Webinars Open the Doors for Increased Partner Agency Capacity
In order to build agency capacity and help our partners learn from one another, Feeding San Diego began hosting monthly live webinars for partner agencies this February.
Past webinar topics, presented by FSD staff or partner agency representatives, include agency sustainability, Market Match and nutrition incentives, and volunteer best practices. Next month’s webinar is scheduled to discuss serving seniors.
- Agency sustainability (Rachelle Benson, executive director of Stepping Higher and Masheila Taylor, program services director of Stepping Higher): Consider funding sources available and how your agency’s services may be able to leverage those resources to ensure the best service to San Diegans in need.
- Market Match and nutrition incentives (Beth Trimble, nutrition capacity coordinator, FSD): What are nutrition incentives and how do they relate to CalFresh and government food assistance? What is the Market Match program and how can you advocate for it at local farmers markets and on a larger scale?
- Volunteer best practices (Teresa Dale, volunteer programs manager, FSD): Learn how to recruit, retain and recognize quality volunteers, how to effectively plan for volunteers and how to ensure they have a positive experience.
Along with the webinars, FSD is constantly working to build agency capacity through self assessments, best practices fact sheets and capacity reviews outlining strengths and weaknesses. Our program coordinators are in regular communication with our partners to help them work on capacity issues and connect them with one another to get tips. In addition, FSD occasionally offers capacity grants to partner agencies for physical equipment needs.
Educating and providing a space for partner agencies and FSD to work together and learn from one another has opened the doors for increased communication and better resources as we work together to build a healthy and hunger-free San Diego.
