Spending a Week on Food Stamps Taught Me a Lesson That Could Aid All Grant Makers

The number of Americans who are too financially strapped to pay for food has grown to an unconscionable number, but still the problem gets little attention in the news and elsewhere.

As president of a foundation that focuses on social justice, I knew about the problem. I often hear stories of people who work hard every day and still must choose between putting food on the table for their families and paying for other necessities. But I wanted to know more. So, too, did James Cummings, board chair of the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

For one week, we limited ourselves to eating food purchased on a budget of just over $5 per person a day, based on the average Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (as food stamps are now known) allocation in New York State. We had to buy all our food from that meager budget and couldn’t rely on previously purchased or free food at the office or social gatherings.

Since 2006, thousands of leaders, including members of Congress, directors of nonprofits, and other public figures, have pursued a similar learning experience, known as the SNAP Challenge. I have spoken with many who described how much they learned from the experience.

I participated in the challenge in part to provoke a conversation among grant makers and others about the problem of hunger and how it is connected to so many other social issues philanthropy seeks to ameliorate, such as gaps in economic opportunity, health access, and quality education.

But it was also important to learn first hand about experiences so different than the ones I have faced in my life.

While my family did come to America from London in 1965 with very little and benefited greatly from rent-stabilized housing and unemployment insurance on our journey of economic mobility, I have not had to rely on SNAP to help put food on the table. Today I live comfortably in Manhattan and have been able to choose healthy food options, including eating organic and enjoying plenty of fresh produce.

The SNAP challenge required a radical shift in my food-purchasing habits.

While no voluntary experiment could ever remotely duplicate the financial, emotional, and psychological stress of living on SNAP, throughout the week I was able to catch some small glimpses of what it must be like.

No more organic; my produce was limited to frozen spinach and bananas. As I went grocery shopping, I found myself getting physically uncomfortable at the checkout line as I worried that the tuna ringing up at $2.29 per can instead of five for $4 as the store tag had promised might put me over budget.

As a person who routinely speaks before large groups of people, I thought I had moved beyond being so profoundly affected by these kinds of social anxieties. Explaining my concern to the cashier made me sweat, but meeting my budget meant every penny counted.

I learned how small a serving size really is. Buying five servings of pasta and expecting it to last five days left me feeling hungry after every meal, rivaled only by the hunger I would feel if I ate more than one serving and had nothing left to eat later in the week.

My week living on SNAP is over. I am back to my customary levels of spending on food. But I know this experience will stay with me for a long time.

Professionally, the SNAP Challenge illuminated the multitude of ways that foundations, entrepreneurs, and nonprofit groups from across the ideological spectrum can attack the problem of hunger.

Some organizations are calling for overhauling and expanding government programs like SNAP. Others are seeking to lift the minimum wage and support workers organizing for fair wages.

During my week on SNAP, I visited institutions like Hot Bread Kitchen, a space equipped by and leased from the city in New York’s Spanish Harlem. The organization bakes organic artisanal bread and trains immigrant women to work in the high-end baking industry as well as start their own food businesses. I also went to see Evergreen Cooperatives, in Cleveland, which is creating meaningful green jobs and giving employees a chance to earn a living wage while building equity in the firms as owners of the business.

Grant makers often struggle with how to stay connected to the everyday problems they seek to solve. We meet with executive directors of nonprofits and study grant proposals, but it’s easy to slip into thinking of the problems we seek to solve as abstractions. The SNAP Challenge was a way for me to step back and reconnect with why I work for a foundation in the first place—to serve others and make our world a better place.

Walking in someone else’s shoes may not give you a full picture of the challenges that person faces, but it’s a start.

I hope in the years to come that all of us take advantage of these opportunities to better understand our world, to foster the sense of humility so profoundly needed in philanthropy, and to rededicate ourselves to the unfinished work of perfecting this union.