Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty, Powered by Loyalty360
Leaders in Customer Loyalty Brand Stories featuring Feeding America
How Loyalty Principles Drive Impact in the Nonprofit Sector
Loyalty professionals spend much of their time optimizing engagement, designing value exchanges, and driving long-term brand affinity. While these strategies are typically associated with commercial brands, they’re just as relevant, and arguably more critical, in the nonprofit sector, where emotional commitment and sustained participation directly impact lives.
Feeding America, the largest hunger relief organization in the United States, offers a compelling example of how loyalty principles like hyper-local relevance, omnichannel engagement, emotional connection, and strategic partnerships can be leveraged to build movements, not just memberships.
In a conversation with Loyalty360, Casey Marsh, Chief Development Officer at Feeding America, provided insight into how the organization’s work is deeply informed by many of the same mechanics used to grow customer loyalty applied through the lens of social mission.
Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to another episode of Loyalty360's Leaders in Customer Loyalty Brand Stories series, where we explore how top organizations are building meaningful, lasting connections with their audiences. Today's episode is a little different, but incredibly relevant. We're speaking with Casey Marsh, chief Development Officer at Feeding America, the largest hunger relief organization in the United States. While Feeding America operates in the nonprofit space, the strategies they use to foster engagement, build emotional loyalty and scale impact will sound very familiar to customer loyalty professionals. This conversation dives into how Feeding America applies loyalty principles like hyper-local engagement, digital enablement, personalization and long-term partnerships to mobilize support from donors, volunteers, corporate partners and the public. We'll also hear about the organization's flagship cause marketing collaboration with Walmart and Sam's Club, a campaign that has raised over $200 million and helped secure more than 2 billion meals. If you're looking for a fresh perspective on how customer loyalty strategies can be used to drive mission-based outcomes and what we can learn from nonprofits about emotional connection and trust, this is a must listen, let's dive in. Thanks for taking the time to join us, casey.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, ethan. Really nice to be here, excellent. So for those who may not be familiar with Feeding America, can you please give us a short introduction to how the nonprofit was started and some of the backstory there? Sure, it's actually an interesting story. Food banking as we know it in the US began in 1967 when a gentleman named John Van Hengel started the nation's first food bank in Phoenix, arizona. It's still there today, st Mary's Food Bank.
Speaker 2:Van Hengel himself was a retired businessman and he was volunteering at a local soup kitchen and came up with the idea of a bank where people could go for food if they needed help and where others could come to make deposits or donations.
Speaker 2:So he established that food bank, and then they went on to other cities, other states, and then eventually, the need for a national organization to coordinate all of those efforts and work with national food companies led to the establishment of what we know as Feeding America and the network today, and we are a network of more than 200 food banks, 21 statewide food bank associations and over 60,000 agency partners. So that includes what you might think of as your local food pantry meal programs. Amongst all of those efforts, we provided about 6 billion meals to tens of millions of people in need last year alone. So Feeding America really has grown. We also support programs that prevent food waste. We are overall aiming to improve food security in the United States. We bring a lot of attention to social barriers that might contribute to that food insecurity and we advocate for sound legislation that protects people from going hungry in the first place.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's fantastic. That's an amazing reach, and I didn't realize that the history of food banks was so recent.
Speaker 2:It really was. It's surprising, but it wasn't that long ago recent.
Speaker 1:It really was. It's surprising, but it wasn't that long ago. Cool Well, can you tell us more about your role with Feeding America and how you got to where you are? What positions you had that?
Speaker 2:led you to this role? Sure, well, I am the Chief Development Officer at Feeding America. I have a great privilege of serving in that role for almost exactly five years now. So if you look back to 2020, I started at the very beginning, in the height of the global pandemic, which was an interesting time to walk into fundraising at Feeding America at a time that the network really had to step up and be almost like frontline responders for people facing hunger. My background has been in fundraising, marketing brand awareness, for over 20 years now. Before Feeding America, I was a fundraiser and executive at UNICEF USA and, prior to that, at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, so I have really engaged in local efforts, global efforts and now focusing on national efforts here in the United States. And my team has the privilege of working with our corporate partnerships and that includes cause marketing partnerships, corporate foundations, individuals, volunteers, employees who want to be engaged in a deeper and more meaningful way, and we also get the chance to work with individuals who want to deeply invest in the mission of Feeding America.
Speaker 1:Awesome, wow, that's a long history of work in nonprofit Impressive. So in that role, what keeps you up at night?
Speaker 2:What are the biggest challenges or opportunities that you face in your position? It depends on when you ask me. I will say currently what's keeping me up at night and some of our challenges and opportunities. I would say increasing food insecurity in this country is a big worry. Neighbors in every county in the US are experiencing this challenge.
Speaker 2:So sometimes people think of this as, oh, that's an urban problem or that's a rural problem. It is not. It's a pretty universal problem at this point across the United States. A pretty universal problem at this point across the United States, and part of that is due to rising food costs, to inflation. With all of that, the pressure on families also increases. How am I going to juggle and manage the pressure of paying the rent or my mortgage, as well as health care costs, and be able to provide healthy and nutritious meals for my family? We know that 47 million people in the United States are facing food insecurity, and that includes 14 million kids, and I think that part really keeps me up at night, being a mom myself, and thinking of that difficult situation, of the desire to want to take care of your family and doing everything you possibly can to get there, and also balancing that with the fact that sometimes you need help and you need a little support.
Speaker 2:So I feel good about that, that we are there for people in that situation. There's a lot of uncertainty right now about how does traditional philanthropy keep up with that growing need and demand. And that kind of brings us to the fact that these innovative partnerships are critically important to how we meet the need that exists across the entire United States.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very true. And that kind of leads me to my next question. You mentioned you came on board right at the beginning of the pandemic and you mentioned the way that people are interacting with nonprofits and philanthropy is changing. So how do you see that industry changing and the people's interactions changing and how are you?
Speaker 2:responding to those shifts. Well, we know that customers in stores at most retailers we have learned that most want to support campaigns that benefit their local communities. They want to see where the impact is landing and they want to be able to touch and feel that we meet this need by regranting funds to local food banks in areas where the donations are made. So we're a national organization with a very hyper-local touchpoint and that exists because we have this fantastic network of really well-respected leaders who are running food banks in their own communities and agencies and pantries that exist in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2:So, as consumers and customers at the register increasingly use mobile apps and digital payments, digital strategies are more important than ever to ensuring a successful cause marketing campaign. We're able to address this by ensuring that companies that we partner with will include a strong digital marketing plan, and that really helps to ensure that customers can engage both in-store and online whenever possible. The Fight Hunger, spark Change campaign with Walmart really exemplifies our commitment to this local impact digital engagement and really is a great model and example of how we can offer a lot of ways to participate in store online. We try to make it really easy for customers to support their communities however they choose. Another trend that I think we're seeing and learning about and is very relevant here, is that overall employee engagement is declining in the United States, and that's not specific to engagement in causestore and online, but engaging employees by encouraging employees to ask customers to donate at the register, these campaigns can give them a meaningful role in making a real impact on hunger relief and they see that come to life in their own community.
Speaker 1:Awesome, yeah to life in their own community, awesome, yeah, that's really interesting to hear the employee engagement piece as a driver for that campaign and you know you mentioned the Fight Hunger Spark Change campaign there. I believe this is the 12th consecutive year that all US Walmart locations are teaming up with their customers, their suppliers, sam's Club members and their employees for with their customers, their suppliers, sams Club members and their employees for the Fight Hunger Spark Change campaign supporting Feed America, feeding America.
Speaker 2:Can you tell us more about the details of the campaign? Sure, yeah, every year since 2014, all Walmart and SAMS Club locations in America and that totals more than 5,000 stores and clubs activate, and they activate to fight hunger, spark change. It's a campaign that raises funds by prompting customers to donate at the register again, both in-store and online opportunities, and we also have that activated through the purchase of specially marked products from more than 20 suppliers. So Fight Hunger, spark Change is one of Feeding America's largest cause marketing campaigns, generating more than 206 million dollars since its onset and helping to secure more than 2 billion meals since 2014. So the impact and the depth and the scale of change that this has brought about cannot be understated. It's really incredible. Wow, that's a huge impact.
Speaker 2:So how did that partnership with Walmart initially come into being and how have you seen it evolve over the last 12 years?
Speaker 2:The partnership itself started with a million-dollar donation from the Walmart Foundation, and that was directly to Feeding America in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. 2005. So today, that partnership and that initial interest in supporting people in need and people facing hunger has grown into one of the most transformative collaborations that exists in the hunger relief space, hands down Local leaders, walmart, sam's Club distribution centers, who are donating surplus food to food banks and to agencies across the Feeding America network. All of these efforts result in the donation of more than 9 billion pounds of food to the network and that actually makes Walmart and Sam's Club Walmart Foundation Feeding America's largest donor, our largest supporters. So it started with that initial interest and a lot of times people, individuals, companies come to Feeding America because of a disaster right. They may see in the media some heightened awareness of a need that exists here in our own communities and in this case this has grown into such an incredible impactful partnership with longevity and reach that I don't think any of us could have foreseen that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I mean over the past 12 years. I'm sure you guys have done a lot of amazing things together, and you mentioned some of the metrics from this most recent year. Are there any other milestones that you've achieved together that you would want to highlight?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. Walmart, sam's Club, Walmart Foundation have worked with Feeding America and local food banks and food pantries and meal programs to really transform the charitable food experience itself. So for neighbors facing hunger, how they experience the network is different and it's better because of Walmart's engagement Supporting Feeding America and local food banks over those, with more than $271 million of investment over the long term. A big part of that $177 million has come from the company and Walmart itself, but almost $95 million has come from customers and members of Walmart and Sam's Club. So if you ever are questioning when you're at the register and you see that, would you like to give a dollar or would you like to round up the 50 cents that goes to Fight Hunger, spark Change, you should never wonder if those pennies or dimes or dollars make a difference. They absolutely do. They have changed the way that we are able to engage with people who are facing food insecurity in this country.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's really great to hear what other challenges has the partnership helped you address in your fight against hunger.
Speaker 2:Well, on a national level, feeding America faces challenges like sourcing and distributing food quickly, rescuing food from food waste. Walmart and the Walmart Foundation grants help Feeding America and our network to really maximize how we're sourcing food and how we're sharing it among partner food banks within the network. It also helps us to expand capacity to source and distribute food more efficiently to households who are experiencing food insecurity. So I'll give you a couple examples. This includes Walmart's deep investments in grant making in Feeding America's technology platforms, so these platforms assist neighbors in getting the food that they need to thrive.
Speaker 2:Order Ahead, for example, is an app, a platform developed by Feeding America, that enables neighbors to order food from a food bank or a partner agency and receive a home delivery, or to pick up food at a convenient community location and to pick the foods that their family really needs and wants and prefers.
Speaker 2:That could include a drive-through distribution or even a delivery locker and that digital experience for people facing hunger. It's intended to also minimize stigma so that food banks could reach a wider audience and also meet neighbors where they are and allow them to access the food and nutrition that they need for their families in a really highly dignified manner. Meal connect is another great example of feeding America's online platform that quickly connects retailers who are looking to donate surplus food right. Retailers are getting so much better, so much more efficient about avoiding any waste, so we allow them to quickly connect with nearby food banks and agencies, even for small pickups of food that would otherwise go to landfill. We're helping to divert that, so it's really exciting. The investments go beyond what you might see on the surface to a very comprehensive and holistic partnership.
Speaker 1:Cool to hear so kind of shifting gears a little bit. There's a lot of discussion right now among our members and in the industry about emotional loyalty. How does, as a nonprofit, like Feeding America what?
Speaker 2:does emotional loyalty mean to you and your organization. So for us, the outcome overall that we are hoping to achieve is increased public passion to end hunger, and part of the way we do that and increase that emotional loyalty about the cause is through innovative campaigns like Fight Hunger Spark Change campaign. Through innovative campaigns like Fight Hunger Spark Change campaign, passion for the issue overall among charitable givers in the United States actually continues to be at an all-time high. So it's increased by about three points to 55% in the last fiscal year, 2024. So to us at Feeding America, this means that people are inspired and they want to take action to help improve food security in the United States.
Speaker 2:A campaign like Fight Hunger Spark Change through that helps us to do a few things. First of all, it helps us to generate that awareness of and engagement with the issue of hunger locally and across the US. And it also helps us to share local impact stories about how the support that people who face hunger receive from food banks and from local partners. And then it connects that with how Fight Hunger Spark changed, with how Walmart Sam's Club strengthened those local communities year-round, and how that single person who's standing at the register can also play a big role in that. So the campaign overall for us it really increases that loyalty. It engages customers through an inspirational messaging, really increases that loyalty. It engages customers through an inspirational messaging. It tells the story of how donations can help and it tells the story of how neighbors experience hunger and how you can make a difference. That's very interesting to hear. I really appreciate your perspective there.
Speaker 1:So do you have future plans for partnerships with Walmart and Sam's Club?
Speaker 2:We do. We are so connected to Walmart and Sam's Club through these deep investments over the years and through a true collaborative partnership that has emerged. The Fight Hunger, spark Change campaign is just one aspect of a much broader relationship and partnership there with Walmart that we of course hoped to continue to grow and to evolve way into the future. The campaign itself is an initiative that specifically helps raise that awareness with Walmart's customers and employees associates and that really dovetails very well into sustaining our impact-oriented work together through what we call our always-on programs, like food donations.
Speaker 2:So what I haven't mentioned really much at all yet is that Walmart's donations of more than nine billion pounds of food to the Feeding American Network make Walmart one of the largest food donors in the country, helping people who are facing hunger nationwide. So the goal of our work together is to end hunger in America and to look at how we can do that together. The goal will be going forward is sustaining that work as the need exists, decreasing that need, broadening the partnership, including food donations. Currently Walmart has a very strategic grant focused on expanding food access via food rescue and modernizing food donation data capabilities. So there is more food out there. We know that and we need to continue to get better about ensuring that that food gets into the hands of people who are facing food insecurity and who can use it today. Wow, that's exciting that you have such a firm foundation in that partnership and it looks like it's going to continue to grow and build.
Speaker 1:And I love to see how they're applying the technology to help improve the outcomes for everyone in their communities. That's really cool to hear. So, in your quest to eliminate hunger in America, how does Feeding America plan to innovate or expand its programs in the future to try and achieve that very ambitious goal?
Speaker 2:We are always innovating, that's for sure, to keep up with an ever-changing landscape and environment and the need. Each year the US, for example, produces 92 billion pounds of surplus food. That is more than enough to help millions of people who are experiencing food insecurity in this country. Yet the food doesn't always reach the people who need the food, the people who need the food. So by rescuing that surplus food Feeding, america can play a role in ensuring that perfectly good food can safely make it from fields, farmers, grocery shelves to tables and homes of community members all across the country, members all across the country.
Speaker 2:We are also the country's largest food rescue organization. We rescue surplus food from grocery stores, from food manufacturers, from farms. We redistribute all of that to get it to people who are facing hunger. Last year alone, we rescued 4.1 billion pounds of wholesome food, nutritious food, perfectly good food. That included about 3.5 billion pounds of produce, protein, milk and dairy products. And this is food that neighbors, people facing hunger, have told us that they want us, that they want Everything that we do. We try to center that on what neighbors who are facing hunger are telling us that they want and they need to thrive in their lives, and our partners play a critical role in this, not only in the food rescue, but in everything that we do.
Speaker 2:Retail donations are actually our largest source of food for the Feeding America Network. We also get incredible donations from farms. We collaborate with other key partners such as ConAgra, food Lion, general Mills, kroger, tyson, in addition to this incredible relationship with Walmart. With all of them, we're not just rescuing the food, we're changing the way that communities can access that food. So to meet this growing need that I mentioned earlier across the country, we at Feeding America we've set a pretty ambitious target that we want to rescue an additional and incremental 1 billion pounds of food by teaming up with even more food and fund partners. When we see a way that everyone can play a part in this through the Food Rescue Challenge at Feeding America, your viewers can learn more about it at feedingamericaorg and find a way that, as an individual, you can play a role as well. So it's really exciting. There's a lot of opportunity ahead and we remain undaunted, to the extent possible, by the challenges that we're facing. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:It's incredible to see your commitment to such a challenging issue and it's incredible to see the real life impact that you're making on all of our neighbors and our communities across the country. So thank you so much for sharing all of that with us and giving our viewers an insight into kind of the depth and breadth of what you do nationwide. So now it is time actually for our famous quickfire questions, so that people can get to know you a little bit better. So we like to try and keep the answers here to one word or a short phrase as we go through. So here we go. What word or short phrase do you use to inspire?
Speaker 2:others, I like to say if you can't stop thinking about it, don't stop working for it.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a good one. What is your least favorite word that others use?
Speaker 2:Can't.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite food?
Speaker 2:Maryland crab cakes.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a good one. What excites you at work?
Speaker 2:Visiting food bank partners and agencies and meeting neighbors. And then, what do you find tiresome at home or at work? Oh, I don't like doing dishes.
Speaker 1:Fortunately, I don't do them at work, but at home.
Speaker 2:I really don't like doing that, and there are lots of them.
Speaker 1:What book do you like to recommend to your colleagues?
Speaker 2:Radical Candor. What book do you like to recommend to your colleagues? Radical candor, and that's something actually my colleagues recommended to me and we've kind of adopted that as a team, as a book that we really have leaned into awesome.
Speaker 1:So what profession other than your current one would you like to attempt?
Speaker 2:psychologist, sometimesologist. Sometimes I feel like I use psychology skills in my world, but yeah, I think that would be really interesting, cool. So what do you enjoy doing that you don't get to do very often? Kayak, I love to kayak. I live in Chicago area. I love to kayak. I live in Chicago area. The weather does not always permit me to kayak. So who inspired you to become the person that you are today? That's a tough one, because there's not just one, I would have to say my mom and dad.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and how do you want to?
Speaker 2:be remembered by your friends and family. I would like to be remembered as the glue that kept us all together.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well Casey, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. It was a pleasure speaking with you and getting to learn more about the mission of Feeding America and how you're increasing loyalty among people who are interested in supporting your cause. So thank you everyone who tuned in to listen, and make sure you check back next Thursday for the next episode of Leaders in Customer Loyalty Brand Stories. We'll see you then. Thank you.