Use the strategies and tools in this section to build partnerships and a plan to end childhood hunger in your community, then to evaluate and adjust progress to hold partners accountable toward following the plan.
Key Nutrition Programs
Getting to No Kid Hungry means that every child is receiving the meals they need each day. Achieving this vision rests on the work of a network of state and community-based campaigns, all committed to ensuring that kids have access to key federal nutrition programs:
- School Breakfast Program
- Summer Food Service Program (SFSP)/Seamless Summer Option (SSO)
- Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) – At-Risk Afterschool Meals
- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
- Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC)
Campaigns set measurable long- and short-term goals for participation in each of these programs with defined strategies for achieve them. Each campaign collects data from their state agencies to track progress, refine tactics and pivot direction when necessary.
Keep exploring this page to learn about setting and evaluating campaign goals, and how to collaborate with a variety of stakeholders.
The No Kid Hungry campaign employs a four step planning process that is dynamic and iterative. The process includes:
Setting Goals and Target Geographies
A crucial element of any No Kid Hungry campaign is achievable goals. These long-term, quantitative goals drive the annual work of a campaign. Goals for a No Kid Hungry campaign are aimed at maximizing participation in key federal nutrition programs in schools and qualified areas, and in reaching families in target communities to participate in food skills education programs. No Kid Hungry has developed resources that outline tactics for expanding access to each of the federal child nutrition programs.
Developing an Effective Plan
An effective No Kid Hungry plan should include a timeline for reaching your goals, measurable milestones and clearly defined tactics for achieving those milestones. The annual plan helps to focus your work and provides strategic guidance on implementation of best practices for increasing access to federal nutrition and food skills education programs.
Creating a Budget to Support Your Work
No plan is actionable without funding for staff, equipment, materials and grants to carry out your strategies. A detailed campaign budget can help you reach your milestones in a timely manner with the right resources. Use the resources below to forecast your long-term fundraising needs, determine the feasibility of fundraising to meet your needs and create an effective budget.
Evaluating and Reporting Progress Regularly
It is important to regularly measure program participation and evaluate progress toward set benchmarks and goals. Measuring progress helps to understand the gap that still needs to be filled, identify and address challenges and focus future work to close the gap. Establishing regularly scheduled opportunities, ideally quarterly, to review progress and make any necessary changes to tactics and work plans will help keep you on track to reach your long-term goals. Use these Breakfast, Afterschool and Summer resources to track, measure and evaluate your progress.
Collaboration between local organizations, government agencies and the business community can help frame the breadth and depth of current efforts, align resources around promising strategies, bring together different perspectives, uncover new ideas and opportunities and increase the speed and efficiency at which success is achieved. These resources will show you how to identify and strengthen partnerships to achieve No Kid Hungry.