Chester County Food Bank

What it reported doing in 2024

Chester county food bank is the central hunger-relief organization in chester county Pennsylvania. At our core, we procure, distribute, grow, and collect food for our neighbors experiencing food insecurity in chester county. In fiscal year 2025 we distributed 6.1 million pounds of food through over 100 consistent community partners, equating to more than 4.2 million meals. We accomplish this through a variety of mission critical programs in a few strategic areas; food distribution, education & wellness, agriculture, and workforce development. We procure food through a variety of sources, these include donations of product, government assisted commodities (tefap, pass, sfpp, lfpa) and purchased food through dollars contributed privately. This allows us to distribute food at no cost to pantry participants or the community partners operating the food cupboards, meal sites, shelters and schools. As the central hunger-relief organization, we are able to ensure a more equitable distribution of resources throughout the county, regardless of an individual community's support of their local food providing agency. Food access and community education (face) is an area of our work that goes beyond simply providing emergency supplies of food. Through our food access and education initiatives, we collaborate with other community organizations to address the root causes of hunger through programs like eatfresh, best choices, raised bed gardens and seed to supper. At the fresh2you mobile market, customers are welcome to use a variety of payment methods, including snap benefits and farmers' market nutrition program vouchers offered to wic participants and qualifying seniors. All purchases made with nutrition programs are matched with ccfb funded veggiebucks to stretch shoppers' dollars even further. Our agriculture program is an homage to chester county's deep agricultural heritage. With the generous support of our county commissioners, we are able to grow thousands of pounds of produce for our programs at historic springton manor farm. In addition to engaging our community volunteers in the planting, growing and harvesting of produce at springton manor, we raise seedlings to distribute amongst our raised bed garden participants. We also maintain an award-winning raised bed demo garden on location and house a large high tunnel to extend our growing season. The agriculture program is run by three on-staff growers who oversee operations at springton manor and other locations in the county. Direct distribution programs fill gaps of need for the most vulnerable in our community. For low-income children in participating schools, our backpack program provides a supply of nutritious food on friday afternoons to send children home with over the weekend. During summer months the summer student food box program and pre-made sunshine meals provide nutritious, easy-to-preparfood to students and their families. The senior box program is ccfb's rendition of the federal commodity supplemental food program (csfp), but fully funded by private donations so all in need can participate. Now serving more than 750 seniors per month, or 9000 annually. Ccfb can tailor boxes to meet the specific dietary needs of our community and leverage it as a point of contact with our senior community. From time to time, food insecure individuals present themselves to the food bank and we are able to provide them with emergency food, a 3-day supply of food, until they can connect to a regular distribution - this is the function of our emergency food box program. Workforce development is the newest initiative of chester county food bank. Recognizing unemployment and underemployment as one of the root causes of food insecurity, our freshstart kitchen culinary team provides individuals experiencing barriers to employment with the knife skills, cooking, and life skills to enter a new career and achieve self-efficacy. The program prepares participants through a 10-week culinary arts tr

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 82.7%; rating input score 83
• Program expense ratio: 86.3%; rating input score 86
• Fundraising efficiency: $20.03 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 57; 57th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 94.4%; rating input score 94; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: 4 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 67
  • Compensation committee: Pass
  • Independent consultant: Missing
  • Other Form 990s reviewed: Pass
  • Written employment contract: Missing
  • Compensation survey or study: Pass
  • Board or committee approval: Pass
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: 98.9%; rating input score 99; 31st percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 66th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -8.5%; rating input score 12; 12th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.96; rating input score 61; 61st percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.01; rating input score 93; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 5%; rating input score 50; 50th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 9.1% per year; rating input score 100; 67th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 10.5% per year; rating input score 100; 76th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 7.5% per year; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings