Urban Food Systems in Flint, Michigan: Identifying Leverage Points

What does a desirable future food system look like in Flint to government and philanthropic leaders? What values underly this future and are they aligned with values shared by the community in Flint?

Building on previous workshops with consumers (see Briefing Note 2), we held two additional workshops in January and February 2020. In one workshop we assembled local and state government leaders and the other we met with local and state philanthropic organizations all working on the food system in Flint. We learned about their vision for the future of the food system in Flint, what they thought was working well, and what they would like to see more of in the future in order to achieve a desirable food system. These groups identified eleven new values to inform future modeling work for this project, along with the values previously identified by Flint community members in earlier workshops.

Gathering data on values from all perspectives is important for creating meaningful and productive partnerships in the future – this work is important for understanding where governmental and philanthropic organizations values differ from community perspectives.

Suggested citation

Wentworth, C., Hodbod, J. & Drexler, L. (2022). Food System Values: Government and Philanthropic Perspectives. Flint Leverage Points Briefing Note 5. Flint, Michigan: Community Foundation of Greater Flint and Michigan State University.

For more information, contact: wentwo21@msu.edu.

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