Rapid Response: Iterating under pressure, with Feeding America's Claire Babineaux-Fontenot
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 February 2021
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The pandemic era has ushered in a new wave of food insecurity, with some 50 millions Americans hungry for food aid. How could Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks, meet the moment? CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot describes the immense challenge: volunteers unavailable, mass-distribution centers untenable, resources unreliable. But with one in six Americans in need (one in four kids), she leaned on Feeding America's assets in new ways, empowering local chapters, collecting data, accelerating tech, and continually reassessing logistics to meet developing needs – a lesson all entrepreneurs can learn from. And landing a $100 million gift from Jeff Bezos didn't hurt either!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey listeners, it's Katie Clark Gray, one of the senior writers on Masters of Scale. |
| 0:04.6 | One of my favorite parts of working on this show is discovering unconventional theories |
| 0:10.3 | of what it takes to scale. |
| 0:12.3 | And as we've seen in your reviews, this element of surprise is one of your favorite aspects |
| 0:16.7 | of the show, too. |
| 0:18.3 | So with that in mind, I want to recommend a new podcast that I think you'll love. |
| 0:22.9 | It's called Rethinking and is hosted by our friend, Adam Grant. |
| 0:27.3 | You might know Adam from his work in organizational psychology, or you might recognize his name |
| 0:32.0 | as a previous Masters of Scale guest. |
| 0:34.6 | He has an incredible mind. |
| 0:36.6 | And in his new podcast, Rethinking, he interviews some of his favorite thinkers in the world, |
| 0:41.6 | like Mark Cuban, Celeste Eng, Reese Witherspoon, and Alex Arnold, about the assumptions that |
| 0:46.7 | they're challenging and the mindsets that have made them successful. |
| 0:49.9 | It's worth checking out. |
| 0:52.0 | So search for rethinking in your podcast player and give it a listen. |
| 0:56.0 | Now, onto the show. |
| 0:59.4 | Our estimates are that food insecurity rates could soar to as much as 50 million people |
| 1:04.8 | being food insecure. |
| 1:06.1 | There are some communities in this country where one out of every two kids is food insecure, |
| 1:12.5 | where one out of every four individuals is food insecure. |
| 1:16.2 | Unfortunately, that's likely to be true for a while. |
| 1:19.4 | We referred to it as a perfect storm. |
... |
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