Our Strategic Plan
Bread for the City’s strategic plan for 2022-2027 seeks to adapt current operations, add bold new programs to enhance BFC’s portfolio of services, and strengthen its advocacy work.
This blueprint for the next five years will focus on the organization’s efforts to respond to the ever-changing economic and social needs of the community. We envision a future where people not only have access to the services and support they need to thrive but one where communities can reclaim their narratives. With this strategic plan, Bread for the City is closer to seeing its centers filled each day with community members experiencing healing and joy, expressing their creativity and imagination, achieving dreams, and finding liberation from racism and cycles of poverty.
Our Five Focus Areas for the Next Six Years:
Anti-Racism
& Racial Equity
Become a leader in promoting racial equity in and outside the workplace through direct client services, internal initiatives, and community inclusion in organizational leadership.
Systems
Reform
Deepen our commitment to educating through advocacy via government relations, policy advocacy, shared community values, and effective coalitions with partner organizations.
New Client
Services
Identify and optimize client services to provide direct support and assistance to historically underserved people and divested communities.
Improved
Client Services
Build pathways to enhance and tailor client services and operations to meet the needs of the community and maximize impact.
Sustainability
Raise resources and develop the capacity needed to reach strategic goals and maintain and expand programs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Strategic planning is undertaken through a process that identifies how an organization can best advance its mission. Through this process, we have not only identified strategic investment areas but have committed to measurable goals and an implementation timeline that will hold us accountable to the communities we serve. We also used this process to follow the leadership of our client community, sharing power and centering those who are most impacted by how we conduct our work.
What unites each of the five strategic pillars in this strategic plan is a desire of our organization to grow not in size but in what is most useful to our client community. Our community leadership is clear on what is needed. Economic security. Pathways to stabilization. Meeting people where they are at this exact moment. Trusting each individual, we are serving to know what is best for themselves, their families, and their neighborhoods. And underlying each pillar are Bread for the City’s values of dignity and respect – respect for the whole person and the dignity to treat everyone who comes through our doors as their full selves.
It will take a village to achieve the ambitious goals set through Bread for the City’s strategic plan. We invite all residents of the greater Washington, DC, region to be a part of this exciting moment in our history. There are many ways to get involved in making DC a better place for everyone.
Donate to help us achieve our vision. Bread for the City accepts donations of cash (online, transfer, check, or through a donor-advised fund or IRA), stock, in-kind donations (such as clothing and food), and workplace giving programs.
Volunteer to directly support our programs. Bread for the City’s volunteer program needs your help! As an individual, group, or workplace team, we welcome your helping hand during every month of the year. Volunteers provide vital support that allows Bread for the City to maintain the largest food pantry in DC.
Become a Corporate Partner. Bread for the City’s Corporate Partnership Program is a dynamic way to give back as an organization and unite your team behind a common cause. Corporate Partners support all of our program areas, and it is a supportive way to get more of DC behind building a better community for everyone.
Bread for the City is unapologetically naming the root cause of poverty: systemic racism and the barriers and struggles it has created. Through this strategic plan, we are committed to uprooting racism within our own walls, in the policies created by our local and federal governments, and within every system that our client community must face. We do not believe that building our work on this idea is radical, but believe it is the right thing to do, is practical to solving centuries-long state-supported discrimination, and is human and just.
In 2024, Bread for the City will celebrate its 50th year serving the community. We have grown from food, clothing, and medical care to include legal advice and representation and social services and programs and have continued to grow our robust advocacy and community organizing program. From the beginning, Bread for the City has been run by members of the community. While we have waivered in this commitment over the past five decades, this strategic plan solidifies our desire to share power with those at the center of our work and to make anti-racism and racial equity the cornerstone of all that we do. Through the systems reform objectives outlined in this plan, we hope to follow community leaders and support them in their struggle for full abolition. And as we develop new programs and improve current offerings, the economic security necessary for our community to break out of decades-long outcomes is at the core.
At the close of this strategic plan’s timeline, Bread for the City will have secured our commitment to providing the best care by meeting our community where they are and incorporating racial equity as a core component of our work, both internally and externally. We will have made significant investments in the economic security of our community members, who have been disproportionately disadvantaged through systemic barriers to equitable wealth development. By the end of 2027, our community members will see an anti-racist Bread for the City that is leading the way in coalition work across DC on issues that matter most to our community.
Over the six-year strategic plan period, Bread for the City aims to raise $140,500,000 in support of our wrap-around services, advocacy and community organizing work, racial equity, and becoming a committed anti-racist organization. This also includes an investment in Bread for the City’s sustainability, including targeted investments in community and donor outreach and becoming the best nonprofit to work for in Washington, DC. Bread for the City has no guaranteed income and all of our services are free to the public. Therefore, all of the revenue needed to fund our operations is raised through charitable donations.
Bread for the City operates two centers where you can drop in to get your questions answered:
- The Michelle Obama Southeast Center of Bread for the City
- 1700 Marion Barry Ave. SE, DC, 20020
- Open Monday-Thursday, 9:00 am-5:00 pm and Friday, 9:00 am-12:00 pm
- The Northwest Center of Bread for the City
- 1525 7th Street NW, DC, 20001
- Open Monday-Thursday, 8:30 am-5:00 pm and Friday, 8:30 am-12:00 pm
Bread for the City’s food pantries are open Monday through Thursday from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm and from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm. Current DC identification or proof of DC residency is required.
You can visit our website at breadforthecity.org/support to sign up for a free Clothing Boutique visit.
We offer primary care, care management, dental, vision, and behavioral health services at our medical homes. There is a medical clinic at both centers. You can call 202-386-7020 to make an appointment with our medical team.
Our Legal Clinic offers advice and representation in certain housing, family, immigration, and public benefits matters. You can call 202-386-7616 to speak with our legal team.
We offer a variety of supports and resources through our Social Services Program, including workforce development courses, representative payee services, wellness workshops, and diaper and baby supplies. You can call 202-265-2400 to speak with our social services team.
If you would prefer, you can call our front desk at 202-265-2400, regardless of which center you plan to utilize for your care.
Give Today!
Bread for the City’s services are made possible through the support of thousands of donors like you. Without your support, we would not be able to provide the food, clothing, social, legal, advocacy, and medical services that we do to 10,000 DC residents every month. Thank you!