Our Impact

By powering the ideas and innovations of local leaders, we help move our food systems toward efficiency, inclusiveness, and sustainability.
coral circle
volunteer food items

How do we
measure progress?

No single metric can define our progress. The number of food banks we support, the number of people who access food from a partner food bank, and the number of community service organizations strengthened through food bank partnerships—these all point to the impact we’ve made, but that’s not all.

We also measure our success by listening to feedback from GFN member food banks—about our quality, depth, and breadth of our services. Because for us, when GFN partners meet the markers of success that they’ve defined for themselves, that’s also what progress looks like. And we point to the range of deep relationships we’ve built with partners in the corporate sector, governments, academia, and more as evidence of impact—because no one organization can solve food insecurity alone.

With our partners, we create lasting change—and you can see some of that change captured in the following data, which represents GFN and member food bank activity from calendar year 2023.

*The following data represents GFN and food bank member activity from CY2022.
5x more people
SERVED OVER 6 YEARS, FROM 8 MILLION PEOPLE IN 2017 TO 40 MILLION IN 2023
76,000
COMMUNITY SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS STRENGTHENED IN 2022.
eggs
PREVENTED AN ESTIMATED
1.3 million kilograms of CO2e
IN 2023.
bags of beans
Fernando Mendoza, Executive Director, Red Argentina de Bancos de Alimentos
We are very happy to have been part of the birth of GFN, together with Mexico, Canada, and the United States 16 years ago, and to see the enormous growth of the global Network, which today connects food banks in more than 50 countries around the world. We have to continue working to recover and deliver food to more and more people on the entire planet.
boxed food goods

Our Track Record

Since 2006, GFN has provided food banks with the knowledge and support they need to be successful. GFN accelerates the impact of the Network by offering services that drive efficiency and scalability, which leads to an increase in nutritious food distribution. This has led to strategic food bank growth and expansion in more than 50 countries.
Since our beginning, we have:
Granted approximately
$55.2 million
to food banks.
Trained and guided more than
580 food bankers
at our annual conference.
Connected food banks in more than
50 countries.

Lasting Food Systems Change

Launched in 2019, GFN's first Accelerator program cohort supported the growth of 13 food banks.
GFN’s Accelerator helps visionary local leaders improve food access in their communities through food banking. In 2023, food banks in the program distributed more than 27.5 million kilograms of food and grocery products, a 49% growth over the previous year.
Fruits and vegetables made up nearly 40% of food distributed by GFN members in 2023.
More than 3 billion people across the globe can’t afford a healthy diet but local food banks can help by providing nutrient-dense choices. Technical assistance, grants, connections to companies across the food chain, training and certification, and research are just a few of the ways that GFN helps food banks achieve their own nutrition goals and provide high-quality food to people who need it most.
In 2023, agriculture recovery, which prevents produce from being lost on-farm or postharvest, grew by 35 million kilograms across the Network, a 35 percent increase year over year.
Through agricultural recovery programs, food banks partner with local farmers to ensure fresh, wholesome but unsalable produce is distributed to people facing hunger. GFN connects food banks interested in starting these programs to other food banks that are already running thriving agricultural recovery programs, in addition to providing technical support.
Learn How Food Banks Responded to Rising Demand in 2023