Our team has developed policy for Presidents and Congressional leaders…and our clients. We help clients zero in on what they hope to accomplish and then identify the strategies and tactics to make those policy goals a reality.
NVG goes deep on policy and process: evaluating and developing proposals in areas including health care, education, immigration, labor, housing and nutrition. We write and critique the array of policy documents used in this town, including white papers, talking points, speeches, testimony, legislation and regulations. NVG’s successful advocacy involves cataloguing resources and obstacles, proposing solutions and marshalling the best evidence and support.
We provide a strategic pathway to success, no matter the challenges.
More than 23 million Americans live without convenient access to a supermarket. These low-income communities—located in urban and rural America—are known as “food deserts.” Before many were even aware of this problem, NVG worked to envision and implement a solution.
NVG led a national campaign on behalf of innovative policy organizations–PolicyLink, Reinvestment Fund, and The Food Trust—to improve access to healthy food in communities of color and lower-income rural and urban areas across the country. Working with these organizations, NVG facilitated the creation of the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) in 2010.
Authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill, the HFFI Program is administered by Reinvestment Fund on behalf of USDA Rural Development.
HFFI is a unique public-private model providing provides one-time grants and loans to increase access to healthy food through financing for grocery stores, farmers markets, food hubs, co-ops and other food access businesses in food deserts. In 2014, Congress passed a provision in the Farm Bill establishing HFFI at the United States Department of Agriculture. To date, more than $220 million has been distributed. The program has leveraged an estimated $1 billion in additional investments.
The politics of food policy are often contentious and highly partisan. HFFI stands out as having earned bipartisan support, even in today’s acrimonious political environment. HFFI is a creative and sustainable solution to a problem that has vexed policymakers for decades. It brings together a diverse group of stakeholders— grocers, public health and community development organizations, and government—to envision a brighter future. That’s what NVG does.