Transforming Access Together
Transforming Access Together is both an invitation and a model to work collectively to increase food access and enhance the service experience for our neighbors in need. This approach starts with making it easier for people to access the food and resources they need to live healthy and productive lives. The experience of accessing food should be convenient, consistent, frequent and equitable—freeing up the mental, emotional and financial space needed to thrive over time.
Our starting point on the journey to transform the neighbor experience includes four foundational service behaviors that we want to encourage to make this vision a reality:
- Remove barriers to visitation—to allow neighbors to come as frequently as they need to
- Add distribution hours—to add convenience for different neighbor lifestyles
- Maximize SNAP participation—to connect more neighbors to more healthy food and resources
- Gather intake information in our shared Oasis platform—to learn more about our neighbors since knowing more about who we serve helps us serve them better.
Partners agencies interested in adopting a behavior, please contact your County Relationship Manager.
As we encourage each partner to explore these behaviors, we recognize the different paths to adoption. Because this work is so important, we are investing additional time, energy and resources in partners committed to transforming access for their neighbors. Based on a partner’s participation in the four behaviors, their combined scoring of their efforts will place them under one of four partner segments: Respected Partner, Transforming Partner, Foundational Partner, Network Leader. Each of these segments provides partners with a specific set of resources that serve as incentives for participating in the adoption of these behaviors.
Behaviors
Removing Barriers to Visitation
The primary focus of removing barriers to visitation is to allow neighbors to access services as frequently as they deem necessary. While this journey will look different for every agency partner, we seek to provide opportunities for weekly visitation.
Other desired outcomes include serving neighbors regardless of where they live (no geographic restrictions) and eliminating the requirement of specific forms of identification for entry.
Adding Distribution Hours
Adding more distribution hours allows the ability to better meet the needs of more neighbors. This can include extending the distribution windows that you currently use or adding new days.
Our biggest opportunities as a community to meet needs of our neighbors include adding evening hours (after 5pm) and weekend days (Saturday & Sunday).
Maximize SNAP Participation
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a critical resource that provides vulnerable populations access to nutritious food.
Gather Intake Information in Oasis
The Atlanta Community Food Bank provides a shared, no-cost platform called Oasis Insights, a neighbor-services database designed for food banks and their network of partner agencies to track neighbor assistance directly.
Gathering intake information in a shared platform includes the collection of basic, administrative data from the people you serve, and then using that data to identify insights about who you serve and how to serve them better.
Partner Segmentation
As we encourage each partner to explore these behaviors, we recognize the different paths to adoption. Because this work is so important, we are investing additional time, energy and resources in partners committed to transforming access for their neighbors. We want to be transparent about incentives available to participate in Transforming Access Together.
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Behavior Scoring System
This scoring system combines your efforts across all four Transforming Access Together behaviors. Your total score results in your respective segmentation as described below.
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Segmentation & Partner Offerings
If we tally the adoption score of each behavior, the result is the Transforming Access Together Segmentation. Gradual adoption of behaviors awards opportunity to access more partnership offerings from the Food Bank, while not removing any core services we provide today.