I recently had a conversation with a volunteer at a food pantry who voiced frustration that the organization didn’t seem to be thinking about the client experience. They observed that volunteers were being discouraged from restocking empty shelves even when there was ample food, and that clients were told they should “come earlier” to get high-demand items rather than asking volunteers to help meet their needs.
Due to a shortage of help, leadership was seeking to increase efficiency and reduce the demands on volunteers. As a result, clients were exasperated and volunteers fearful that the shopping experience was increasingly humiliating and disrespectful.
I understand these decisions and why they happen. Managing a pantry’s food supply in all its complexity is exhausting and takes careful juggling, rapid assessment, and confidence in your instincts. (Overseeing food flow is one of my favorite parts of pantry operations- it’s an art form!)
The nonprofit sector is intimately aware that volunteer rates are decreasing. While many organizations experienced a surge in volunteering during the pandemic when unemployment was high, most have now returned to work and cut back on their service.
As a result, food pantries are rethinking their operations to run with less help, and the primary way to do that is by increasing efficiency. While it is an essential component of any institution, this volunteer’s concerns demonstrate how it can also subtract focus from the true mission of fighting hunger.
Why not efficiency?
Efficiency is all about achieving a goal with as little energy, waste, or effort as possible. In many businesses, this is important and logical. But when it comes to anti-hunger efforts, it’s vital to remember what your organization is really hoping to achieve. If our mission is to end hunger, then efficiency may not be the best path forward.
There is an intensely emotional component of using food assistance. It can feel incredibly vulnerable to ask for help.
I’ve heard hundreds of stories from people who had a negative experience at a food pantry and chose to go without food rather than risk such treatment again. Even worse, individuals may internalize the idea that they must undergo disrespect to deserve this help (“I need to be grateful for whatever I can get”).
Both experiences are unacceptable.
How can food pantries ensure that they are not sacrificing the client experience in favor of efficiency?
The most important component is to develop an organizational culture that prioritizes dignity and intentionality. Food pantries with cultures that concentrate on the client experience empower their volunteers to go the extra mile for individuals walking through their doors.
Whatever your goal is, here’s how to examine the balance of efficiency and dignity within your organization:
- Are you trying to serve as many clients as possible, or ensure that your visitors experience the best services you can provide?
- Are you giving clients as much food as you can, or prioritizing quality or their emotional experience?
- Do you seek to minimize the amount of work asked of volunteers, or encourage them to uplift shoppers?
- Do you ensure that clients all get the exact same items, or recognize their individual needs?
Unlike a for-profit business, the end goal does not justify the means. We’re not building food justice if clients leave feeling disrespected, neglected, or without the food their family needs to feel nourished and safe. We’re failing in our services if the volunteer experience sacrifices that of individuals seeking food assistance.
Negative volunteering experiences reduce the number of volunteers, which further pushes organizations to lean on efficiency over dignity. Without intervention, this produces an endless cycle that leaves neither clients nor volunteers feeling fulfilled or satisfied.
While we should always be brainstorming ways to improve food assistance, it’s important that we do so in ways that lift up food justice first, even at the expense of efficiency.
The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.
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Reintroducing justice and dignity to the fight to end hunger 
Oh wow! I can totally relate to this post. I shared my own experiences (begging for dignity) on my website conernng the lack of consideration for the dignity of the individual coming, tail between legs, seeking help. What is mor amazing to me are the number of others who gravitate to the outreach centers and take food and supplies they don’t need before those who truly need it are able to arrive! Selfishness and human nature often foil the best intentions of those who really deserve a helping hand up…
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I actually believe that no one takes food they don’t need (and more importantly, we have no idea what anyone else needs). Everyone has different food needs to feel nourished and safe, and especially when people are living with a scarcity mindset, they are likely to take more. This isn’t a bad thing or a symptom of greed or an effort to manipulate the system- it’s a natural reaction to the fear, risk and vulnerability that comes from hunger. Just because it’s more food than they could eat in a day/week/whatever doesn’t mean that it isn’t offering them security and confidence. It is a hard exercise, but building food security starts with examining and reassessing our own personal judgements and biases about people who use food assistance, since most of what we’ve been taught to believe is wrong.
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What I had said hopefully did not cause offense. It was far from the intention.
I partially agree with you about the prejudice perception. It often comes from outside observation by those who have never lived with lack. As flawed human beings, we tend to judge those who line up at soup kitchens as people who are just “lazy” or “just need to get a job”, which isn’t always the case.
And the solution to changing such perceptions isn’t a simple one. Hopefully this more expansive comment will make more clear what my shorter one meant.
What I speak of is not just about the prejudice of thought. I have none as I was once one of those in the food lines. It was humiliating, and eye-opening.
Those who pass judgement do not realize that they themselves may be but one paycheck or tragedy away from joining those in those soup lines. It isn’t right for us to have such a perspective about another individual.
However, there are other issues in my original comment that didn’t get fully expressed in a short comment above. And that is that there are the bold few ones who do purposefully (and sometimes professionally) take advantage of charities for their own personal gain.
One such spun a deception about their living circumstances, and tried to get two different charities to give them housing and money. They were caught in the lie.
Another saw a newsletter decades ago that came across the desk of a state legislator in which the homeless were coordinating ways to increase revenue from their panhandling efforts by getting a dog. The public, they found, would be sorry for the dog and be more generous to the owner.
They aren’t the majority, thankfully. So all who come should be treated as if their need is real. In the words of Robert Cardinal Sarah, it is better to give to a deceiver than to not give to someone who really might be in need.
There are many friends and others I know of who are going about bringing to light the problems of the homeless and hungry as you are. Most of the truly hurting people who come aren’t asking for money, new houses or cars. Nor are they requesting anything but the basic necessities. They come just to know that their life has meaning, even if it comes in the form of a plate of food or clean underwear. That they really matter.
But once those basic needs are met, we cannot stop there. The psychological, physiological, and/or financial issues must be dealt with as well. Without those components, the person seeking help may never know that they can rise up out of their darkness, let alone be able to have the chance to do so.
Even if none of that changes their external situation, just knowing that they are important can change their interior world.
That all comes through getting to know them, their story, their inner needs. Then provide them the assistance (hopefully, through coordinated charities and volunteers) to help them overcome the obstacles either they or others have set in their path to keep them from moving forward.
We fail at helping the whole human being in the west. We often give money, clothes, housing, or food, but forget that we must understand what makes each one of those poor human beings tick. Everyone has individual needs. And food is only one component of the whole.
For those of us who were able to overcome our circumstances, it took far more than just the material needs being met. It took the love of someone to tell us that we mattered. They showed us by sharing their lives with us and wrapping their arms around us with compassion. Then gently showing us a way out.
If we are willing, we can take the path out of our own darkness. Even then, only if we know for certain that what is being offered by someone else isn’t simply rhetoric, but real Love in action towards us as an individual.
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