Redefining Food Advocacy: Our Partnership with the Farmers Market Coalition (FMC)
In the SageD Collective, our partnerships bring out the best in our collaborators and our connection with the Farmers Market Coalition (FMC) achieves exactly that, playing a pivotal role in uniting our diverse community of advocates in the food access and leadership development space. Our blossoming relationship highlights an important aspect of what it means to work with the SageD Collective–how it showcases our combined efforts to promote equity, inclusivity, growth, and wellness across market spaces.
Bringing in key elements of advocacy; facilitation
Our partnership with FMC is largely based on advocacy and liberation. My role as a facilitator and consultant allows for unique collaborations such as the Juneteenth “Rooted in Liberation” social media campaign that was run earlier this summer and my most recent podcast with Edible Communities. In this capacity, I can bring meaningful insights and opportunities to the Collective while sourcing additional support from subject matter experts (and dear friends), such as those who worked on the Anti-Racist Farmers Market Toolkit. By doing so, we ensure that the relationship cultivated by FMC and nurtured by SageD benefits from a wide range of intentionally curated skills and perspectives, enhancing our ability to drive home meaningful change in our communities.
The process of building up the Collective has largely been inspired by my previous work on inequality and philanthropy at the Civic Center for Innovation. Leveraging the partnerships that I had worked hard to maintain was, and always will be, key. Truthfully, facilitation falls flat if it is not aptly accompanied by sustainable recommendations and growth-oriented people. This idea of leveraging diverse expertise to deliver content is fundamental to how we build and strengthen our Collective, ensuring that we remain responsive to the evolving needs of our community and continuously developing our capacity to effect positive support.
In addition to the publishing of the Anti-Racist Farmers Market Toolkit, an initiative that is more programmatic, essential aspects of our role with FMC have manifested itself in the execution of our 1890s DEIB workshops with individuals at HBCUs in Virginia. Here we emphasized the increased importance of equity for Black farmers, vendors, and consumers in primarily Black spaces. Our multifaceted partnership showcases our ability to support both programmatic and internal initiatives, demonstrating the breadth and depth of our collaborative efforts.
What makes my role with FMC so unique is my positioning as a food space expert and equity advocator to guide and facilitate meaningful transformation within their collective of markets.
Transparency in our Support
Mutual aid is a cornerstone of our philosophy. FMC’s and SageD’s support structure relies on both nonprofit and for-profit business structures. The acquisition of Atlanta Leadership Consulting (ALC) is an essential component of this dual framework, aligning with our model for equity and allowing us to offer authentic leadership while staying true to our values as a platform for executive coaching.
“To this end [strengthening Black markets], if the market wants to be a viable space for Black and other vendors of color, the market has to be seen as strengthening and improving those communities in the places they intersect with the market.”
This partnership exists largely to leverage our values into the work that we do. We are helping FMC internalize the values of the Anti-Racist toolkit by developing comprehensive anti-racist market management practices. We emphasize that anti-racism must be like second-nature, a daily practice integrated into every aspect of market life. We are actively encouraging our partners to apply these principles consistently to create a truly anti-racist environment. Additionally, we inform markets across the country and their collaborators about the historical impacts of racism on the community and within food systems. We hold a big commitment building a more informed and empathetic market culture.
Our partnership with FMC is a testament to the power of collaboration and community building. The dual structure of the Sage D Collective and Farmers Market Coalition allows us to offer robust leadership support and deliver on our values. By working together, we can drive meaningful change and foster equity and inclusivity in our communities.
Take a moment and download their National Farmers Market Week toolkit here. Stay tuned for more updates and events as we continue to expand our impact through our collective efforts.
