Feeding a Passion: Innovative Leadership in Food Banking From a Trio of Community Members

Creating long-term relationships with folks doing impactful work has become a calling for Brandi M. Derr, PsyD, Director, Leadership Psychology PsyD Program. As a woman of color, she is often tapped for her expertise engaging executive leaders who find themselves in the minority within their organizational setting—an all-too-common scenario that requires deep work. “Every time I walk into a non-profit system, and meet another group of people giving of themselves for something they really believe in, I fall in love,” says Derr of precisely what happened on her inaugural visit to the Houston Food Bank in 2020.

 “When creating adaptive change [at the organizational level], it’s never one and done,” says Derr who was called in to consult during the third round of a leadership accelerator program being developed in Houston at the nation’s largest food bank. The target audience, folks working individually and collectively towards developing their competency and career paths in food bank leadership, immediately piqued her interest. Plus, the invitation came from a pair of William James College community members: her colleague David Wedaman, MA, PhD, Adjunct Faculty, PsyD in Leadership Psychology and alumnus Terrence Williams, PsyD, Vice President of Human Resources at Community FoodBank of New Jersey. Keen on building these extant relationships (she once co-authored a paper with Williams and had recently co-taught a class with Wedaman), Derr agreed.

“Since our initial collaboration, we have used our respective personalities and what we love most to evolve the program into something so much more beautiful, inclusive, and engaging [than when it began],” says Derr in a nod to Wedaman, her co-facilitator and Williams who wears the career coaching hat. This 12-week program—which combines cutting-edge leadership development, new assessment and coaching techniques, coupled with best-of-breed learning from world-class business and leadership schools—is designed to enable senior-level food bank leaders to take the next leap forward in their career while increasing their ability to lead and thrive in complex environments. So far, it’s working.

What began in 2018 with two food banks collaborating to create a new way for up-and-coming leaders to stay in food banking—by connecting them with individuals and opportunities at other food banks—has not only grown to include Derr. To date, the five-year-old program—now known as LevelUp!—has reached 110 leaders from food banks across the country and is poised to engage its tenth cohort in early March. (The application for Cohorts 11 + 12 is now open.) 

“Prior to the implementation of LevelUp!, talented folks tended to leave food banking when they were ready to take up senior leadership roles because there wasn't a system-wide promotional pipeline in place,” says Wedaman who was brought in at the start to design and teach curriculum. Ten cohorts later, a new trend has emerged.

“After leaders go through this intensive leadership development—which runs three times each year and includes leadership assessment, individual career coaching, individual and small-group leadership coaching, weekly live virtual sessions, six online leadership modules, four days of on-site seminars—they feel changed,” explains Derr of what’s working. Not to mention, between 60-70% of LevelUp! graduates have either been promoted or expanded their role at their current food bank or another one. Regardless of individual outcomes, the collective benefits are long lasting. 

 “Together, each cohort participant is being given time to expand their core leadership skills and remember why they stepped into the world of food banking in the first place,” says Derr, underscoring that leaders quickly learn the problems they face reflect those of their peers—which leads to shared resources and invaluable networks that endure long after the cohort concludes.

One growing pain, the reality that leaders eventually return to food banks plagued by the status quo, quickly became an opportunity for growth with expert guidance from Derr and Wedaman. 

“We have worked with individual leaders from several dozen food banks to build another dozen specialized programs for their respective sites, helping entire teams engage with concepts that elicit change in organizational structure,” says Derr who, despite not being a food banker per se, feels a deep connection to the work. For folks who are unfamiliar, the origins of food banking—loosely defined as a nationwide effort to end hunger—can be traced to Phoenix, Arizona in the late 1960s. What began as a physical place to store donated food (as opposed to soup kitchens which first appeared in the late 1800s) has grown over the ensuing decades to include farmers, retailers, and government agencies—all keen on ending hunger. 

“Good food banking systems engage adjacent arenas and get at the root cause of what ails us as a society,” says Derr, pointing to everything from education and homelessness to nutrition planning and food deserts. Meeting the current need, especially in communities lacking the necessary infrastructure, varies from neighborhood to neighborhood. In one, this might translate to providing culturally appropriate food choices for Latino families; in another, it might mean providing nutrient-dense meals for elderly individuals. 

“While we are not food banking experts, we are experts in cultivating leadership, developing teams, and providing organizational structure,” says Derr in a nod to the big-picture work of engaging people in the work of improving the world. A shared passion for experiential learning positions Derr and Wedaman as stellar examples of scholar-practitioners effectively bridging the gap between research and real-world application. 

“An individual has the ability to change their organization—and by extension the world around them—just by walking through the door,” says Derr, before delivering the real nugget: “And when they show up with purpose and intention, the impact is always going to be miraculous.

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