agree with Sue’s point about keeping this as pragmatic as possible, and I think one way to do that is to first work as a group towards actionable hypotheses about improving the food system collaboratively – and then consider how a formal plan might help move things forward. That way, we shift some of the planning process onto the group – and therefore force early discussions about priorities, tradeoffs, and implementation concerns.
2. The food ecosystem website has a good placeholder for targeted outcomes, and I’m wondering if there exists any rough alignment in this group in terms of some high-impact/high-feasibility outcomes to target across the system. For possible discussion later, but some ideas might include:
   1. Good food production: Raising local food consumption from 1% to a peer-average of X% (could be better phrased in terms of local food production, but the local demand is a big piece)
   2. Affordability: Increasing SNAP participation from 58% to the nationwide average of X%; supporting F/V incentive roll-out in retail stores in X zip codes
   3. Investment: Facilitating $X increase in private investments into the food system
   4. Advocacy: Adopting city policy X
3. The examples above are likely wrong, but I like that each is systemic (i.e. potentially changes private sector incentives at scale), measurable versus peers (i.e. we are likely to find quicker wins in the areas where we lag in relative terms), and can yield some specific tactics (i.e. good food production may mean farmland preservation, food hub development, or other). Ideally this would not only be a list of the specific mission statements of each group involved in the early conversations. 

 
Finally, Curt and team, a couple resources that may be helpful with collaboration (happy to help or brainstorm as desired):

• Slack, which others may already use within their organizations, can sometimes be a better fit than email for ongoing collaboration within a community – in addition to acting as a hub for sharing articles, brief updates, hellos, etc. It may also be more conducive to engagement than traditional website message board formats, and it can be good for incorporating both smaller group chats and broad/transparent chats.
• Community Commons may be worth considering as you eventually consider a v2.0 website; they have built similar collaboration hubs and mapping tools for other initiatives. I love the current website though, and I agree with your lean, rapid prototyping approach to start.

 
Thanks all!
TJ