Fast Break: Philanthropy in Action-Small Business, Big Impact

Welcome to the Fast Break. Today I have the privilege of interviewing Michelle Orge, the CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Southern Wisconsin, and Beth Dettman, CFO at M3 Insurance and also a board member at Second Harvest. Did you know that one in 12 people in Southwestern Wisconsin face hunger, including one in eight kids, according to data shared by Feeding America.

Second Harvest plays a vital role in fighting this crisis, providing food and resources to those in need. As Michelle herself has said, hunger isn’t just about empty stomachs. It’s about lost potential in unrealized dreams.

Second Harvest plays a vital role in fighting hunger in our community, and we’re going to delve into how philanthropy supports their mission and impacts those they serve and why it’s such an important topic for businesses of all sizes to engage in. So Michelle, maybe you can tell us a little bit about.

01:00 Michelle

I have been in food banking for about 25 years now. This time here at Second Harvest Food Bank of Southern Wisconsin. I just passed five years my, five year anniversary. Prior to this, I was at a food bank in Colorado and prior to that in Michigan. So food banking is something that I’ve been doing for a while and I’ve seen it change a lot over the years.

And it’s been a really great thing to see how it’s evolved and how we are looking at things in new ways. And we have some work to do yet, but it’s something that I really believe in and I’m really proud to be part of this work and to work with a lot of great folks, partners, board members, volunteers and donors.

01:39 Matt

Well, we’re so excited to have you with us today, Beth. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

01:43 Beth

Matt, thank you for shedding the light on this great organization, Second Harvest. As you said, I am a board member of Second Harvest, but I serve as the Chief Financial Officer serving through insurance and not only do I foster you know, key client relationships and professional services, I also help with the Community relationships that M3 has through our M3 foundation and I serve on that board as well.

02:07 Matt

So a little bit more about Second Harvest for our audience before we dive into some questions. Second Harvest is the largest hunger relief organization in southwestern Wisconsin with a network of partners and dedicated volunteers. They provide food and resources to individuals and families facing food insecurity. They believe that everyone in our community that have equal access to nutritious, affordable and culturally meaningful food.

Through their core services of food acquisition and storage, food distribution and food share outreach, they provide those facing hunger in our Community access to enough nutritious food to thrive. So with that, let’s dive into our questions to start us off, Michelle, maybe in addition to some of the highlights I shared. Is there anything else that you would like to tell us, provide us an overview if you will, of Second Harvests mission and the scope of your work in southwestern Wisconsin?

03:03 Michelle

Second Harvest mission is to end hunger in southwestern Wisconsin, and our vision is community, where everyone has enough nutritious food to thrive. We currently focus on strategies towards nutrition, security, and food equity.

And we recognize that aside from food itself, there are root causes of hunger and being aware of these allows us to do our work with intention towards addressing those root causes, some of those root causes being access to affordable housing, affordable healthcare, living wages, and ultimately addressing systemic racism. We’re a connector, and while we have some direct programs such as Mobile Pantries, School Markets, Food Share or SNAP outreach, healthcare partnerships and other work.

A bigger proportion of what we currently do is supporting a network of partners throughout Southwestern Wisconsin. And I mentioned root causes, but a lot of what we do is that actual food movement and supporting partners who might work directly with those root causes as well.

We source and gather food resources from many places. We rescue tons and tons of food every day and food rescue is getting food that’s surplus or might have a short shelf life. It’s still great. It’s still food that can be used and we connect that with folks through our partner agencies. But our work is a lot of behind the scenes work we are a bit of a clearing house from lots and lots of sources. Retailers, distributors, farmers, manufacturers, national regional local sources, we get that food to our distribution center here in Madison. We sort it, we inspect it, we repackage it, reconfigure it into family ready portions and then we get that out to our network of partners and programs throughout 16 counties in southwestern Wisconsin.

04:43 Matt

That’s so awesome and obviously so important, you know, one of the Michelle key questions that we think about at M3 sometimes is you know, if we didn’t exist, who would care? And we want that to sort of influence kind of the people that we serve and the ways that we make our decisions. Hoping Michelle, that you could maybe share some stories that illustrate the impact. Second Harvest is making on those partner agencies or the lives of the people who would care an awful lot if Second Harvest didn’t exist.

05:13 Michelle

A lot of folks think have those the image in their mind, maybe during the pandemic of the drone footage of a lot of cars outside of pantries and other places waiting for food and that no contact delivery. And that certainly was had a lot of visual impact folks. We are well beyond the need and the distribution and request for food from the pandemic. Our partners you’re seeing two to three times the request for food in the last year or so, that’s well above the pandemic. It’s just maybe not as visually impactful because folks, it’s not no contact distribution anymore.

When we think about our why statement here at Second Harvest, we believe that hunger makes everything harder. That lies to be changed with food and that there’s enough food for everyone. And when I think about hunger making everything harder, no matter where or why, you think folks, their reasons why folks, may be food insecure. Wherever they are in their in their lives and their in their paths and their journeys towards whatever is next for them. They need food. They need food today. Everything’s harder without food.

And so when folks sometimes think about well, ‘food insecurity is it’s happening to someone else.’ When a kid is space included, security when they haven’t had enough to then when they haven’t had a nutritious breakfast. They’re certainly affected by food insecurity. But if your kid is in a classroom with that kid, then the teacher is going to be spending extra time with the kid who might be able to focus. And so food insecurity affects us all in one way or another, and if you have a coworker who may be facing food insecurity and we folks might not even know this. But if you have a coworker you can affected by food insecurity. That coworker may not be as focused. They may not be able to contribute as much. They might not be at work as much. They may have health issues, they lots of different things. And so you are affected as a coworker, and you might have to, you know, help out a little bit more. You are affected by food insecurity, in that way.

Your neighbors, your healthcare costs, so many things are affected by food insecurity and so if you may think that this is, this is happening to someone else and that makes you care and it’s really important and you can contribute.

But actually, it does affect you because it’s happening in our schools, in our workplaces, in our communities, in our hospitals, everywhere. So, the stories are everywhere and without food today, it makes everything harder. But it has a compounding effect on everyone.

07:34 Matt

Thank you so much for setting it up that way. I think you know when I think about hunger and the pieces that I’ve learned, it’s really a challenge that it, it can be very quiet, right or not easy to see because it’s not like we walk around with, you know signs over our head to tell us how hungry we are or when our last nutritious meal happened and yet to your point, the impacts of it just ripple beyond anything that you can imagine. And so that’s what I think makes you know your work so, so critical. And I love how you lay it out that you know, hunger just makes everything harder.

08:07 Michelle

There are varying degrees of it too. Not everybody needs food every day. Some folks might need it a couple of times a year, once a month. Some folks might need more at certain times, some folks might need it this year and not next year. It’s there’s different intensities, different frequencies, different reasons. There’s, there’s a lot that goes into it, and folks don’t like to talk about it.

Folks don’t always graduate from food and security. It can be cyclical. It can be sporadic; it can be one. Car repair can put you into a situation where your food is secure. It’s really tough for folks to have resources they need to stay stable.

08:46 Matt

Beth, I want to come to you on this. This next one, maybe a misconception people have about philanthropy. It is, they believe, the term really just means financial giving. That is a huge part of philanthropy. But I’m hoping maybe you can share some of the ways people can support Second Harvest’s mission maybe even just beyond the financial contribution, if that’s maybe not, you know, people are not in a place in their lives where that’s either possible or, you know, they’re giving in other places. Can you speak to that a little bit?

09:14 Beth

The first example that comes to mind is when you and me and about 15 other M3ers went to the food distribution center couple months ago where we sorted produce, we weighed food. We labeled canned vegetables, and we repackaged them all back up for various deliveries for Second Harvest.

And you don’t have to put a big group together like we did, because I think even that particular day, there were two or three other individuals that signed up online to fill that max slot. And they worked alongside our energetic loud group and we all got along. I think it’s an individual and a group opportunity. And Matt, do you have any idea what the volunteer percentage of Second Harvest workforce is?

09:56 Matt

I don’t. I’m hoping you can tell our audience, Beth.

09:59 Beth

Volunteers make up over 30% of Second Harvest workforce, so let’s just say that if you have a skill, they most likely can use it. Other skills than packing, and you know putting labels on cans are in a passion for governance, finance or even fundraising. You can sit on a board or committee.

So in addition, I would wager that one of those food pantries that Michelle just talked about most likely resides within your community and they too can use packers, sorters, drivers, they can use drivers and governance oversight.

10:32 Matt

Beth referenced our team going over there and working, you know for the afternoon and I can confidently say, I think we certainly got more from the experience than we were able to give back to Second Harvest. Beth’s absolutely right. If you’ve got a time where willingness to do that, that’s a definitely a great way to think about philanthropy.

Michelle, I want to come back to you. You know a key part of Second Harvest’s approach is that you work with a network of partner agencies, and you see yourself as a connector. Can you explain the importance of collaboration and connection in the fight against hunger and how philanthropy and supports those partnerships.

11:08 Michelle

Matt, how many partners and programs would you think that Second Harvest has in our 16 county region?

11:15 Matt

I love I, as Beth will tell you, Michelle, I love games, so this is like immediately my favorite episode we’ve ever done at the fast break. OK, how many partners 50, 50 partners?

11:26 Michelle

Nope, it’s higher than that.

11:27 Matt

OK, one more guess. Let’s do 100.

11:30 Michelle

It’s 300 partner programs in Southwestern Wisconsin. These are partners that are in all of our 16 counties, their mission may be solely to provide food, but more often than not they have other missions to help folks with healthcare, housing, childcare, mental health support, many other different things to help folks with the challenges and barriers and successes that they are experiencing.

And we are there to provide food to them so that they can accomplish their mission. And the collaboration, you know, we Second Harvest cannot do this on our own. We are part of a network and we aim to use our infrastructure, our strengths in food sourcing, our strengths in, in getting resources to our partners. So that when we provide food at no cost or through some purchasing programs to our partners, then any money that we’re saving them is money that they can spend on their missions, and that’s how we can leverage and amplify magnify the work of philanthropy.

 When folks provide resources to Second Harvest for food, we have this, our infrastructure, our buying power, our sourcing power allows us to get more food out to the Community. It allows us to be we’re a very good food investment. If folks support second hardest, we can get more food out to the community and the community can do their work. And so it’s food. But the food also supports those root causes. Those other missions of those partners.

And so we believe that we’re a really excellent food investment, so if you provide funds to us, we provide food support to 300 partners and programs. This does not mean that if you have a dollar that you should just give it to Second Harvest. It means that we hope that you have $2.00 that $1.00 comes a Second Harvest and $1.00 goes to our partners because those partners need the funding for other things as well.

Partners need support. We need support. But as far as food resources, we are a really good investment for that and the food resources become more than food because it supports missions in other ways. That’s how we feel collaboration is really important and the work we do just amplifies out to the community into so many other ways, food and other things that the food money saves for our partners.

13:51 Matt

The rising tide floats all boats, right? And I’m sort of getting the image in my mind when you think about, you know, somebody supporting Second Harvest it. It’s kind of like, you know, dropping a rock in a pond and watching the ripples. So, to go out that the ripples go out further and farther than you could possibly imagine to other organizations and into our community. And so that’s just such a wonderful mindset to have, especially as you know, people have choices where they think about when they think about their dollars and they think about their philanthropy, either both as organizations listening to this, or just as individuals. So that’s awesome.

14:26 Michelle

Yeah our partnership has partners too. So it ripples beyond that as well. And so yeah, we want folks to, you know, give where their values and their beliefs and their heart are. But you know, there’s some system wide benefits to donating to one place that affects more other places. But we’re not asking folks to stop supporting our partners, but showing that supporting food through Second Harvest does have a wider effect.

14:53 Matt

So I’m curious, Michelle, as you as you look ahead, what are some of the future goals and initiatives that Second Harvest it is really excited about and how can philanthropy continue to fuel your impact in the years to come?

15:04 Michelle

We do a lot with food, but we know that food isn’t the only answer, but through food we can do a lot of great things and one of the things that we’re pretty excited about is this work we’re doing in our “Farm to Foodbank” initiative.

We understand that we’re going to not be able to get all the food that we source through donations. Previous to the pandemic, we were getting about 80% of our food through donations and 20% purchased.

The amount of food that we are aiming to distribute and is being requested is much higher now and donations are they don’t keep up with that not because folks are generous, but because there’s kind of a finite amount of donations out there, it’s often from surplus and other things. So the bucket that we’re trying to fill is much larger.

So right now it’s about 35 to 40% of the food that we’re distributing is coming through food purchases. And so when we think about, OK, how are we going to spend our money in a values aligned way and how can it do more than just get food.

We are aiming to find ways that we can leverage those purchases to do more and have value add. So what I’m what we’re doing is we’re purchasing as much as we can through local vendors, local users, local farmers and we purchased that at a reasonable market rate from them. So it supports the local farmers, local producers and businesses.

That in turn supports local economy for every dollar that we spend in a program like this, it’s about $1.65 – $1.70 in local economic impact and that helps our local economy. So when we’re purchasing food, we want that those purchases to have an additional effect on the economy. And so this this gets us great food. Food. It helps the economy, helps farmers, and so this is something we’re pretty excited about. It gets us local milk, eggs, proteins, other products as well.

But it’s not the most inexpensive way to source food, but we believe it’s a really important way because as we’re trying to make headway and move the needle on human security, we know again, it’s not just going to be about moving food, it’s how we move food, how we work within the community and how we have a bigger impact on things and this is one way we’re looking to do that.

17:22 Matt

You know, I’m sitting here and I’m, really enjoying our conversation. I’m learning a lot. And Beth, if you can put your hat on, maybe as you know, not a maybe as a board member, but as a business person. You know, works in M3 because if you could speak to our listeners who are likely small business owners or people in our community and they might be sitting here going, I want to do more with Second Harvest or I want to do more around this issue of food insecurity. What is the most impactful way you would encourage people to contribute to Second Harvest mission right now?

17:57 Beth

So it’s funny that you use the word impactful because the Foundation at M3 and internally with our community campaigns, we are trying to do impactful giving. There aren’t that many dollars to go around. So you know Mike Victorson our CEO has had us slow down, and do “Learn, Give, Do”. And we live by that.

So if I say ‘learn’. Let’s first learn, go to secondharvestsw.org, SW is for Southern Wisconsin, sign up for their newsletter, it’s called “Inside Scoop”.

Second Harvest has a fabulous media department and so you can learn about their needs, their events. There’s a lot of events going on, the issues. I feel that allows you to then more naturally share with others around you, what’s going on and you can speak to it. You never know. I think you might spark someone who may be looking for small ways to support their local community and you talking about an event might just be that spark.

For the “Give”, I would recommend that companies give recurring donations. Start small. Like Michelle said, somebody might only need to have food insecurity twice a year. Others might need it 365 days a year, so start small but make it a habit.

And then to “Do”. The biggest thing there is we want to be a community advocate for whatever it is that motivates enough food insecurity, how it affects everyone motivates us. Let’s get engaged. Be engaged. So one of the things that you can do is host a food or a fund drive yourself. Churches do it around Thanksgiving, M3 does it for “Share Your Holidays”. There’s just all different kinds of ways that the bottom line is be creative and start small.

19:43 Matt

Be creative, and start small. And if people have more interested in our “Learn, Give, Do”  framework, we’d be happy to engage or to chat about that as well because that is something that I think for our employees and our teammates is really resonated maybe more so than other things that we’ve done in in years past as a way for people to think about their own personal philanthropy as well as our corporate philanthropy. So Beth, thanks for laying that out really well.

OK. Michelle. Beth, thank you so much. That was a amazing conversation. But you’re not done yet. I can’t let you go yet because we’ve gotta jump into our fastest break set of questions to finish our time together.

And so we will do this rapid fire as always and I will give you a question. If you want to give me a one or two second response and then we’ll move on to the next one. So this is kind of our rapid fire. Alright, Michelle, I’m gonna come to you first favorite book that you’ve read in the last 12 months.

20:37 Michelle

In the last 12 months, The Advice Trap by Michael Bungay Stanier.

20:41 Matt

Ohh, sounds interesting, Beth. What about yours?

20:44 Beth

Strength to Strength by Arthur C Brooks. It’s navigating through the second-half of your our my career, you know, with the purpose.

20:54 Matt

Love it. I I can test that one great book. OK, complete the sentence. Michelle, for you, leadership is.

21:02 Michelle

Leadership is being able to step away at any given time without the business being affected. So if the team doesn’t have the knowledge, authority and confidence to cover all the bases and make great decisions, I haven’t done my job as a leader.

21:14 Matt

Beth, what about you?

21:16 Beth

Action with influence.

21:17 Matt

Love it. Michelle, can you share the most impactful coaching advice you’ve ever received?

21:22 Michelle

Even if I want to answer right away, I should wait about 10 seconds. It feels like forever, but in a group in Group settings, folks will speak up who don’t always do so, and even in one on ones, folks will share more of their thoughts than if you build the device, fill the space with in that awkward silence. It’s tough to do but.

21:42 Matt

Somebody who hates silence. That one resonates well with me. Beth, what about you?

21:48 Beth

Motivation. Excel at what motivates you.

21:51 Matt

I love that. OK, Michelle, your favorite podcast that you would recommend to our audience

21:55 Michelle

WorkLife with Adam Grant.

21:58 Matt

Oh, I love that one. Beth, what about you?

22:00 Beth

Probably not allowed to say true crimes.

22:02 Math

You can say whatever you want, Beth. This is a, you know, it’s we asked the question. We’re not telling what the answer should be.

22:08 Beth

I’m going to say Apples, I like Apple’s Daily News. You can get a lot of news that you wouldn’t normally get through Apple’s Daily News.

22:13 Matt

Yeah, it’s funny as we ask some of these questions again, we keep saying this, but you know, we were thinking maybe people would have these, like, crazy, exotic sort of, you know, books and podcasts and apps on the phone, and people are like I like the news, so lean into that show. What is your favorite “can’t live without it app” on your phone?

22:32 Michelle

“Calm” app. When I can’t get my mind to go to sleep at night. Story boring stories about the Transformers or Atlantis, is it real or not? Those help me to go to sleep.

22:47 Matt

Those help. I love it. I love it. Beth, what about you? Your favorite app?

22:51 Beth

Mine is maps any maps Google Maps, Waze,

22:54 Matt

Yep, Yep, I think maps is already doing the clubhouse across all the episodes we’ve done here. So OK, Michelle, last thing you did, the truly scared you?

23:00 Michelle

I wasn’t prepared for these ones. I think Beth and I talked about maybe these ones. But the last thing truly scared me is not being prepared.

23:10 Matt

There you go. It’s like a current answer, so. Beth what about you?

23:16 Beth

I was just on the Ferris wheel in on Navy Pier in Chicago and for some reason I was like, well, this is pretty high.

23:20 Matt

Ohh yeah, I hate those. I hate those. Well, that’s it. So Michelle is. No, no others coming. So you’re good. So before we wrap up today, I’m hoping maybe Michelle comes to you first. If people have listened today and things that you and Beth have talked about have really resonated with them and they’re thinking either about how to build a philanthropy strategy for their organization, they’re thinking personally about what they can do to help Second Harvest, and this issue of food insecurity. What is the best way that people can find out more about you, about Second Harvest, and what’s the best way for people to connect with you.

23:56 Michelle

Visiting our website at SecondHarvestSW.org or they can reach me through the website, contact us form or at michelle.orge@secondharvestsw.org

24:11 Matt

Awesome. Thank you. OK, Michelle, Beth, thank you so much for being willing to join me today for sharing your insights and your wisdom on this really critical and important topic. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.