Vermont · Nonprofit
FOOD CONNECTS
FOOD CONNECTS (Vermont) receives grants from 35 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,297,864 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($613,780). 16 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $2.0M
- Funders on record
- 35
- Grants received
- $3.3M
- Net assets
- $749k
What Food Connects does
Mission
To cultivate healthy farm and food connections in classrooms, cafeterias, and communities.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
The Food Hub saw a 27% Year over year increase - nearly $4M - in operational revenue in 2024. We grew our network of partners to over 150 vendors and 350 customers, 116 of those customers being school accounts. In the process we funneled over $3M directly back to the region's farmers and producers, boosting our regional economy. We stayed true to our roots promoting farm to schools, selling $723,059 - an 80% Year over year increase - to regional schools, from Kindergarten to higher education. That includes $206,679 towards summer food boxes, which provided 280,000 free regionally sourced meals to students in Southern VT and Keene, NH. We continued the expansion of a new 10,000sqft warehouse space, which will house 1600sqft of added refrigerated and frozen storage capacity in early 2025.
$1,661,655 spent$1,029,392 earned by the program90% of program spendingThe Farm to School program provides coaching and technical assistance to educators and food service directors. Our program is a leader in the regional farm to school movement to connect classrooms, cafeterias and communities to local food. In 2024 our team served 16 member schools, helping those schools' farm to school teams achieving meaningful farm to classroom connections for their students. Our Farm to School program also leads Vermont's statewide Harvest of the Month program, which provides educational material and hands-on learning opportunities connecting K-12 students to a specific monthly harvest. Our Farm to School team also offered program-related Professional Development to teachers, Trauma and Food Workshops that advance knowledge and practices on the ways food and trauma are intertwined. Lastly, Farm to School continued its sprout kit initiative, delivering 1,308 sprout kts to member schools. Each student in participating classrooms received their own tray, soil, seeds for planting, and watched their plants come to life.
$186,416 spent$60,102 earned by the program10% of program spendingThe Catalyst program provides food systems leadership, consulting and technical assistance services to other Food Hubs, food businesses and producers working to transform local food systems.
$3,795 spent$5,857 earned by the program0% of program spendingOther program services, not described on the e-filed return.
$0 spent0% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,851,866.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $928k to $1.3M (+35%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2017 2% · 2018 11% · 2019 6% · 2020 9% · 2021 12% · 2022 20% · 2023 39% · 2024 18%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
46% of FOOD CONNECTS’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (94% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Richard Berkfield
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 5 funders to 13 funders, grant income rose $69k → $648k.
8 of 35 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 45% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of FOOD CONNECTS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 35 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
FOOD CONNECTS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 19% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
57% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund FOOD CONNECTS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 73% · 2018 64% · 2019 29% · 2020 20% · 2021 29% · 2022 34% · 2023 31% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
50% of FOOD CONNECTS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 46% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
FOOD CONNECTS draws 71% of its grant income from funders outside Vermont, across 9 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.5M arriving through sponsors registered in 8 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
FOOD CONNECTS has grown faster than half of the 1,130 food & nutrition nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,130 food & nutrition nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding FOOD CONNECTS receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $2.0M on record — $820k federal, $1.2M state.
- Department of Agriculture$820k
- Other Grants$969k
- Contr&3rd Pty-Educ & Training$144k
- Other Direct Grant Expense$72k
- Other Contr and 3rd Pty Serv$3k
- Food$2k
- Other Purchased Services$1k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like FOOD CONNECTS
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Vermont
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
90% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Vermont Food Hub Collaborative L3C · partnership
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for FOOD CONNECTS: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds FOOD CONNECTS?
- FOOD CONNECTS (Vermont) receives grants from 35 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,297,864 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($613,780). 16 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does FOOD CONNECTS have?
- IRS filings report 35 organizations giving $3,297,864 in grants to FOOD CONNECTS, 16 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of FOOD CONNECTS?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $613,780 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like FOOD CONNECTS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Vermont. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Food Connects →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 35 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing