The California Endowment’s FreshWorks Fund

Commitment Element

Progress To Date

Between October 1, 2015 and September 30, 2016, the amount of funds raised by CAFWF remained unchanged, with a total amount raised to date of $272,838,432. Of this total, $45,451,724 has been disbursed in loans and grants to fund projects. During the current reporting period, funds were dispersed to 18 unique organizations. Projects included supplying equipment to support multiple farmers markets; refrigeration and technology to improve the ability of small food retailers to offer more healthful foods; vehicles to distribute food to corner stores and isolated communities; and building a kitchen commissary for mobile healthy food vendors. As of September 30, 2016, the CAFWF estimated that 3,805,111 people were being served by the projects it has financed and funded to date. CAFWF reported that this estimate is grounded in reporting provided by recipients at the time of funding and is based on both formal and informal market analyses, and these numbers are sometimes updated to be higher or lower than initial projections once the project is more mature. Verifiers were provided with no specific or reproducible methods on how population estimates were obtained or modified. The number of new jobs created by all projects that CAFWF has funded to date is estimated to be 1,799.5 FTE jobs. The total number of people hired for full-time and part-time jobs for all projects funded to date is estimated to be 1,914 people.