Boulder Food Rescue just released a Participation Framework!
After several years of conducting participatory research on participation in food systems, we wrote this framework to help nonprofits look at their own internal systems and change structures to allow for the people they work with to have a voice at many levels of the organization.
It goes beyond the basics (which are still often lacking – does your meeting have childcare? food? transportation? what language is it in? what time and day is it?) to really seeing how internal structures (and often a time capacity) leave out integral voices needed to make an organization thrive. We believe food access is contingent on breaking down traditional systems of charity work and lines between who is serving and who is being served.
Although focused on food access, this guide is written to support all nonprofits and other human service organizations to analyze their own systems and to better understand how they can become more participatory. We believe that as we all start including the voices of people most affected by our work in the work, access to services will increase, and ultimately, people will feel more affirmed and respected, and will be better supported and resourced towards enacting community change.
It is in English and Spanish and available to download here. Feel free to share with your networks!
We will also be creating a toolkit, hosting a series of workshops, and publishing a report on food access in the upcoming months, so stay tuned!