Understanding Commitment of Local Food Banks, Faith-Based Organizations, and Schools to Provide Nongovernment Food Programs

BACKGROUND: Nongovernment food assistance is typically provided to families by faith-based organizations, schools, and food banks. Community organizations appear to be strongly committed to these programs, but little is known about the basis for this commitment. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine the values and identities of community organizations to understand the reasons for their commitment to providing nongovernment food assistance. METHODS: Thirty-three in-depth interviews were conducted with 36 leaders at faith-based organizations (19 participants), schools (14 participants), and a local food bank (3 participants) in South Carolina. Observations were made, and informational documents (e.g., flyers and pamphlets) were reviewed. Thematic coding using the constant comparative method was guided by the policy concepts of organizational perspectives, values, and identities. RESULTS: Nongovernment food programs offered participants volunteering opportunities to become involved with community organizations, which in turn increased financial support for the sustainability of these programs. School participants regarded themselves as a mechanism through which food programs were provided because of their commitment to students and believed they have limited capacity to make proposals to influence the food programs. Seeking to improve the well-being of the community by ending hunger was not the primary value on which organizations focused; instead, it was the process of fulfilling other values (e.g., forming or maintaining relationships within the community), maintaining identity, and appealing to their participants that strengthened their commitment to nongovernment food programs. CONCLUSION: Nongovernment programs are meant to be a solution to food insecurity complementary to government programs. Commitment to nongovernment programs fulfills organizational identities, wants, and assumptions, but a consequence of commitment to food programs, derived from fulfilling other values, is that the roots of hunger in a community become obscured and alternative solutions are ignored or rejected.