First cohort launches late 2026: Five food banks, no cost to participate.

  • First cohort launches late 2026: Five food banks, no cost to participate.

RKD Group

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Food Bank Impact Accelerator

Built with food banks, built for food banks.

Collage of food bank supplies, a soup can and hand-drawn annotations

A pilot program that turns your strategic plan into a funded, quarter-by-quarter plan you can execute.

Join the conversation

Built around the reality of your organization today.

Most fundraising support arrives as a catalog — pick a service, buy a service, hope it connects to the others. The Impact Accelerator starts with reality: your strategic plan, your budget, and an accurate assessment of what your organization can absorb right now. Through a series of workshops, an RKD team will work alongside your leadership across planning, operations, fund development, and technology.

Crates of watermelons in a food bank warehouse
A volunteer packing a food box

We’re looking for:

Food banks that are ready to grow, are honest about their gaps, are willing to share real numbers, and are committed from the top.

Who are led by teams who will put leadership in the room, bring their actual documents, push back on our thinking, and help build the program itself.

Food banks that are ready to grow, are honest about their gaps, are willing to share real numbers, and are committed from the top.

Who are led by teams who will put leadership in the room, bring their actual documents, push back on our thinking, and help build the program itself.

Cohort

Five food banks

Launches

Late 2026

Gatherings

3 in person
3 virtual

Time

6 days /
6 months

Cost

No fee

Program

Program

01

Review

An in-depth review of your plans, budget, financials, and needs assessment.

02

Assess

A maturity assessment of your team, workflows, tech stack,
and data.

03

Recommend

Across brand and experience, fundraising, marketing science, and data, AI and technology.

04

Plan

Quarterly by workstream, tied to your revenue model, with the funding to pay for it.

We exist to help the world’s most ambitious food banks increase trust, maximize generosity, and accelerate impact.

Portrait of Dawn Opel

This accelerator pilot is led by

Dawn Opel

Dawn has funded, built and sustained food bank programs and services for over a decade, with expertise in braided funding strategies for ambitious new programs, services, and partnerships such as food as medicine and social services integration. She has worked with dozens of food banks to bring pilot programs to scale and to operationalize their strategic planning objectives — from food sourcing and sharing to last-mile distribution and everything in-between.

Dawn is building a team at RKD that not only knows fundraising but knows food banking inside and out.

Dawn has funded, built and sustained food bank programs and services for over a decade, with expertise in braided funding strategies for ambitious new programs, services, and partnerships such as food as medicine and social services integration. She has worked with dozens of food banks to bring pilot programs to scale and to operationalize their strategic planning objectives — from food sourcing and sharing to last-mile distribution and everything in-between.

Dawn is building a team at RKD that not only knows fundraising but knows food banking inside and out.

Interested in learning more, or willing to provide feedback?