A restaurant, supermarket or food bank has a dozen pallets of bananas to give away, but it’s unclear which food shelf, senior center or Boys and Girls club has the capacity to store so many perishables on short notice. In comes Food Connect, a technology platform that serves as matchmaker of sorts between surplus food donors and charitable recipients, helping each one to screen the other’s needs and supplies in real-time before linking both sides with a delivery driver.

The nonprofit, which might be likened to the E-Harmony or Match.com of surplus food and charitable giving, already uses online profiles to connect food donors to organizations in Kansas City, Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay Area. Simone Hardeman-Jones, founding executive director of the GreenLight Fund Twin Cities, is ready to put $600,000 in seed money toward launching Food Connect in the Twin Cities metro, starting by hiring a director for the new-to-Minnesota nonprofit in early 2025.Think of the GreenLight Fund as venture capitalism for nonprofits looking to break into new markets, and Food Connect as their next big gamble.

“One in eight Minnesotans are food insecure,” said Hardeman-Jones, who worked with a 22-member selection committee to determine that Food Connect should expand into the state.

The committee examined “the continuous rise across Minnesota of food shelf visits — 7.5 million visits in 2023, and we’re projected to hit 9 million in 2024,” she said. “Connecting with residents who are impacted by food insecurity, what we really realized was that there was a very strong ecosystem … but gaps in equitable access and systems that connect surplus food.”

GreenLight Fund Twin Cities launched in 2020 with $5 million in corporate and philanthropic donations, with offices based in downtown Minneapolis in the Greater Twin Cities United Way building. The fund was founded in Boston in 2004 by venture capitalist John Simon and nonprofit executive Margaret Hall, and it now operates in 11 cities, including Chicago, Kansas City, Detroit and Cincinnati.

Since then, it has brought two nonprofits to the area. In 2022, Let Everyone Advance with Dignity landed on the Lake Street corridor in Minneapolis, where it connects non-violent offenders to potential employers, case managers and others, with the goal of reducing recidivism rates.

Since 2023, another nonprofit, IRTH, has run a smartphone app that hosts reviews of prenatal, birthing, postpartum and pediatric care written by Black and brown women. The two organizations operate out of Pillsbury United Communities headquarters on Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis and the city of Minneapolis Lake Street Safety Center, respectively.

“All of the organizations that we bring into the Twin Cities have been working in other communities across the country,” Hardeman-Jones said. “(They) have proven impacts in other parts of the country. We want to understand what exists already in our nonprofit ecosystem, and then what’s missing. We want to fill that gap.”

100,000 lbs. of food in four years

To select Food Connect, Hardeman-Jones relied on input from a 22-member advisory committee that included St. Paul journalist Georgia Fort, founder of BLCK Press; Eric Petersen, who works in intergovernmental relations for St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter; former Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton; state Sen. Clare Verbeten, DFL-St. Paul; and Charlotte Johnson, recently of the Otto Bremer Trust.

During the next four years, Food Connect will receive $600,000 in seed funding from the GreenLight Fund, raised from foundations and corporations throughout the Twin Cities. After a director is hired, the nonprofit will likely contract drivers and possibly hire a second team member down the line to assist the director.

The goal for Food Connect is to collaborate with organizations like Youthprise, Feeding Frogtown and Keystone Community Services to serve more than 20,000 residents over the next four years. That includes distributing nearly 100,000 pounds of food — of which about 70,000 pounds would be surplus food that would otherwise go to waste — using online profiles to match food donors to recipient organizations.

Food Connect is also expected to work with both Hennepin County and Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy on food-related pilot programs.

Hardeman-Jones said she’ll offer help with networking and strategic guidance, as she has with the other two nonprofits greenlit by the GreenLight Fund Twin Cities.

“I spend a lot of time supporting that work, and ensuring that it’s impactful and successful for the long-term, and bringing in other supporters to ensure that work is sustainable for the long-term,” she said. “We really want to hit the ground running in January. There are some partnerships that have formed already.”