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Advisory Committee Facilitator, South Seattle Community Food Hub - RFQ

Request for Qualifications

About the Client

The South Seattle Community Food Hub (SSCFH) is a community-driven initiative designed to address systemic gaps in the local food system and food insecurity.  A core element of the SSCFH is the development of a multi-use shared food facility that can provide much needed cold storage, aggregation, processing, and distribution infrastructure to regional food system stakeholders, with an emphasis on advancing racial equity and development of community-led solutions that prioritize the needs and assets of local growers and hunger relief organizations.    The SSCFH facility, which is slated for development to begin in early 2023, is located at 915 S 96th Street in a warehouse adjacent to Food Lifeline’s headquarters. 

Community stakeholders advising the development of the SSCFH have identified three goals:  1) Increase the capacity, resiliency, and collaboration between hunger relief agencies across the region through shared infrastructure; 2) Expand access to aggregation, packing, storage and processing infrastructure for regional growers to increase the quantity of locally grown food used by the hunger relief sector and to facilitate market access to other institutions and; 3) Support and promote a more local, just and sustainable food economy by prioritizing food hub resources, services and infrastructure to BIPOC, Immigrant and Refugee -led and -serving growers and community-based organizations that have not traditionally had access to such infrastructure.

Food Lifeline, as fiscal sponsor of the project and one of the project’s Advisory Committee members, will hold this contract, but the Scope of Work will be managed by the project’s Personnel Committee. The Personnel Committee is a sub-committee of the Advisory Committee and is made up of the following Advisory Committee members: Adasha Turner from Modest Family Solutions/Black Seed AgroEcology Farms, Yamila Sterling from Solid Ground, Jennifer Antos from Seattle Neighborhood Farmers Markets, and Linda Nageotte from Food Lifeline. (Note: Personnel Committee members may be subject to change over time.)

Desired Qualifications

  • Currently reside in the Puget Sound Region and have at least 2-3 years’ but preferred 5 years’ experience engaging with the local community.
  • Have deep experience in effectively leading a diverse group of stakeholders through conversations involving race, equity, diversity, inclusion, justice, and anti-racism.
  • Have demonstrated past success in meeting design and facilitation.
  • Be knowledgeable in best practices of how to structure and manage advisory groups to be both empowered and effective.
  • Have demonstrated success in helping groups accomplish key benchmarks in support of a project plan and timeline.
  • Have experience working with diverse groups of 15+ people.
  • Have experience in consensus building.
  • Knowledge of the local food system and its challenges, barriers to access, infrastructure needs and food system solutions for those operating in the emergency food system and grower/producer industries.
  • Able to connect and build relationships with project stakeholders.
  • Possess strong project stakeholder relationship development skills, understand and interpret nuanced relationship management and stakeholder dynamics.Deep understanding of the intersections of race, poverty, and food insecurity.
  • Be comfortable stepping into a space with a lot of complex history and past experiences, the ideal candidate would also have training in mediation.

Scope of Work

  • Partner with the Project Manager, Value Chain Specialist, and Advisory Committee to define meeting goals, to develop meeting agendas that help the group to achieve project goals against the project timeline, and to share meeting notes and action items.
  • Partner with the Value Chain Specialist to develop a strategy to elevate stakeholder feedback and recommendations to the Advisory Committee.
  • Hold and lead regular meetings with the Advisory Committee and subcommittees. Together with committee members create an environment that fosters an equal opportunity to engage and develop the systems and processes that facilitate effective progress against meeting goals and objectives.
  • Facilitate meetings in a manner that supports open dialogue, creates space for differing opinions and gains agreement amongst members.
  • Ensures effective Advisory Committee strategy design, healthy feedback loops, feedback evaluation and integration into Advisory Committee Meetings
  • Create structure and ground rules for the group’s engagement with one another to ensure equity, diversity, inclusion, respect, and accountability are upheld related to this work.
  • Partner with the Project Manager to track progress against project goals and objectives, providing updates to the group between meetings and supporting the development of agendas that address programmatic needs and next steps.
  • Foster an environment that keeps Advisory Committee members engaged while honoring the topic at hand. Support in moving the group towards consensus on decision making and project progress.
  • Develop meeting strategies that will honor participants’ time and ensure that the group’s knowledge is utilized to its full extent and meetings are effective and productive.
  • Foster a confidential space that promotes growth and new perspectives among all Advisory Committee members.
  • Work with consultants, contractors, and advisory committee members to ensure timely and appropriate fulfillment of roles, responsibility, and deliverables

Facilitation Budget

The budget for this work is $3,100/month with an expected nine-month engagement (approximately October 2022-July 2023).

Submission

The deadline for submission is September 30, 2022.

Your application must include:

  • A narrative that details your knowledge of racial equity principles and how you will bring this skillset to this project, its Advisory Committee, and project stakeholders. Include also how you will ensure that the community and project stakeholders’ voices, experiences, and needs will be centered in your work.
  • In the narrative, highlight your food access experience.
  • An estimation of how many hours per week you will be able to put toward the project.
  • A portfolio and/or a resume of your past and current projects, particularly relating to food justice work and including a list of former organizations/groups you’ve worked with as a facilitator.
  • A list of references from organizations/groups you’ve previously worked with as a facilitator.

Submit your application to southseattlecommunityfoodhub@gmail.com.

Closing Date: 
Friday, September 30, 2022
Organization: 
South Seattle Community Food Hub
Point of Contact: 
southseattlecommunityfoodhub@gmail.com