This year, God’s Love We Deliver was absolutely thrilled to host the 6th annual Advocacy Capacity Building Project National Symposium, right here at our building in New York City. God’s Love leads the Food Is Medicine Coalition (FIMC), a volunteer coalition of nonprofit food and nutrition services agencies across the nation who are committed to nourishing the sickest of the sick in our communities. Each year, with generous funding from the M•A•C AIDS Fund, we gather FIMC at a 3-day Symposium focused on expanding access for our clients to our life-saving services. a. This year, over 30 organizations joined us in NYC to engage in vital conversations surrounding contracting, advocacy efforts, and research within our field. We were also joined by incredible guest speakers such as Jerry Tolk of FleishmanHillard, Bill McColl of AIDS United, Steve Erickson of Emstar Research and Edith Coakley Stowe of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. This year we had the honor of being joined via Skype by Congressman Jim McGovern, a wonderful champion for FIMC and co-sponsor of our Congressional Briefing this past March.
Our National Symposium is also the culmination of our annual advocacy training program, the Advocacy Capacity Building Project (ACBP). This year-long staff development program for selected local food and nutrition services agencies teaches them how to advocate for food and nutrition services at local, state and national levels, and the Symposium serves as a venue for updates and education about advocacy efforts for all food and nutrition services organizations nationwide.
In our sixth year, the Symposium continues to bring together like-minded organizations from around the country. It is through this symposium that organizations are able to work on advocacy goals, share new and emerging research, and to energize and learn. For more information on the Food is Medicine Coalition please check out our page or follow us on twitter @FIMCoalition. If you would like to follow our social media story from the ACBP 2016 symposium please view our storify.