Report highlights positive impact SEED grants have had on food access

A new 2024 comprehensive evaluation report from Extension – University of Wisconsin-Madison found the City of Madison’s SEED grant program has been successful in its mission of supporting new and emerging projects that expand access to healthy food across the City.

The report determined SEED grant funding has provided several benefits to the Madison community over the last decade, including:

• Bolstering emergency food assistance programs
• Increasing food access to high-priority communities
• Building organizational capacity to implement new efforts or expand programs aligned with the vision of the program
• Enabling organizations to strengthen their relationships with their target audiences
• Allowing grant recipients to expand their reach to BIPOC communities, often directly empowering the people living in those communities
• Helping grant recipients leverage additional funding from other sources
• Contributing to neighborhood vitality through investments in youth development programs and other community projects
• Promoting interorganizational collaboration, which contributes to a stronger community food system

Over the past ten years, SEED grants have helped multiple local initiatives get off the ground and grow. Those who have been awarded SEED grants in the past told the UW Extension that “SEED money was a small igniter for bigger things,” and “it’s a really nice dollar amount to kickstart something.” Another noted how an initial $3,600 SEED grant helped their program blossom into an effort with an annual budget of $167,000.

For many, the City of Madison’s initial investment allowed them to improve their chances of getting more financial support from other avenues, because that “stamp of approval” proved to other funders that they had the right partnerships and plans in place. About 80 percent of SEED grant recipients said the grant helped them get access to additional funding.

“In a sense, [the SEED grants program shows] the City is committed to the [project] idea and willing to put a little bit of skin in the game as well, because they believe in it and want to see it,” one recipient told the UW Extension.

You can find the full report here on the City of Madison's SEED grant website.

2024 SEED Grant Recipients

The following local organizations received SEED grants in the most recent cycle:

• East Madison Community Center: up to $4,200 to fund commercial refrigerators
• OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center: up to $8,600 to fund infrastructure and inventory costs for food pantry
• River Food Pantry: up to $10,000 to fund expanded access to culturally-inclusive ingredients and produce for underserved communities through the Curbside Groceries, River Delivers, and ePantry programs
• Allied Food Pantry: up to $8,200 to fund food inventory
• Aldo Leopold School Parent Faculty Organization: up to $9,800 to fund a new shed and a gardener-in-residence program
• Bayview Foundation: up to $9,200 to fund garden tools and soil to help establish Bayview’s community garden plots

About the SEED Grant Program

The program awards small grants through the Madison Food Policy Council, with approximately $50,000 being dispersed every year. The maximum individual grant amount is $10,000. An analysis by the UW Extension found that most of the grant awards from 2014 to 2020 were for less than $3,500. Grants helped fund a variety of initiatives, including community garden programs, community and school meals, emergency food assistance, infrastructure improvements, and nutritional programming.

You can learn more about the program, including how to apply, on the City of Madison’s website.