July 17, 2024
When the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger announced in June that it would be closing its doors at the end of the month, it was a major hit to Philly's food assistance community.
The coalition, which was founded in 1996, offered help with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit applications, connected residents to food pantries and summer meals, and was a policy advocate for anti-hunger efforts. It also had a well-used hotline for residents to ask questions about SNAP.
Not even two weeks later, another Philadelphia-based organization, Benefits Data Trust (BDT), announced it too would be shuttering as of Aug. 24. BDT uses technology to reach out to low-income residents and offer assistance with public benefits, including SNAP, in multiple states.
For a while, there was hope that other organizations could step in to help provide the services that were being lost. The coalition's SNAP hotline was transferred to the PACE Center at Penn Asian Senior Services (PASSi). Meanwhile, BDT was meeting with other nonprofits to see if anyone could take over its work.
But on Tuesday, BDT founder Warren Kantor put out a statement saying the nonprofit had "exhausted all avenues and would not be able to find a sustainable way forward for the organization in the time remaining." It said it was working with the state's attorney general to dissolve, and there are no details on what will happen to its software.
"The gap in access to $80 billion in public benefits isn’t getting any smaller and requires that good people continue to do this good work," Kantor said. "A new model is needed to ensure that the next generation that picks up the baton where BDT left off can do so with certainty that they can grow and make investments without needing to piece funding together."
Melody Keim took over as executive director of the coalition in 2019. Almost immediately, she said, it was clear that the organization was on shaky financial ground.
That changed a little during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the coalition received more federal funding and grants from new donors. But once the pandemic-related government money went away, Keim said the team had to try to figure out how to keep those new donors and rebuild in-person fundraising to stay afloat.
"There's a myth out there that nonprofits are sustainable and can be sustainable," Keim said. "That's what it is, it's a myth. Every year you're starting over, so one of the biggest worries all nonprofit executive directors, boards and leadership teams have is: 'How are we going to meet our revenue goals?'"
At the same time, the coalition was also due for an upgrade to it's internal technology, including the software it used to collect information for the SNAP hotline and other programs. Plus, it was committed to providing living wages for its employees, Keim said, which meant its operating costs were higher.
At the start of 2024, she added that she knew this year was going to be critical for the coalition to raise the revenue to cover the "true cost" of doing its work. And, bottom line, it couldn't.
"None of us wanted this to be the decision, but we also had to be responsible in terms of the dollars we had," Keim said. "Being able to, if we have to close, which it became clear that that's what we were going to have to do, being able to do it with as much dignity and alignment with our values as we could."
After realizing the coalition needed to shut down, Keim said she had emailed BDT's former CEO, Trooper Sanders, to see if the organization could take over some of the coalition's operations. He didn't reply, and over the next few days, she learned that Sanders had been replaced by CFO Wendy Starner.
BDT's closing announcement came just a few weeks later. Though it had received a $20 million grant from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott in 2022, BDT said it couldn't overcome financial distress that eventually led to its closure.
BDT has kept the details of its closure mostly quiet, even employees were left in the dark, but Kantor's statement said "no malfeasance, misappropriation of funds, or fraud" caused its shuttering. The nonprofit did not respond to a request for interview, but some former employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of concern over potential fallout, told Technical.ly Philly that the organization simply spent more money than it brought in.
"No one wishes to see the nonprofit organization they founded and personally invested in for many years cease to operate," Kantor said in the statement. "... The financial distress of the organization just simply could not be relieved in a timely manner, which forced our closure."
There are a number of reasons that people need help with benefits applications. Some might have just moved from a different state and need help with the new requirements. Some need it when they come home from the hospital and can no longer work. Others don't speak English, don't have digital literacy skills, need help reporting a change in address or just require assistance tracking down all the documents for an application.
"All the little paperwork things can mean the difference between accessing SNAP and food and not, so it's actually really, really important that we get those straightened out right away," said Lydia Gottsfeld, managing attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, which takes on benefits cases.
Beth McConnell, the director of policy for the city's Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity (CEO), said food insecurity has been growing in Philadelphia in 2024. Last year, food prices in the city increased more than any other metro area in the country. Yet, in February, pandemic-era funding for SNAP ended, and Pennsylvania households lost a minimum of $95 per month in SNAP benefits.
"Before COVID, there was a significant amount of food insecurity and after COVID, there's a significant amount of food insecurity and there aren't enough resources for people that need it," McConnell said.
According to McConnell, there are 496,013 Philadelphians — nearly a third of the city's population — receiving SNAP benefits as of June 2024. The coalition received about 19,000 calls on its SNAP hotline each year and helped between 4,000 and 5,000 residents submit benefits applications annually. Just working with the CEO's office and its BenePhilly program, McConnell said BDT submitted about 3,000 SNAP applications per year. In total, the organization submitted anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 benefit applications annually.
With both organizations closing, Gottesfeld said, it leaves a huge gap for food insecure residents.
"It's just a double whammy in Philadelphia because those two groups were two out of the three main groups doing SNAP applications," Gottsfeld said.
Keim said there are a number of philosophies about anti-hunger work, and for some, it's just about getting people food itself. At the coalition, she said she was more focused on the larger root causes that create food insecurity and tools like SNAP that can help people stabilize. It's also one of the best ways to get people food while giving them the freedom of choice, she added.
"If they have medical issues, they can make choices based on that," Keim said. "If there are cultural differences in terms of what they eat, what they don't eat, it gives people choice. It gives people the ability to buy what they need versus getting a bag of food that may or may not be something that's appropriate for them in their family."
Following the closure of the two nonprofits, residents can reach out to groups like BenePhilly and the Promise for assistance with benefits applications. But with the timing of these two closures, Gottesfeld said it will be on a number of food assistance organizations to fill the gap together.
"I am hopeful and optimistic that there are groups that are willing, ready and able to step in and carry through a model of assistance that can really provide effective help to get people connected with benefits," Gottsfeld said.
The coalition, meanwhile, has been able to transfer its SNAP hotline over to PASSi and has a list of other resources still public on its website. Keim said she's grateful to save some of the her organization's work, but the simultaneous loss of BDT will be hard to replace.
"The combination of the two is huge," she said. "There's no way that PASSi or anyone else can fill that gap of BDT. It's not like there are no other places doing pieces of that benefit work, but we need everybody working together to really make sure that people are getting the benefits that they need."