Food Access and Security

In 2019, the Colorado Health Foundation (CHF) launched a five-year Food Access and Security (FAS) priority to ensure all Coloradans could access nutritious, affordable food with dignity. The FAS priority reflected a dual commitment: to remove structural barriers through statewide coordination and to strengthen local food ecosystems rooted in community priorities. 

After making $47.4 million in investments, our five-year commitment ended in 2024. We look forward to seeing sustained and continued change around this critical issue in Colorado, particularly given the community voice and power that is present in this space more than ever before.

Our Strategic Efforts 

At the state level, CHF committed significant support to establish the Blueprint Program Office (now Provecho Collective) to lead the implementation of the Colorado Blueprint to End Hunger five-year plan. At the community level, CHF invested in the Community Food Systems (CFS) initiative supporting local food coalitions to develop and implement strategies to address food insecurity and change food systems in their local communities. In addition to these two cornerstone efforts, CHF targeted investments across public, nonprofit, and private sectors to increase participation in public food assistance programs, improve access to healthy food retail and catalyze highly impactful infrastructure development. You can learn more about accomplishments in each of CHF’s strategic objectives below.

• Summary of CHF’s investments and impact in food access and security
• Overall objective: Build momentum around collaborative community-informed solutions to address food insecurity and coordinate existing resources in the sector
  • Read more about the contributions made by the Blueprint to changes in the anti-hunger field and policies in Colorado.
• Objective 1: Increase the efficiency and effectiveness of collaborative, community-level efforts to reduce food insecurity
  • Read more about impacts and lessons learned through the Community Food Systems initiative 
• Objective 2: Reduce barriers to public food assistance enrollment and utilization
• Objective 3: Increase the prevalence of affordable, nutritious, culturally relevant food in communities that have historically lacked access
• Shifting the System: FAS impact across the Water of Systems Change domains

If you are interested in evaluation reports on the Colorado Blueprint to End Hunger, Community Food Systems initiative or entire FAS portfolio, please contact Felisa Gonzales.