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MARKETING & OUR 2020 CSA Campaign

Updated: Mar 9, 2021

Anticipated outcome: Develop a plan for 2020 CSA marketing materials

Actual outcomes: Identified priorities for what we want to show and marketing materials and how we want to assess the actual content.


We used the Food System Racial Equity Assessment Tool to examine our 2019 CSA Campaign. Our materials seem to work for our traditional audience, but have gaps around the price for shares and what CSA is/means. We need to think more carefully about which new audiences we want to attract (Millenials for instance) and what we need to include in our materials to reach them. Our video ad does show people of color, by chance, not design. Those are the people who came to mind for those roles based on their work, not on their skin color. When we show people in our materials, we do want to show people of color but need to do so in a way that is not tokenizing. Perhaps we could pass our materials by people that we as staff and board do not represent and make changes based on their input. They should be friends of the organization and there has to be something in it for them. This topic relates to our lunch on Community Partnerships.



Cultural Appropriation & THE PARTNER SHARES LOGO

Updated: Mar 30, 2021

This topic came up because FairShare had just undergone a branding process for the Partner Shares program, which included developing a logo (seen below.) The logo was an iteration of an old sweatshirt design that we had used in various programming. Staff noticed that the design was very similar to the Hamsa and expressed the question of whether or not to use the new Partner Shares logo moving forward.

In having this conversation, we explored what cultural appropriation is, and also looked at the meanings and background of Hamsa. "Cultural appropriation refers to a particular power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group." **


In the end, we decided to redesign the new logo and avoid any possible cultural appropriation. The ease with which we made this decision surprised me. I thought that those who had just invested time and resources in creating the new logo would be very hesitant to ditch all that work. In actuality, we were in complete agreement that we had to do a redesign.


Because noticing who benefits financially is an important piece of cultural appropriation, we also discussed using our money and contracts to support people and organizations that reflect our values. Who we choose for BTB vendors is one example of where we can financially support businesses that embody our values.


We used the following resources to help guide our conversation:


Food Justice Work At FairShare

Updated: Mar 30, 2021

FairShare is part of a national network of CSA support organizations, called the CSA Innovation Network. Through our participation in this network, we hoped to look more intentionally at the intersection of food sovereignty and food justice with the CSA landscape. In beginning these inquiries, we realized how much work our own organization had to do in order to center food justice and anti-racism work in our programming and organizational culture.


FairShare began a series of regular (every other week) meetings in June 2019, called Just Lunches. The intent behind these meetings was to create a space for staff to develop a shared language and understanding around topics of equity and the food system, while also moving forward concrete aspects of organizational and programmatic change at FairShare.


We decided on having rotating staff facilitators, in order to ensure that there was equal accountability across our organization. Staff would be responsible for identifying resources that would aid in our understanding of different topics, and to ensure that rather than creating a "book club", we would be ending each meeting with actionable steps for our organization. We agreed that our education can happen in parallel to enacting meaningful change within the organization.


In our initial meeting, we identified racial equity as the primary lens through which to have these conversations. Though it is only one aspect of food justice, we believed it was the largest and most pressing internal need at FairShare and within our local, CSA landscape. At the same time, we committed to understanding how anti-racism work intersects with culture, gender, class, age, etc., and to ensure that this intersectionality is always a part of our conversations.


As a small, all-white staff (at the time), we felt it was important to use some guiding resources to start talking about privilege, positionality, and white supremacy culture. We used the following Racial Equity Leadership Practices as an initial jumping-off point, along with some readings (linked at the end of this post.)


Racial Equity Leadership Practices (Adapted from City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture’s Race and Social Justice Initiative)

  1. Be clear about your own racial positionality and how it impacts your racial equity leadership

  2. Focus on impact, not intention

  3. Know our shared history of institutional and structural racism in the United States, including in the food systems/agricultural sector

  4. Tell the story of race and racism

  5. Name and frame with race

  6. Emphasize that today’s racial inequities don’t depend on intentional racism

  7. Change systems, not just individuals

  8. Have a targeted, structural strategy with clear goals, and be accountable to it

  9. Understand the difference between diversity and access, and racial equity

  10. Invest in racial equity and embed it into all aspects of your work --don’t make it a separate effort

  11. Start with the eager and build from there

  12. Be courageous; take risks

  13. Explore contradictions between the reality of different types of racism and our concept of the U.S. as an equal opportunity society

  14. Engage your peers - other leaders - in particular, those with the greatest influence

  15. Create opportunities to listen to those with less societal and formal, institutional power and influence

  16. Create brave spaces for people to talk about race and collaborate on strategies for achieving racial equity

  17. Invest in relationships and build networks where you can turn for support

  18. Help people find their roles as change agent


Only in understanding how FairShare comfortably remained a predominantly all-white organization, in a majority white, local food landscape, could we begin to think about what our role is in changing this. CSA can't be the backbone of a strong local food economy (as stated in our mission) if it is centered around whiteness.


Resources used/Guiding Questions:


  • Why is your organization invested in diversity work? What is your answer that is terrifying in its honesty?

  • How might our staff/board/farmer relationships and office environment be set up in ways that would make a person of color uncomfortable or isolated?

  • What action can we personally take within the next few weeks within the Ally or Accomplice category?

“White Supremacy Culture” - Tema Okun

  • Which of these characteristics are at play in your life? In the life of FairShare or your community?

  • How do they stand in the way of racial justice?

  • What can you and your community do to shift the belief(s) and behavior(s) to ones that support racial justice?



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