Behind the Scenes: How we choose partners and assess local needs
Shared Groundwork: How We Build Toward the Right Projects
At Feeding Mouths Filling Minds, our work begins long before a project breaks ground or a meal is served. It starts with a conversation.
In 2023, our team began exploring potential collaboration with a rural school network in northern Ghana. Their leadership expressed a desire to build a more consistent school feeding program and to expand agricultural learning for students. But instead of jumping straight into funding, we took a different approach.
Together with our In-Country partners, we facilitated a series of assessment visits. These were not top-down inspections. They were walking tours with school staff, meetings with student groups, and dialogues with local farmers and cooks. We asked about meal patterns, current garden practices, teacher engagement, and the kinds of support the community felt confident managing over time.
This listening-first process helps us evaluate a range of factors:
Leadership readiness — is there shared energy, structure, and vision for the project?
Nutritional needs — what gaps are students currently facing in the meals they receive?
Local capacity — what resources, skills, and ideas already exist on the ground?
These are not checkboxes. They are entry points for building trust and shaping plans that reflect local ownership. This is how we select partners and develop projects that are carried forward after the initial funding ends.
The school in Ghana has since begun co-developing a plan for a student-run garden and community-supported lunch program. And because of the groundwork laid early, that plan belongs to them — not to us.
