Second Harvest of Silicon Valley
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Our mission is to end hunger in our community. We will deepen our relationships with local communities to evolve a system of support that equitably meets the immediate need for food assistance while identifying opportunities to address the root causes of hunger.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Grocery Programs
Our grocery programs provide free nutritious groceries and fresh produce to our neighbors who can’t afford healthy food. Volunteers distribute the food, and many of them are also clients. Seniors and homebound adults receive home delivery.
Community Partners
We partner with nearly 400 nonprofit agencies in Silicon Valley to distribute food. These include schools, affordable housing complexes, senior centers, community groups, soup kitchens, rehabilitation centers, shelters and faith-based organizations.
Food Connection
Our Food Connection team helps people find free groceries and other food resources in their neighborhood. Our multilingual staff provides referrals to local food programs, including school and summer meals, and helps people apply for CalFresh. In-house, we have English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Cantonese and Mandarin speakers, and we also work with a language support line run by a third party so that language is never a barrier.
School and Summer Meals
Second Harvest works with school districts and community partners to maximize the use of federally funded school meals. During the summer, students lose access to this important source of nutrition, so we lead local efforts to increase the number of sites where kids and teens can get a free meal when school is out, and make sure families know about them.
Nutrition Education
We help people eat healthier through nutrition education, food tastings, food-safety trainings, recipe tip cards and cooking demonstrations. Our nutritionists teach clients how to prepare satisfying meals with the food they receive from Second Harvest.
Advocacy
Second Harvest educates policymakers and stakeholders about the importance of strong programs and collaboration in addressing hunger and related health issues. We work with local, state and national organizations to advocate for legislation and policy changes that strengthen food and nutrition programs, and create systems change to end hunger.
Where we work
External reviews
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of meals delivered
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
In Fiscal Year 2022-2023, Second Harvest distributed an average of 10M pounds every month. We distributed 125M pounds in total, enough food for more than 104M meals.
Pounds of fresh produce distributed per year
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Even at the elevated level of need we are responding to we are still focused on nutrition: in Fiscal Year 2022-2023, more than half the food we distributed was fresh produce.
Number of people within the organization's service area accessing food aid
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
With record inflation and the elimination of emergency CalFresh benefits, Second Harvest is now serving half a million people every month — numbers we haven't seen since the height of the pandemic.
Number of CalFresh applications submitted
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Related Program
Food Connection
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
We help clients apply and enroll in CalFresh, which provides an EBT benefits card for use at participating grocery stores and farmers' markets.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
- Transition from crisis response to a sustainable way of working.
- Increase our impact by working more deeply in community.
- Create a workplace that empowers all of us to do our best.
- Educate, inspire and engage our community to take action.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
To transition from crisis response to a sustainable way of working, we will unify our Santa Clara County operations in a new headquarters facility, enhance our facility in San Mateo County, and improve our processes and ways of working so we operate efficiently and within our budget, while continuing to meet the need for food assistance.
To increase our impact by working more deeply in community, we will shift our perspective from working for our community to working with our neighbors. Deepen our community relationships, increase our engagement with people experiencing food insecurity, and work more closely with our stakeholders to more equitably meet the need for food assistance, connect clients to a safety net beyond food, and understand where we can have the greatest impact on root cause.
To create a workplace that empowers all of us to do our best, we will cultivate a sustainable workforce, rooted in a culture of belonging, that empowers every employee to do their best work and enables us to meet our strategic goals.
To educate, inspire and engage our community to take action, we will educate our community about the challenges our neighbors face and the urgency of the problem to ensure strong donor, volunteer, partner and client support of our programs and our advocacy.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Leadership and collaboration: Second Harvest is the local leader in ending hunger. We have built a strong partner network that includes nearly 400 nonprofit organizations that help us distribute food in nearly every neighborhood in Silicon Valley. We also collaborate with schools, libraries, community organizations, government entities and others to ensure that kids and families have access to nutritious meals during the school year and all summer long.
Facilities: We operate four facilities located in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties: a 22,000 square-foot warehouse in San Carlos, a 75,000 square-foot warehouse and volunteer center in North San Jose, a 92,000 square foot warehouse in San Jose, and a 65,000-square-foot warehouse in South San Jose.
Efficient sourcing: We only purchase food when absolutely necessary – in our fiscal year 2022-2023, 74% of the food we sourced was donated.
Volunteers: We are able to increase our impact by leveraging a significant amount of volunteer hours. In our fiscal year 2022-2023, volunteers contributed more than 283,000 hours of service valued at $7.6M, the equivalent of 136 full-time employees.
Stewardship: We are excellent stewards of our resources. Second Harvest has received Charity Navigator’s four-star rating for financial stability, accountability and transparency – exceeding industry standards – for 16 consecutive years. This year we achieved a perfect score of 100 for impact & results and accountability & finances.
National network: We are a member of Feeding America, a nationwide network of 200 food banks that share best practices.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Fiscal Year 2022-2023 brought significant challenges for Second Harvest of Silicon Valley. As we all faced an uncertain economy and record inflation, the elimination of emergency CalFresh benefits in March dealt another blow to low-income households already struggling to make ends meet.
Families and seniors on fixed incomes turned to Second Harvest for food assistance, and we immediately saw a spike in need. We began serving half a million people every month in February 2023 — numbers we hadn't seen since the height of the pandemic. The same pressures impacting our clients also strained our budget. While our costs and the number of neighbors seeking our help increased, financial donations decreased significantly.
Despite the hurdles, the innovative spirit and resilience of our staff, volunteers, partners and this community enabled us to keep up with the need. At Second Harvest, we made difficult choices to better balance our budget while still providing a nutritious mix of food to clients and partners. We grew community volunteer support and increased the already substantial amount of quality food we rescue and provide to clients. Our incredible community stepped up to help by providing crucial financial donations and volunteering
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley
Board of directorsas of 10/30/2023
Brian Birtwistle
Ripple
Mark Chandler
Retired
Leslie Bacho
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley
Pastor Paul Bains
Project WeHOPE
Ellen Drew
Volunteer and Philanthropist
Venk Nathamuni
Cirrus Logic
Richard Svec
Alliant Insurance Services, Inc.
Adrienne Porter Felt
Director of Engineering, Google
Jamillah Moore
San Francisco State University
Lisa Goldman Rosas
Stanford University
Tina Sunseri
Deloitte & Touche LLP
Maria Poveromo
Cisco Systems, Inc.
David Babulak
Strongpoint Holdings
Katharine Carroll
The reSolve Group
Chris Cook
Ultra Clean Holdings
Dr. Mary Ann Dewan
Santa Clara County Office of Education
Tony Gonzalez
Bank of America
Patricia Legaspi
Priya Smith
Kaiser Permanente
Paul Yock
Stanford University
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
Transgender Identity
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 10/30/2023GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.