How cooperative members drive our philanthropy efforts in their communities.

This episode highlights the most impactful areas of financial giving the past year and how it’s supporting the communities our cooperative members call home. 

Each year, Land O’Lakes, Inc. donates a portion of its pretax profits to the Land O’Lakes Foundation in addition to investing corporate dollars through community relations. Morgan Kinross Wright joins Kim as guest in this episode. She serves as VP, Community Relations & Exec. Director, Land O'Lakes Foundation.

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Transcript

 So we partner with our members to elevate their giving and to really bring focus to their communities. This is really powerful because we are in essence by saying we will match your donations. We're saying, you tell us what your community needs. We don't know what your community needs, and if you.

You've been to one rural community, you've been to one rural community, and so our members are really responsible and take a leadership role in determining how that philanthropy is directed.

Tomorrow. It's never a guarantee unless we take care of today. We are a cooperative, grounded in 100 years of forward thinking ever since our beginning in 1921. It's the pursuit of a reliable food supply, a sustainable future, and vibrant communities for all of us. Rooted in the promise of a brighter future.

This is rooted in Tomorrow, the podcast by. Land O'Lakes, Inc. I'm your host, Kim Olson. Join us for stories of innovators, change makers, and the modern entrepreneurs who work the land.

In 2022, 40.9 million people in the US turned to some form of food assistance program, like a food shelf or a food pantry. That's a daunting number from Feeding America that presents a challenge no one person or organization can solve on their own. Thankfully coming together to find shared solutions to large problems is in the DNA of the cooperative system.

Land O'Lakes and our member owners care deeply about serving the many communities we call home, and we've found some innovative ways to maximize our impact and support our neighbors. Joining me on the pod today is Morgan Kinross Wright. She happens to be our Vice President of Community Relations and Executive Director of the Land O'Lakes Inc.

Foundation. We're gonna get past the numbers and put community impact into context.

Hi Morgan. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. I know. Thanks so much, Kim. Happy 2024. I know. Second day of the year here. We are so great. And our energy level is what? Going up. Going up, up. We're not gonna, we're not gonna lead with hi. We're, we're going up, up. We're hopeful. We are. We're hopeful.

Hopeful is good. Well, I'm excited to talk to you about the, uh, foundation, the community relations efforts we have here at Land O'Lakes. Um, we've, uh, been involved in several of those together, so this is just a conversation between old friends. Um, I wanna start putting you right on the spot, of course, so, you know, no pressure, but, um.

Let's talk about one of your favorite stories. So in the work you do, is there like a, a personal connection or a personal story to the work that kind of stands out for you? You know, honestly I think there are so many things about this job and this role in this work that I love. Like, I can't think of one thing.

Yeah, I can think of many. Okay. So I think about during giving week when we have a hundred employees. In working on Meals from the Heart, and it's a competition to see how many meals we can all pack and we pack 40,000 meals. Oh my goodness. But then it's looking at a board meeting and our board. Yeah, our board is amazing and our board wants to volunteer and give back, and they give presents out at Gillette Children's Hospital.

They dig in dirt and plant gardens for folks. They come together and do backpacks. Yeah. And then our executive leadership team comes together during giving week and they say. Serve food to 700 employees this year in the true spirit of servant leadership. Yeah. Which is really what this type of work is about.

And so it's a compilation of all of those folks volunteering and giving back. That really sticks with me. Yeah. The time is just extraordinary. And the, and the participation level, it's kind of in our, in our DNA and I'm gonna talk a little bit about that. But, you know, taking a step back, there's just so many causes and so many needs in, um, philanthropy generally in foundation work.

So how do you decide kinda what to support and how to do that? I think we keep it as simple as we possibly can so that we don't get out of scope. And so the first way we think about that is we support the communities where our members and our employees live and work. Okay. Okay. And then within the those parameters, we have three philanthropic priorities.

So we have hunger relief, we have advancing education with a specific focus on ag education and leadership development, but not exclusively. And then finally, community vitality. And I think. Coming in shortly after Beth joined, we've really been able to focus on rural community vitality, and that's been very, very exciting.

Yeah. So you, so there's several priorities definitely. Um, and we focus on different ones at different times. Are you focusing on all of those throughout the year? All of those throughout the year. I mean, we certainly call out certain. Parts of those priorities at, at different times of year. So we have Hunger Action Week.

Okay. Come again in March. And we'll support a number of different hunger organizations and volunteer activities. We support Rural Vitality through our Member Match program, which I know we'll talk about a little bit more. Yeah. Um, but, but we're really doing all of the things, all of. The time. Um, we established the Land O'Lakes Foundation in 1996, um, but have been kind of involved in giving back to, um, communities since way before then.

Can you give us a little history lesson? Well, I can vaguely, yes. Um, that was. Certainly before my time here, but I will say, you mentioned this, the DNA of A cooperative is farmers coming together to make things better for everyone, and so that is just woven throughout the whole fabric of our cooperative.

Yeah. And so we have. Record of our first grant to Feeding America, which is a national umbrella organization supporting over 200 food banks in this country. We have the first donation recorded from Land O'Lakes in 1985. Oh. And we know, we know that we've been supporting four h and FFA and other ag education organizations since the beginning of the cooperative.

So while we may not have the record data, yeah. Because systems have changed dramatically in the last 20 years. We know that our farmers, our member owners, our employees have always been. Engaged with their communities. Well, and I know, um, you and I know each other pretty well. I know you came to us from the U and um, have been doing work like this for, uh, many years in your career.

Is so I imagine that, uh, this is personal for you. Is is that true? It is. And I was thinking about that. I was very reflective over the holiday break. Good time for it. It, it really is. And I. Was thinking back to why, why I do this work and why this is who I am. And I grew up in a real small town in Montana.

Mm-hmm. And one of my best friends had a brother with muscular dystrophy. And so he unfortunately passed away when he was 12, we were 11. And that makes a really, really big imprint on your heart in a small community because everybody knows everybody else. And so it's. Soon as we could, we started raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Oh. And I remember getting really energized because we had the opportunity to put on a danceathon, a 24 hour danceathon Oh my word. With our high school and all the kids supporting and the community, and we raised $6,000. Oh, wow. And that doesn't feel like a big amount when you're in a metropolitan area with companies that are giving multimillions of dollars.

Yeah. But when you're in a 1700. Person, community, and you raise $6,000. That's, that's crazy. That's a big deal. And so that money actually went to support kids with muscular dystrophy going to summer camp for a week each year. And they would get to swim, they would get to play basketball and baseball and all these things that they wouldn't normally be able to do because most of them are in wheelchairs.

And so. That is how it all started for me because the power of being able to do that. Yeah. And give back because philanthropy is necessary for causes like that and so many others. Yeah. Amazing that you, that you have such a vivid memory of it. Oh, I do. I don't remember a lot of things when I was 11, so.

Fantastic. That's, it's such a, um. Such a compelling and personal story. I appreciate you sharing. Um, let's talk a little bit about the DNA and the fact that we're cooperative and our listeners, if you're listening to this podcast, uh, you probably already know that. Um, so, you know, focusing on member communities is important to us.

Um, how does your team bring that focus to life? So. I think part of our differentiator as a philanthropy team is that we have the honor of working in support of our members, and so we have several member match programs. We have some member directed philanthropy, and we get our members engaged in a lot of our in-kind product donations.

Our first run product donations. Yeah. And our members are so proud to be there representing Land O'Lakes and supporting. A 40,000 pound truckload of our frozen mac and cheese coming into a food bank that supports many rural communities around that food bank. And so we partner with our members to elevate their giving.

And to really bring focus to their communities. Yeah, and I think one of the things I was thinking about, this is really powerful because we are in essence by saying we will match your donations. We're saying you tell us what your community needs. Mm-hmm. We don't know what your community needs. And if you.

You've been to one rural community, you've been to one rural community. Right. And so we let our members also different All, they're all so different. Yeah. Big Timber Montana is very different from Livingston, Montana. Yeah. And so our members are really responsible and take a leadership role in determining how that philanthropy is directed.

Consider rural firefighters. They respond to fires of course, but they also are on the scene for grain bin Entrapments car crashes anywhere in EMT may be needed. This is just one example of the delicate ecosystem that supports the vibrancy of rural America. Our farmer and retail owners understand this dynamic intimately and recognize the important role they play in their hometowns.

Our member owners are all generous supporters of their local communities. Their impact is immense, and they take great pride in supporting their communities through direct giving product donations and volunteerism.

So in your experience, is the cooperative model kind of unique, um, it as it comes to, when you think about community relations and foundation work, is the cooperative model something you've seen before? Is that I think it's very unique to cooperatives and I have been fortunate enough to develop really strong relationship.

With CHS and CoBank, other large agricultural cooperatives. And we all have that very distinguishing feature of having member match programs that are really meant to spread a lot of dollars to rural communities across our national footprint. And I would say the trend in philanthropy and corporate philanthropy has really been fewer, bigger gifts.

But that is very opposite what we do and. So somebody might see the 18 pages of smaller grants we do to rural communities across the country and say, oh, that's not very meaningful, but it sure is meaningful if you're in one of those communities receiving those dollars. And so I am really proud of that being a differentiator for us.

Yeah, and it, when you talk about the trends you're seeing, um, it's a difference from. Historical corporate, uh, traditional kind of corporate giving programs, is it, um, and the, the things that are now trending, um, are you seeing, uh, other differences between what other corporations are doing versus the cooperative?

You know, I think the big. The big question mark in the era, and I've been talking with Tina May, who's our VP of Rural Services, and Matt Wallman, our VP of Government Relations. Yeah. I think the trend has been there's a lot of focus on rural communities, but not a lot of corporations or foundations have historically supported rural communities, and so.

The knowledge is not there as a body of work. And so it's been exciting to see the ways that we can impact sharing information and being that expert. And so it remains to be seen what the next couple years will bring. But I think there is awareness Yeah. Across the country that rural, rural America, rural communities are really vital for the future of our country.

Right. Well, the backbone of the nation in many ways. Mm-hmm. Now you listed off, um, several of our, uh, programs, member Match and, uh, region grant program. First run. Can I just tick through them and of course have you talk a little bit about each, so Member Match program, um, can you talk a little bit about how that works and maybe give us a few examples?

You bet. So we have three actual member match programs. We have our member co-op match, which is our larger co-ops, using dollars. We match them one for one. We have our Direct Dairy Member Match, which is our dairy producers. Um, and then we have our Class I retailer match program. And I'm so proud to tell you that this was the first year in the history of the programs that we maxed out all three member match programs.

Great. And our member, MA member co-op match program, which is the largest of the member matching programs. We hit our cap for that program in July and it doesn't technically close until November. Wow. Terrific. Congratulations. And so it's terrific. That's awesome. It's a good problem to have. But of course we'd love to have more dollars in that pot for our members to use in their communities.

Um. So examples, our member co-op match, I, we have, we have so many great examples. It's hard to narrow in on a few, uh, valley United up in North Dakota, they actually did a really cool donation to create an exhibit of the history of cooperatives at a local museum. But they also, during the day of giving in North Dakota, they also did a food donation program where they got.

Local area businesses to donate food and the foundation matched to each pound of food with a buck. And so we raised, they raised 4,800 pounds of food and we provided almost $5,000 to support that, um, series in Indiana. Yeah. Does amazing support for area food banks and food shelves. And so they spread those dollars across the state of Indiana and their footprint, which is growing.

Yeah. Um. Integra. Yeah. Outta South Dakota. Yeah. They are a huge supporter of our philanthropy and they make a lot of contributions. So those are just a few examples. A member co-op match. We see our dairy members supporting food shelves, often. FFA, egg education. Yeah. Um, and class. I also supports hunger.

Hunger activity, not hunger activity. Food insecurity support. Oh, of course. Yeah. And um, really does a great job with their communities as well. Fantastic. So tell me about, uh, region grant program. How does that work? Such a great question. Region Grants program was really, it really came about to help balance the member co-op match program because that was very heavily concentrated, um, the upper Midwest.

And so our region grant programs are meant to help our large dairy communities in Tulare, California and then the Pennsylvania Carlisle Pennsylvanian surrounding areas. And so we put about $500,000 into that program each year, across both geographies. And we actually use our elected leaders, our RRCs mm-hmm.

And our member relations team to help us spread the word. We've just gone to an open grant round, so we're seeing an increased number of applications, but it's a great way to support those large dairy member communities. Terrific. Terrific. And, uh, one of my favorites, uh, the first run program. First Run program is such a cool program and it started in 2010, so it's been going almost 15 years, and we put almost 7 million pounds of food into communities across our national footprint with the first run program.

That's incredible. The reason it is called First Run, this is something that took me a while to learn. We produce food to donate. This isn't donating aging out product, which we certainly will also do, but this is food that's actively produced to be donated. And so we really have worked hard to make sure that we're hitting member communities, communities where we have planned facilities.

We've been partnering more with member relations, with government relations, um. Just highlight what we can do as a cooperative, because it's a really powerful thing. As I mentioned before, to have a semi-truck load of mac and cheese pull up and unload at a food bank. Yeah, it's, it's a great visual. We've, we've filmed that before.

It's uh, yes. Amazing to see it. Um, now you. Overall, what I have a note here that says in 2023, more than $2.1 million has been invested in member communities. That's a, uh, that's a big number. Um, it is a big number and it, that doesn't tell the, the full story That is. The foundation's contribution to the member communities.

But if you add in the $1.6 million that members actually put in themselves, it's over three and a half million dollars of philanthropy going into predominantly rural communities. And do you, do you ever hear feedback from the communities or, uh, I, I imagine that's a good day when, uh, someone tells you that, um, a gift made a difference in some way.

It, you know what it is, it's such. We get so much feedback. We have drawers and drawers and drawers of thank you notes and pictures and articles. Um, we just did a first run donation on December 20th in Iowa and we had our board chair, Rick Brand there. Nice. We had Neil Keppe, who's on our board join as well.

We had a former board member, Doug Reimer come down. We had folks, uh, from the community there and so. That made local news and people get really excited about seeing the good that Land O'Lakes can do in Iowa. Yeah, I know. I get excited when I see it on the news. Right. Um, let's, let's talk about the wins a little bit, uh, and, and kind of impact tied to that.

So. Um, I have a, a stat here that nearly 40% of all food in the US is wasted, and food waste is the largest contributor to landfills. And this is just according to, um, national, uh, nonprofit, um, R-E-F-E-D. At the same time, A-U-S-D-A report shows 34 million Americans are food insecure, meaning they don't have the consistent access to enough food for every person in their household.

One in nine of which is children. Um, now I remember seeing some of these same statistics when we were doing interviews, uh, regarding, uh, our partnership with Feeding America. Um, you guys have been working with them, I think, as you mentioned, uh, for more than 10 years. But you started a new partnership this year with a.

Called spoiler alert to increase our ability to donate unsold product. So it, tell me about that a little bit. It's been an astronomical and really unexpected program, and in the fall of 2022, our dairy foods team started. It's a platform, it's an online platform that really allows our dairy foods team to get products.

Into secondary markets to sell it before it goes to landfill or gets recycled. And so it's increased the amount of revenue and it's just, it streamlines everything. So it grows our capacity. Well, so because my team's got a really tight partnership with the Dairy Foods team, of course, for first run. Yeah.

In January of 2023, so a year ago they were like, Hey, there's still some product that we can't sell. We're recycling it or it's going to landfill, but we think we might be able to donate that if we can use the capacity that spoiler alert allows us to have. Huh. And so they got Feeding America on board and boom, all of a sudden we are putting millions more pounds of food into communities that are food insecure.

That's amazing. It's, it's, and unbelievable. You just register, is that the, the platform just kind of registers you and matches you up, or how does it work? Yes. The platform really takes all the futs little pieces and you wouldn't know that there are all these futs pieces of selling and donating. Yeah. But there are, like, you've gotta think about, okay, where's this product coming from and when's the expiration date?

And how long before we can get it to a food bank and how long before the food bank can actually receive it. And then can the food bank get that food out to the community by the time this expiration date is hit? Right. Yeah. I never would've thought of that. It's complicated. Oh, but it is so complicated, like normal people wouldn't know this, but so Spoiler alert brings all of those pieces together and just adds that capacity.

And so it's really been amazing and what I love. We have an in kind budget from the foundation and we support our first run program that way. We support other food donations, but we're able to pay for the transportation to get all of this product out the door. And it's not very expensive all things considered, but our budget can help do that.

Oh, that's great. And so it's just been an amazing partnership with dairy foods. It's feeding America and our team to be able to say. Let's, let's get this food into the communities. It's awesome. Isn't that great? And, and just thinking about it in a new way and just having the people that were willing to think about it with us, like I think that that speaks so much to Land O'Lakes right now.

Like people are willing to partner, collaborate, come together and figure hard stuff out. Yeah, it's. I love the, um, the, sometimes we talk about how we are a convener in many ways. Mm-hmm. And, uh, I can see it across the work of, uh, of you guys in the, in the foundation and community relations as well. Um, so in this year alone, land O'Lakes, you've mentioned this has been able.

To donate 3.5 million pounds of dairy products with the help of spoiler alert. So if you put that in perspective, how does this compare to previous years? So each of the years, I, I'm about to hit five years, Kim. Isn't that crazy? No way. Five years in February. Fantastic. It's insane. You need to have a party, right?

Um. So in each of the five years that I've been here, we've done between 300 and 700,000 pounds of food. Oh. And I would say during the height of COVID, we just couldn't get our hands on enough product because it was flying out the door, going to help all the kids who were stuck at home. Um, we just couldn't get enough product.

So those. Low donation years, but um, last year we did 750,000 pounds of donations. We've gone beyond first run. We have some other products that we're getting out there. Spoiler alert, this year has allowed us to do five times that amount. So to put that into some additional context, in 2020 we worked with a sustainability committee to come up with our ESG goals, and we have a goal of 3 million pounds of product donated in 10 years by 2030.

Yep. We did more than that this year, and so I'm really pleased to tell you that we're working with the sustainability council and the team to say, Hey, we probably need to come up with a new and approved number. Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, it's really cool. What are you gonna do the rest of the, the nine years, right?

I, I don't know so much more. That's that's fantastic. Congratulations. Um, you, you guys have done just such incredible work, uh, in 2023 as we wave goodbye to it. In the, in the rear view. Um, what are some of the goals for 2024 and beyond? And, you know, just gimme a broad perspective on what you hope to accomplish and what the future looks like from your perspective.

Oh, so many things we wanna accomplish. I was actually just talking to my amazing boss, Sheila Stewart, about this. Um. And you know, it's really great to have Beth's support and Sheila's support in our, yeah. Executive leaders support the work that we do that that's so important and I feel really, really honored to have that.

I. I think I mentioned this earlier, we'd love to find additional dollars to put in the member match program. Mm-hmm. In particular member co-op match, but all of our match programs maxed out this year. So we would love to be able to continue growing that budget. Yeah. Because supportive member communities is really what keeps the co-op strong.

Um, we also are constantly working to get new employees engaged with our work because when you get new people coming in, especially when it's not all in person. Mm-hmm. Like they may not be exposed to our work. And so we developed this program last year where we give every new employee a $25 cause card, and they can use our system to go in and make a donation to whoever they want that's in the system.

And so thereby. Getting them starting to engage with our work. And you do hear that purpose is really one of the most significant factors in, um, hiring and retention. Recruiting these days and retention. Retention is a big deal for retention. Like people wanna make a difference. The stats, when you get employees who are engaged and involved and volunteering, they are much more likely to stay with their company.

I mean, the research supports that. So we have partnered really? Mm-hmm. Really well with our DEI, ERGs, our employee resource groups, for those people who don't know because we have so many thousands of employees who are engaged in that way, so it only makes sense to partner there. I will say another, um, another area of focus that I'm constantly talking with my team about is how do we support our businesses?

Our businesses are all very different and they're moving and shaking in different ways. Of course, they come together and they meet and they talk. But how do we support each of the businesses with where they are? Yeah. And so we're constantly trying to figure that out, what that looks like. Like this year we finally were able to work with Purina to launch a Purina scholarship.

And they did a heck of a job marketing that they had 600 applications for four scholarships. Oh, wow. So they just did an amazing job. And we also this year had this great opportunity. Winfield, for the first time said, Hey, we're doing this. Cool. Type of fundraising volunteer event at our national sales meeting.

Would you guys be interested in matching what we do? And we're like. Yes, yes, we would. We love that idea. And so we worked with them. We worked with some of their employees to say, Hey, what are some, what are some activities that are really meaningful? And they ended up coming with a really hyperlocal organization that supported one of our employees and his family during the Mississippi tornadoes.

But then they branched out to a larger swath of the Southern and Midwestern tornado support. So, and we were able to match those dollars. So we're constantly looking for ways that we can use philanthropy to support. Our businesses and the engagement of their people because it makes such a difference when people feel they're supported by this work that we do.

We do end each of our podcasts with a specific question and, uh, I'll put that to you now. Um, simply, uh, how do you see the future of agriculture? It's such a hard question, but when I was thinking about it, I was thinking about community connection. Like we have got to be connected to all of our communities.

We can't just connect to our metro community. We've gotta connect to all of our rural communities. And I think it's really going to be critical for agriculture and those rural communities to help bridge the rural urban, I don't wanna say gap, that sounds like a negative word, but the rural urban challenge that we have, like I don't think urban.

Areas necessarily understand what it's like to be rural and vice versa, and how can ag serve as that bridge, because I think it can, farmers are the original entrepreneurs, and so how do we marry this spirit of entrepreneurism, community connectedness. Across both locations, and I think that is a future I wanna be a part of.

Yeah. Well, me too. I've, uh, I've enjoyed the conversation so much, Morgan, and, uh, we will make sure that, um, we get it out there so people will hear about all that, uh, we can do with our members in the communities. Thank you so much. Oh, thanks so much, Kim. It's been a pleasure.

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