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SoyaScan Notes. Jan. 9. Conducted by William Shurtleff of Soyinfo Center. • Summary: Chris started work with Meals for Millions / Freedom from Hunger (FFH) Foundation on 7 Jan. 1982–29 years and 2 days ago. The organization now has 42 employees. Christopher Dunford, PhD became president of FFH on 1 Feb. 1991 and he is still president to this day, but as of 1 July 2011 he will be stepping away from that position. The plan is for him to remain on staff so he will be available as a mentor and senior research fellow for the following two years, working on Research and Evaluation, writing “lessons learned” over the 20+ years of integrated microfinance services, and creating a learning environment in the cross-section between microfinance and health. Of course, this is dependent on the new CEO and whether that plan is suitable to him/her. He has had, by far, the longest term as president in the history of the organization. In recent years he has “stuck to his guns” in making sure the microfinance community does not move away from reaching the poorest of the poor. In about the year 2000 there was a big movement in the lending community called “commercialization” or “going upscale.” Every banker knows that it is easier to loan money to people who already have a fair amount of it than it is to people who are in need of it. At this time even microfinance was starting to move in this direction, leaving the poor behind–one more time. So Freedom from Hunger (along with Sam Daley-Harris of Microcredit Summit Campaign {Washington, DC}) became a voice of opposition to movement in this direction. The Grameen Bank, founded by Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh, was not as vocal as FFH, but they were definitely staying with their original ideals and cheering FFH. Eventually (in about 2002) the U.S. Congress passed a law stating that 50% of all funding from USAID for microfinance has to go the poorest of the poor. At that point the question arose: How do we measure poverty? So FFH’s evaluation team (headed by Christopher Dunford) started to get involved in actual poverty measurement tools. In the early 1990s, when FFH started its program of Credit with Education, which made small loans to poor women and provided valuable information with the loans, Christopher Dunford realized that it would be essential to measure the results of the new program to see if it was working, and if it was working better than money alone– without the innovation of education. He said, “We need to prove that its working” and to measure the impact. Its all about food security, plus the health and nutrition of the mothers and the children. FFH has always worked only in rural villages with very poor people. Question: During the almost three decades that Chris has worked for FFH, what have been the most important developments in this organization? CD: By far the most important change was the move from the Applied Nutrition Program over to microfinance. MEALS FOR MILLIONS, SOY, AND FREEDOM FROM HUNGER 170 © Copyright Soyinfo Center 2011 The Applied Nutrition Program was effective for the people that FFH was reaching, but the evaluations were showing that the impact was very limited, and it was very labor intensive and very expensive–with things such as weighing babies several times a year. David Crowley, who as president of FFH just before Dunford, made the decision to make this major change. But the decision was forced by a set of layoffs in 1988 due to a funding downturn. Of the 29 people on staff, nine were laid off–a third of the staff. He made the decision to lay off the Applied Nutrition Program staff. Shortly before this, one of the staff had gone to see the Grameen Bank in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Kathleen Stack (who is now vice-president) spent about a week in Bangladesh– which was really the right way to do it. When she came back she said, “This is really great. But how can we make the change from a hunger and nutrition organization to a new type of bank?” It so happened that she and Dunford and Ellen Vor der Bruegge (who was a public health specialist, newly hired at FFH) went together on a trip to Nepal. The FFH program village in Nepal was an 8-hour hike from where the car dropped them off. They had a guide, had to ford streams, etc. The whole time they were trekking, they were talking about the Grameen Bank and how FFH could suddenly transform itself into being a new type of organization. On the trek they came up with a completely new idea: “Why don’t we use the money as the locomotive and the education topics will be the cars in the train.” This was the origin (worldwide) of the innovation of linking microfinance with health and nutrition education. Later business education was added to the program. So this trip to Nepal turned out to be the turning point. FFH began to make the transformation slowly, starting microfinance in only two countries–Mali (in Dec. 1988) and Thailand (July 1989)–with only 50 women in two countries. Why didn’t other microfinance organizations think of this excellent idea before? First, microfinance / microcredit / microlending was still a relatively new idea. And also, adding the education component made the process much more complicated and expensive–but it turned out to pay for itself many times over. The typical person going to the village to make or collect loans had a financial background. It became necessary to teach that person health and nutrition topics and train them to communicate those basic ideas (such as “mosquitoes carry malaria”) to usually illiterate village women in a way that they would “get it.” This adds many new layers to the process. For the first ten years, FFH grew the Credit with Education program very slowly as they worked to understand the root causes of chronic hunger, malnutrition and poverty, and the learned the best ways to address these–including adult learning techniques, using pictures, games, discussions, demonstrations, etc. Many different things go into the education topics. By 1999 (ten years later) FFH was still reaching only 121,316 women. But over the next ten years, by Dec. 2008, the number of
women in the program had skyrocketed to 1.5 million–a 12.3 fold increase! Nevertheless, the rest of the microfinance community has been very slow to add integrated services to their basic lending programs. However recently, 20 years later, an entire conference was devoted to integrated microfinance. Even though the rest of the microfinance community has been slow to take it up, they are now starting to see the beauty of it because health is so deeply related to whether or not a woman can pay back her loan. The organizations are starting to see the benefits of having a healthier clientele–not to mention the benefits to the people themselves. One health emergency in a family can completely wipe them out! Continued. Address: Manager, Donor Communications, Freedom from Hunger, 1644 DaVinci Court, Davis, California 95616. 370. Dodson, Chris. 2011. Recent history of Freedom from Hunger: The story behind the annual reports (Continued– Part II). SoyaScan Notes. Jan. 9. Conducted by William Shurtleff of Soyinfo Center. • Summary: Continued: As FFH worked to develop its Credit with Education program it started with what are now called the “first five” ideas; they were introduced together during the first ten years. They are: (1) Improving breast feeding. (2) Infant and child weaning foods. (3) Diarrhea– management and prevention. (4) Illnesses that attack our children (take advantage of immunizations / vaccinations). (5) Family planning (promoting pre-conception methods, and not discussing abortions). Other important ideas had to do with understanding malaria and sleeping under mosquitoe nets. FFH has a policy against their representatives taking free gifts with them to villages. Rather they might take mosquito nets which cost them $5 each and sell them for $2 each so that the villagers have made an investment, whose value they appreciate, and will use carefully. The other big change at FFH has been “integrated health services”–not just microfinance + education. This is the MAHP (Microfinance and Health Protection services) program. FFH has had an increasingly wholistic approach to helping people in developing countries. This program includes: (1) Health saving accounts (like health insurance in developed countries). (2) Training people (such as nurses or nurse practitioners) to go to villages to offer preventive and other health services. (3) More access to clinics, and health products, etc. Question: As I look through FFH’s annual reports (which Chris so kindly sent), I notice that two men have had unusually long terms during the period from 1990 on. Please tell me more about these two men–Christopher Dunford, president, and Thomas R. McBurney, chairman of the board of trustees. CD: Dunford was not the person who made the original decision to move from applied nutrition to microfinance MEALS FOR MILLIONS, SOY, AND FREEDOM FROM HUNGER 171 © Copyright Soyinfo Center 2011 plus health and business education, but he was one of the three who went on the “great trek” to Nepal (in Sept. 1988). At the time, Christopher was vice president for all of FFH’s programs–so he was their boss. Christopher has an incredible commitment to integrity, to intellectual honesty. He is incapable of presenting a false face, or of selfdeception about the effectiveness of FFH programs. He wants to know the truth. He comes from a statistical background. He was a biology and ecology major; his PhD dissertation was in ground squirrel populations in Arizona. He was first hired in Arizona as the program director for the Arizona program. He loves the details and the data, and he wants the proof. He’s very intellectual, and truly a visionary. He wanted to make a difference in the world. FFH became his best vehicle for doing that–other than raising a wonderful child. He is good with people. He has a great ability to listen to a variety of different ideas and perspectives, and then to step back and make the best decision. He used to have a sign on his desk, “Chris’ pretty good decisions.” It was welcoming people to come there for Chris’ pretty good decisions. But he wouldn’t consider himself a people person. When he has to get up and speak in front of a crowd, it’s not easy. He’s an introvert. He would tell you himself that his biggest weakness in this job is that he doesn’t like to be out there in the limelight. He’s very self-effacing, very humble. But he’s grown into the job. He would probably say that Freedom from Hunger would be bigger and better known today if he were less of an introvert and more of promoter of the organization. And so, today, Freedom from Hunger is small but powerful: 42 staff, working through 112 partners, reaching more than 2.4 million women and families–a total of over 14 million people. Christopher has always cared more about impact. Thomas R. McBurney, chair of the board of trustees. What a wonderful man! He was Christopher’s mentor. He was on the board of trustees at about the time that Christopher was hired. By 1988 he was vice chairman of the board. In 1986 when Christopher was transferred to Davis from Arizona, Tom had been on the board for quite a while. Alas, he is no longer living. His obituary in the StarTribune (Minneapolis, St. Paul; April 3) was headlined: “Tom McBurney, modern renaissance man.” It began: “From his unwavering support for local arts organizations to his efforts to help eliminate hunger on the other side of the globe, Tom McBurney dedicated his life to make the world a better place for all.” Tom became chair of the board of trustees in 1991, the same year that Christopher became president. (Christopher was offered the presidency in Jan. 1991 and became president on 1 Feb. 1991). At the time FFH’s fiscal year ended on Dec. 31, whereas now it ends on June 30. Tom is from the Minneapolis area. From 1968 to 1989, he held various positions with The Pillsbury Company,
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MEALS FOR MILLIONS, SOY, AND FREEDO
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Brief Chronology of Meals for Milli
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hungry and malnourished Brazilians.
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irth control pioneer Margaret Sange
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Clifton’s. 6 AM to Midnight.” O
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tables on the terraces at Clifton
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The meal contains the following mix
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Caltech kitchen palatability became
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had accused Williams of paying $15,
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41. Soybean Digest.1946. Grits and
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available leafy vegetable or fruit
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62. Los Angeles Times.1948. Multi-P
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check. It read: ‘Regardless of th
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“The product was used as an exten
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Note: This is the earliest document
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101. Hendrick, Kimmis. 1955. ‘Mea
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129; Courtesy The Nitragin Co.). (1
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114. Subrahmanyan, V.; Rama Rao, G.
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Last week, with the help of the U.S
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• Summary: Dr. Henry Borsook, pro
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secretary of the Meals for Millions
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“Its policy should not be restric
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142. Photograph of George Washingto
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• Summary: “The world-wide trav
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foods from soyabean: Soyabean milk,
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“The accompanying photo shows Rot
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importance is a long continued part
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(Multipurpose Food) is likely to be
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Meals for Millions.” 181. Flumerf
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189. Chamberlain, Ernest R. 1964. R
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Springs Conference held by forty-fo
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exist for such a book about this ve
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also found itself in danger of coll
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nutritional value, and (4) communic
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MFM by two federal departments appe
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Then, unknown to MFM’s staff, “
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California. Mark Sterner is foreman
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ack, given to his father, Clifford
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Millions Foundation symbolizes the
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225. Soypro International Inc. 1969
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“The first Clifton’s cafeteria
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intellectual and spiritual satisfac
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qualified (by personal participatio
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serious famine from 1968-1970). Sch
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later used by the Hunger Project, f
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Wheat, 25.1 bu, 180 lb. Milk, 2,780
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Box 1666), Santa Monica, California
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as a means of selling their soybean
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• Summary: Peter J. Davies is now
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