About Us

Nonprofit Innovations Inc., is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to ending hunger in the United States by ensuring that adequate, appropriate, and timely food assistance is available to everyone in need. To that end we develop, test, and promote tools and models that support and improve the practice of charitable food distribution.

Current Projects

Mobile Food Pantries – As a member agency of Feeding America West Michigan, we work with our partners to distribute roughly 100,000 pounds of food per year to people in need on the south side of Grand Rapids. Our mobile food pantry distributions act as our test kitchen for new approaches to mobile food pantry operation.

Find a Food Pantry – In partnership with Tackle Hunger, we built a database of over 20,000 food pantries and similar resources across the United States, designed for people seeking food assistance and those who work with them.

End Hunger in America – An online resource for anyone wanting to learn how communities and individuals can effectively address the problem of hunger, including the publications How to Run a Food Pantry and Charity Food Programs That Can End Hunger in America.

FLIP – The Food Bank Logistics Information Planner is a software tool that helps regional food banks manage the logistics and program work that their ERP and CRM systems don’t.

Intaker – A web-based intake tool with versions tailored to fixed and mobile food pantries, designed to drive good practices and optimized for ease of use.

Executive Director Jeff Thomas

Jeff Thomas has been active in hunger relief for over twenty-five years. In 2001, having learned that the existing national directory of regional food banks was badly obsolete, he used a chunk of the summer before his freshman year of high school to build a new one. Jeff went on to contribute to the first nationally distributed materials on the mobile food pantry distribution model, study the impact of regional retail cost differences on the adequacy of SNAP benefits, and write the widely circulated How to Run a Food Pantry. In 2009, he partnered with his father and frequent collaborator John Arnold, a longtime food banking leader and Feeding America John van Hengel Fellow, to establish Nonprofit Innovations.

As Executive Director of Nonprofit Innovations, Jeff has overseen the distribution of more than 1.5 million pounds of food to people in need, led projects including the creation of Intaker and FLIP, and conducted research into questions ranging from quantifying need to identifying new sources of donated product. He also advises food banks and pantries across the country on choice pantry operation and related matters.

Contact Us

Board of Directors