Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Food insecurity is a growing epidemic endangering the health of 1 in 10 DC residents––the majority of whom are BIPOC and live in low-income areas and public housing. As of September 2021, in 43% of DC households with children, the children were not eating enough because food was unaffordable. Food security is not just about putting calories into bodies, but also the quality of food consumed. Calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods are typically the most cheap and affordable, and over time are well known to lead to obesity and disease. Further, gentrification is rapidly shifting community dynamics in Washington, D.C. and opportunities for connections across socioeconomic levels are rare. LeDroit Park’s 20001 zip code was ranked one of the most “whitened” areas of the country, experiencing a 27.2% increase in white residents from 2000 to 2010. Gentrification creates new social tensions that influence interactions, which often result in micro-level segregation.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
City Farmers
Common Good’s City Farmers program is an opportunity to take your involvement with our farm to the next level. As a City Farmer, you will have the opportunity to participate in multiple aspects of running an urban farm, including hands-on farm tasks, youth education programs, our farm market, community events and more. City Farmer Volunteers who make less than a DC Living Wage are eligible to earn produce vouchers in exchange for their volunteer time ($5 voucher per hour worked).
Youth Education
Common Good's Youth Education programs engage youth in hands-on, experiential learning. Through our after-school program, school field trips, paid high school internships, little farmers program and in-class visits, youth learn about how to grow, cook, and enjoy healthy, sustainable food.
Seed-to-table Workshops
Seed-to-table Workshops are open to the public. Each is a 2-hour-long workshop right on our farm about various aspects of gardening or cooking. Whether you are beginner to advanced, we welcome all levels to the workshops for a fun, unforgettable learning experience.
Where we work
Awards
Sustainability Award 2021
DC DOEE
Affiliations & memberships
Catalogue for Philanthropy of Greater Washington 2014
Fair Chance Alumni 2016
External reviews

Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of students per classroom during the reporting period
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Youth Education
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
This is the average class size for LEAF. Please note that data for 2021 is skewed because programming happened online, in-person, and via take-home activities.
Number of beehives placed for pollination
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Number of children who have learned about healthy food and where it comes from.
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Infants and toddlers, Children and youth
Related Program
Youth Education
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This is the total number of unique participants in youth education programs as a proxy metric for children understanding what healthy food is and where it comes from.
Total pounds of target crop harvested
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
City Farmers
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
This metric is our total farm output in pounds. Note that we don't measure success by this output, because farming is weather dependent and there are too many factors beyond our control.
Total number of classes offered
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
This is the number of classes served through the field trip program.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
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?
Our goals over the next 3-5 years include working at the intersection of food justice, environmental education, and community building to help create a more robust and climate resilient city.
1. Ensure the long-term viability of the pay-what-you-can model for our farm market. We will do this by continuing to test and tweak the model of the next several years, and by issuing reports on our findings over that time. We hope that by tweaking our messaging around the program that we can help prompt people to feel comfortable asking for what they need, and to truly evaluate what they have to give.
2. Continue to offer amazing out-of-school-time activities for children and youth by expanding our offerings to older youth as well as high schoolers. We will do this by ensuring that LEAF continues twice a week, but also by exploring options for kids who are aging out of LEAF to continue their involvement in the farm through volunteering or other education programs. Particularly, we hope to pair young folks in the community with elderly customers in 2022 to help take produce orders and do deliveries so that our seniors can meet their food needs.
3. Make regenerative agriculture the first choice for urban farmers and growers through our amazing certificate program expansion. We will do this by continuing to lift up applicants to the program who are from marginalized communities first, but also by expanding the program so that more people can access this information.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
As our neighborhood has changed and our organization has evolved, we’ve learned a lot about what it means to be good neighbors. We are shifting our focus to meeting community needs with deeper engagement and working to restructure our decision-making processes to be community-led.
How we show up in our community:
Pay-What-You-Can Farmstand: supports social services, health, and hunger, and ensures that all visitors have access to produce regardless of their ability to pay
Free Community Events series
Seed-to-Table Workshops: farm-based education including gardening, nutrition, cooking, canning, pickling, beekeeping, various DIY topics, herbalism
Learning for the Environment, Agriculture, and Food (LEAF): after school program for youth, using the farm as a tool for achieving youth development goals
Certificate Program in Regenerative Urban Agriculture to help train new and beginning urban farmers in regenerative techniques without them needing to take on unpaid farm internships that are difficult to access
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Our mission is to create a vibrant, informed, and well-nourished community through urban farming. Since 2008, our farm has been a place where all members of our community can come to eat, learn, and play in ways that contribute to health and environmental sustainability. Our beautiful half-acre green space has grown over 41,000 pounds of produce and hosted over 10,000 visitors––thanks to the 2,500 volunteers who worked over 1,000 hours each year to make it happen.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Below are the results by which we measure our success in achieving our mission in 2021:
To create a vibrant community
- 10 community events held with total attendance of 647
- Total visitors to the farm: 1561, not including market customers
To create an informed community
- 26 adult Seed-to-Table workshops with 203 total attendance
- City Farmers Certificate Program: 5 graduates, 60 lesson hours
- 19 field trips serving 304 students
- 57 LEAF classes, 208 total attendance
To create a well-nourished community
- 14,753 pounds sold in 2021
- GCF grew over 4,000lbs produce
- 21 CSA Members received over 10,000 servings
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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Who are the people you serve with your mission?
Common Good City Farm is a hyper-local organization serving the LeDroit Park neighborhood of Washington, DC, and centering our programming around the needs of residents of public housing.
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How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?
SMS text surveys, Electronic surveys (by email, tablet, etc.), Paper surveys, Focus groups or interviews (by phone or in person), Community meetings/Town halls, Suggestion box/email,
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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 identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, 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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With whom is the organization sharing feedback?
Our staff, Our board,
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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 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, We don’t have the right technology to collect and aggregate feedback efficiently, The people we serve tell us they find data collection burdensome, It is difficult to find the ongoing funding to support feedback collection, Staff find it hard to prioritize feedback collection and review due to lack of time, It is hard to come up with good questions to ask people, It is difficult to get honest feedback from the people we serve, It is difficult to identify actionable feedback,
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
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- 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.
COMMON GOOD CITY FARM
Board of directorsas of 03/08/2022
Mareeha Niaz
Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers
Term: 2020 - 2022
Allison Grossman
Polaris
Jenna Segal
USDA
Yolanda Thompson
retired
David Lasker
Sofya Leonova
Joni Celiz
FreshFarm
Galila Daniel
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? GuideStar partnered on this section with CHANGE Philanthropy and Equity in the Center.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
Equity strategies
Last updated: 03/08/2022GuideStar 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 analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We disaggregate data by demographics, including race, in every policy and program measured.
- 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 use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We have a promotion process that anticipates and mitigates implicit and explicit biases about people of color serving in leadership positions.
- 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.