The Funding Field

This interview continues "The Funding Field," SAFSF's series of candid conversations with leaders in philanthropy, impact investment, and social change who are mobilizing capital, shifting power, and changing systems from the ground up.

First Nations Development Institute is a twenty year member of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders, and one of the first regranting organizations at the founding table of our organization. Join SAFSF's Clare Fox in conversation with Mike Roberts, President and CEO of First Nations and former SAFSF steering committee and board member, and A-dae Romero-Briones, Vice President, Policy & Research, California Tribal Fund, Native Agriculture and Food Systems Investments at FNDI.

We sat down with Shorlette Ammons, Co-Executive Director and Program Director of Farm Aid, to learn about her journey growing up in rural North Carolina to now leading the nation's largest musician-led fundraiser to support family farms. Shorlette Ammons brings a rare combination of lived experience and visionary leadership to her work at the intersection of food, music, and movement. Raised in Beautancus, North Carolina, as the granddaughter of hog farmers and the child of farmworkers, Shorlette traces a direct line from those tobacco fields and pickle plant packing lines to her understanding of how systems are designed to pit marginalized communities against one another — and how to build something different.

In conversation with SAFSF's Clare Fox, Shorlette reflects on Farm Aid's evolution from iconic telethon concert to year-round advocacy and grantmaking organization, shares a grounded perspective on what philanthropy often misses in its approach to rural and BIPOC communities, and shares invaluable insights for how to get the most out of our time together at the SAFSF Forum in the South.