Washington Food Coalition – Food Assistance Advisory Committee Facilitation

The Challenge

Before the pandemic, the Food Assistance Advisory Committee (FAAC) operated with a clear decision-making structure. During the pandemic, it evolved into an open forum, valuable for surfacing input from across Washington’s food assistance network of over 50 Lead Agencies and Tribal partners across all 39 counties, but without a clear sense of formal membership or how that input translated into recommendations to Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) Food Assistance.

Our Role

We facilitate quarterly meetings of the FAAC, convened by the Washington Food Coalition (WFC), which serves as an important channel for emergency food providers to give input on WSDA Food Assistance policies, procedures, and programs. Beyond facilitating meetings, we’ve helped WFC leadership see that the forum’s open, high-engagement format and a more formalized decision-making structure aren’t in tension. We developed a set of guiding questions on FAAC’s purpose, membership, and governance for the WFC Board to consider, helping the Coalition move toward greater clarity in how FAAC input reaches and informs WSDA policy.