Evaluation Coordinator, Metro Chicago’s Good Food Purchasing Initiative Chicago Food Policy Action Council

Scope of Work

About the Good Food Purchasing Initiative (GFPI) of Metro Chicago

Coordinated by the Chicago Food Policy Action Council (CFPAC), Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH), and Cook County Department of Public Health (CCDPH), the Good Food Purchasing Initiative (GFPI) of Metro Chicago aims to ensure that institutional food purchasing advances an equitable, healthy, fair, local, humane, and sustainable food system and creates good food access for all.

GFPI is based upon on the implementation of the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP), which is a metric-based framework that supports institutional food buyers to direct their buying power, make informed decisions, and measure impact towards five core value categories: local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare and nutrition. GFPI posits that effective implementation must be intentional in ensuring equity for the producers and supply chain actors that are positioned to meet the GFPP’s growing demand for local, sustainable, and fair food in public institutions. Without targeted resources and investment, outreach, and technical assistance to small producers and food businesses in low-to-moderate income communities and communities of color, it is likely that inequitable power dynamics present in the industrial food system, with concentrated control and wealth in the hands of a small number of firms, would replicate itself within the GFPP supply chain. Food justice and food sovereignty inform central tenets of the GFPI: to improve equity, affordability, accessibility, and consumption of high quality, culturally relevant good food for all communities with the Chicago regional food system.

GFPI’s Key Objectives:

1. Ensure procuring City of Chicago and Cook County departments, agencies, and institutions fully implement the Good Food Purchasing Program.

2. Foster a racially and socially equitable food system that will supply City of Chicago and Cook County departments, agencies, and institutions with healthy, fair, local, humane, and sustainable food.

3. Advance a values-based procurement culture that supports the demand and availability of good food.

About the Position

The GFPI Evaluation Coordinator will oversee the implementation of a robust evaluation plan to study the impacts of GFPI on achieving a more healthy, humane, fair, local, and sustainable food system while ensuring that good food is accessible for all.

Activities

• Convert the GFPI Evaluation Framework into a timebound evaluation plan

• Coordinate monthly GFPI Evaluation Team meetings and participate in Midwest Consortium on Equity & Research in Food (MCERF)

• Identify which evaluation partners in GFPI’s Evaluation Team will take on which pieces of GFPI evaluation work, and establish timelines for execution.

• Ensure evaluation of planned GFPI activities in 2020/2021, including but not limited to:

  • Evaluating reach & response of new GFPP Producer Manual (Fall 2020)

  • Evaluating knowledge gained and impacts of three GFPP producer trainings (Fall/Winter 2020)

  • Evaluating relationships built, new supply chain connections, and knowledge gained from two Buyer/Supplier Mixers (Winter 2020-1)

  • Evaluating attendance and receptiveness of GFPI Institutional Summit (Spring 2021)

  • Support GFPI Project Manager and GFPI Project Associate in systematizing data collection for both process and outcome evaluation questions; help ensure GFPI

  • Coordination Team has streamlined and effective technology solutions for workflow.

  • Explore opportunities to publish evaluation research in both peer-reviewed journals and popular media outlets

Required Skills and Experience

• At least 5 years of experience in evaluation roles on similar complex projects that involve more than one organization or research entity

• Familiarity with both quantitative and qualitative research methods

• Familiarity with developmental evaluation approach

• Familiarity with participatory evaluation processes

• Strong attention to detail and demonstrated organizational project management skills

• Ability to delegate out and supervise pieces of evaluation work to multiple evaluators in a collaborative approach

• Familiarity with the food systems field and emerging research on institutional good food procurement, values-based procurement, equitable food-oriented development (EFOD), regional food systems development, and “farm-to-institution” or “farm-to-school” a plus

Time Commitment & Compensation Rate: 20 hours/week; $30-40 hourly rate commensurate with experience; 12 months: July 2020 - July 2021

TO APPLY: For individual consultants:please send a cover letter and resume; For evaluation consulting organizations or academic research centers:please send a 1-page proposal with anticipated budgetary needs and the resumes of associated key staff. For all applicants:send materials with subject line “GFPI Evaluator Application”to rcooley@chicagofoodpolicy.com by June 28th, 2020.