Findings and Theories

During the many programs that I assisted or ran independently, I noticed that there wasn't any educational cirriculum, or conversations that we were encouraged to use with the visitors. Programs that consisted of pie bakes, making lunch, and doing activities on the farm, are all exposure to agriculture and the food system, but without the discussion of core concepts and ideas during these activities, there is no understanding of food justice and why these activities matter. Any educational content that I discussed with the kids was of my own volition.

Staff at Pie Ranch were split up into teams based on their jobs and meetings were organized accordingly. The "programs team" that organizes activities in the outdoor kitchen and on the farm was made up of 5 people, and the "farm team" had only one full time employee. As a result, the programs plot that is intended for education and interaction, had little support to keep it growing, and activities on the farm had less and less to do with what was currently being grown.

The majority of the groups that visit Pie Ranch start off with a tour of the 27 and a half acre property lead by a trained staff member. During my field study I was trained to give tours using documents containing information that hadn't been  updated since the pandemic. As I shadowed other staff member's tours, I realized that the content of the tours was not relevant to what was actively growing on the farm, and that food justice often wasn't mentioned at all. 

“Organization Development for Social Change: An Integrated Approach to Community Transformation” by Zack Sinclair and Lisa Russ, outlines an ODSC (Organization Development for Social Change) Framework. This framework highlights four approaches associated with social movements, Community Organizing (CO), Power Analysis (PA), Organizational Development (OD), and Spirit/Sustainable Practice (SP). This framework allows for quantifying and understanding an organization's strengths and weaknesses, recognizing that all four approaches are relevant to creating a sustainable and efficient organization. Analyzing where an organization falls within this model, allows for interventions for movement-building tensions and the ability to develop a more holistic framework for social change.

Rural non-profits face specific challenges that make it difficult to bounce back from disruption and catastrophe. In, "The Organizational Resilience (OR) of Rural Non-Profits (RNPOs) under Conditions of the COVID-19 Pandemic Global Uncertainty”, Paluszak et al. describe the challenges that non-profit organizations faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. They argue that Organizational resilience (OR) is essential in sustaining a rural non-profit organization under conditions of global uncertainty. This Organizational Resilience is defined as the organization's ability to react to and protect from setbacks, adapt and keep servicing beneficiaries, and transform and thrive (bounce forward) or at least return to the original state (bounce backwards) in the face of adversity.

David Spade comments on the way that non-profit organizations have evolved to contribute to the social justice issues that they have set out to dismantle. This is especially relevant as non-profit organizations are the dominant form of social justice work in the US. Spade argues that organizations frequently get trapped in particular scenes and cultures that are not welcoming to everyone and are difficult for outsiders to adjust to. He envisions a world where non-profits focus on bottom-up transformation and accountability, making an effort not to exacerbate and perpetuate existing harmful systems that organizations are actively working against.