It’s Time to Empower Leaders Who Know Hunger

I recently had the opportunity to consider a position as a leader in an anti-hunger organization, but it quickly became apparent that the priority skillset for this position was financial management rather than food security. I am incredibly confident that when the position is filled, it will be by a man with a background in banking or investing rather than nonprofits.

While I recognize the significant financial responsibilities of running an organization, I argue that it’s hard to solve a problem you don’t know much about.

This is one of the reasons why hunger policy so easily goes astray- it’s mostly written by people with no lived experience.

(To be clear, I don’t have lived experience of hunger either. This incident simply highlights for me the reality that this industry is one which rarely prioritizes leadership from subject matter experts.)

Modern day society generally accepts that people are wealthy and successful because of hard work and good choices, and that poverty results from laziness and failure. The result of this thinking is that we deliberately seek leadership from people we view as successful, which excludes anyone intimately familiar with poverty.

More than half of our Congress are millionaires– are we really surprised when they are ignorant of the burden of the cost of groceries or childcare?

This practice facilitates policy decisions based on how these wealthy individuals feel about hunger rather than the reality of the experience. It perpetuates solutions that are often inadequate, ineffective, and sometimes harmful to the people they intend to serve.

Luckily, we are in a time of transition in the movement to end hunger. In the last couple years, the field has made significant progress in uplifting the voices of people with lived experience. When we recognize that poverty is a societal, rather than individual problem, we can appreciate the incredible skills, strategies, and strength of people who live it.

Nonetheless, nonprofit leadership roles in the US continue to be dominated by wealthy, white individuals without lived experience of poverty or hunger.

The transition to elevate those with lived experience into leadership has been slow. This requires a redistribution of power, and few people or organizations relinquish their advantages willingly.

While running a nonprofit requires strong leadership and administrative experience, it’s time we broadened our definition of what a strong leader looks like to ensure we are uplifting the people most capable of addressing society’s biggest problems.

Instead of prioritizing financial success in our leaders and hiring anti-hunger experts, why don’t we prioritize anti-hunger experts and hire the staff who can help achieve their ambitious agendas?

What are the qualities necessary for leading an effective anti-hunger organization, if we’re not focusing on business acumen?

• A clear vision. Anti-hunger organizations choose from a variety of goals, including ending hunger, preventing starvation, offering temporary aid, or ensuring everyone has equal access to an emergency supply.

Clarity of vision starts with executive leadership undertaking thoughtful reflection, study, and goal setting with the explicit recognition of the privilege and experience on their team. When leadership doesn’t have a reality-based vision, staff and volunteers must create their own which may or may not align with that of the organization.

• An overflowing well of empathy. Serving people living with poverty, trauma, and hardship every day is incredibly taxing. It can be easy for leaders who aren’t doing the on-the-ground implementation to grow complacent or blasé about the impacts of this experience on clients and staff. Anti-hunger leaders should endeavor to learn about and understand the challenges of this work from both sides if they don’t have lived experience. A leader lacking empathy for the challenges of living with hunger or the emotional fatigue of fighting it does their community a disservice.

• Trust. It is essential that leaders trust the experience and insight of staff and clients who fight hunger daily. Leaders may have great ideas about how to manage clients or food flow that are utterly impractical, so they need to trust their staff’s expertise. All employees also need to trust the people they serve, which starts with letting go of the assumptions our society clings to about poverty.

When we assume that we know what’s best for someone else, we stop serving our community effectively.

• Respect. A lack of respect for clients reflects in how services are provided. For an industry already stigmatized, adding to the discomfort of visiting a food pantry increases the risk of hunger. A lack of respect for staff translates through the low wages, heavy workloads, and lack of input in upper-level decision making which factors into high levels of burnout.

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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