With Tableau, Feeding America builds a data culture focused on fighting hunger

The challenge addressed by Feeding America is pervasive in every part of the country, reaching people in a wide variety of circumstances. “Hunger exists in every community, in every county and parish in the U.S.—including the wealthy ones,” says Stephanie Zidek, Senior Director of Data and Analytics at Feeding America. “One of the first things data helps our organization communicate to people is showing how widespread the hunger problem is, so we can zero in on specific needs.”

Katie Fitzgerald, Feeding America COO, concurs. “In our work, we like to say that we don’t have a food scarcity problem in this country. We have a food access problem,” Fitzgerald said. “By harnessing data, we can unlock this problem by identifying where food insecurity exists and figuring out how to get food to those locations.”

Accomplishing these efforts on a major scale requires insights into the true conditions of hunger—the who, what, and where. “Before we can help, we first need to understand where our neighbors are who are facing hunger, so that we can be in the right communities to serve them,” said Zidek. “Then, we need to understand what kind of food they need. And to be effective at all this, we need current data and a way of understanding it so we can figure out the best and fastest way to provide assistance.”

While precise data has been instrumental in driving Feeding America’s mission today, it hasn’t always been there in the past. Previously, the organization relied on data from its Hunger in America study, conducted every four years. The study shed light on broad hunger trends, but although it surveyed more than 60,000 people at food programs across the country, the data it yielded remained static until the next study, four years later.

“The Hunger in America study was a huge undertaking, but it only ever spoke to the reality of hunger at a specific point in time,” said Zidek. “Within a short while after we conducted the study, new trends would emerge, and we’d have no way of tracking them until the next study was completed. We extrapolated the best we could, but it wasn’t working—we needed real-time data about the people we were feeding so we could serve them more effectively.”

On the analytics side, insights were further limited by the static nature of spreadsheets the organization used to analyze the study data they collected. Communication with partners was likewise limited by the complexity of the Feeding America network: a group comprising thousands of food banks and partner agencies who typically lacked a clear requirement or capacity for sharing data as part of their collaboration with Feeding America and with each other.

The last Hunger in America survey was released in 2014. From that time, Feeding America has worked with Tableau to integrate data from partner agencies into dashboards that provide up-to-the-minute views into areas of need, changing hunger conditions, demographic considerations, and the types of food and services needed for fulfillment.

“What is beautiful about a partnership, like the partnership we have with Tableau, is that it helps us to understand more deeply what it is that people do prefer. It helps us to understand what people need. It helps us understand whom it is that we're serving, all at once,” said Babineaux-Fontenot. “It’s a powerful tool to have in our arsenal in this fight against hunger. Data, especially modern technology, has the potential to unlock a bright future for this country. We're excited that we get to be a part of that, and that our partnership with Tableau helps us to deepen our ability to be a part of it.”

Beyond simply collecting the data, Feeding America worked to make sure the wide variety of non-technical users at the national organization, food banks, and partner agencies all felt engaged with the data and excited about using it. “We’re in the throes of adoption, and there’s still plenty of work to do,” said Fitzgerald. “But with the help of Tableau, we’ve built a client service insights platform that removes barriers to using data and makes data come alive for our people so it’s easy for them to understand and get the insights they need.”

With a powerful new platform for sharing data across the Feeding America network, and more users at more partner agency locations adopting the platform every week, efficiency and efficacy are at an all-time high. The work will not stop until its mission is accomplished to advance change in America by ensuring equitable access to nutritious food for all. 

Access to data means food bank and partner agency staff and volunteers have better insights into each community’s needs, right down to the individual level. For example, a person might visit a food bank not realizing they’re eligible for food assistance resources, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid. With rapid access to this information, food bank employees can advise neighbors on their eligibility for these programs. And when food banks are advocating for more resources, their access to data helps empower them to have conversations about the need for change—conversations that would be far less persuasive without having the data at hand.