Open Road Week 2: Setting the Table with Catalyst Kitchens
After a weekend exploring the Oregon Coast (including Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach and touring the Tillamook Cheese factory — yum!), we headed north to Seattle, Washington for our second and final week on the road.
Keeping with our food theme, our next partner was Catalyst Kitchens (CK), a network of nonprofits leading a movement to end joblessness through food service job training & social enterprise. Catalyst Kitchens was born in 2011 when it was incubated by a former Open Road project partner, FareStart. This year, CK began the process of becoming an independent nonprofit organization. Since 2011, the Catalyst Kitchens Network has placed more than 16,000 individuals experiencing barriers to employment in jobs, served over 100 million meals to their communities, and contributed more than $400 million into their local economies. Check out their Member Map to see the Catalyst Kitchens members that might exist in your community! As an organization that is serving more than 80 member nonprofits across the country, we were eager to jump in knowing the impact we would have across the network!
Our project sponsor, Justin Smith, is the Interim Executive Director of Catalyst Kitchens. He worked with the Open Road team at FareStart, which made for a seamless project kick-off! Justin has a multi-faceted background in the culinary arts, education, and nonprofits that has led to his role today. Justin has done everything from starting a French fine dining restaurant in Nashville to teaching special education in Chicago to working operationally in the nonprofit sector. Justin joined FareStart as a consultant with a desire to work with Catalyst Kitchens and continued to work at FareStart until the separation when he was named the Interim Executive Director of CK.
Justin’s previous experience working with Open Road helped us lay out our project roadmap and determine what Hidden JEMMs could do to maximize our impact for the network! We partnered with CK at a pivotal time as the organization works to become an independent nonprofit entity.
1. 101 Guide: The CK Network spans across the US and is known for the support they provide to organizations interested in starting their own job training program. Starting a job training program is no simple task and the model can have different variations depending on the population it serves. There are plenty of people interested in pursuing this model, but it can be hard to know where to start! To help these “inspired citizens” hoping to help those in their community, we worked with Justin to create a “Catalyst Kitchens 101 Guide for Launching a Teaching Kitchen and Catalyst Kitchens Member” complete with 10 steps to follow to build and launch a program. Ultimately, we hope that “inspired citizens” can use the guide to build out their program and become a CK member!
2. Vendor Directory: One of the most valued benefits that CK offers to its members is discounts for commercial kitchen vendors to help reduce administrative costs for running nonprofits and workforce development programs. There are many services out there that are consistently used by CK members and Justin hopes to leverage the network to find new partnerships and expand existing partnerships. Our team helped develop a directory for CK members to consolidate vendor information in an effort to identify key vendors and the best partnerships to pursue.
To accomplish these projects, Justin arranged interviews with current and prospective CK members to understand what each stakeholder needs from CK to succeed. These interviews were a great opportunity to challenge our assumptions of the value proposition of CK and use new information to inform our recommendations for both the 101 Guide and Vendor Directory. Justin and the team also took a field trip to a Member organization, Project Feast, to see a commercial training kitchen in action and meet with the Executive Director, Van Nguyen. Van shared the experience of pivoting services during the pandemic, how to help keep the organization afloat during a very difficult time, and now she and the board are thinking about potential growth over the next 3 years.
A couple highlights from our week with Justin include:
- On Tuesday, we worked from Justin’s partner’s art studio downtown, close to the famous Pike Place Market. We loved seeing some of her work and learning from Justin about her passion for art and his corresponding passion for food.
- A home-cooked meal by Justin on Wednesday night! We went to the Columbia City farmers market to pick out fresh produce and local food, and then Justin prepared a delicious meal for us. We spent most the night hovering around the stove peppering him with cooking questions.
- On Thursday, after a meeting with a prospective CK member, we serendipitously were invited on a tour of KEXP, a radio station in Seattle that has pretty significant national recognition for their in-studio performances. What a treat!
In addition to great highlights, we learned so much during our week with Justin and CK! Some of key insights include:
- No two job programs are exactly the same: Each type of program requires unique tailoring: who the organization hopes to serve, what barriers those individuals face, etc. One program could serve refugees and immigrants, whereas another might serve the unsheltered. Both require support for the participants, but that support looks different depending on the population.
- Nonprofit vs Social Purpose Corporation: 79 of the 81 CK members are nonprofits, and two are social purpose corporations, which is like an LLC with a mission mindset. In our time at Ross, we had many discussions about the benefits and opportunities of social enterprise, but less about how nonprofit status overlaps with that label. It was interesting to learn why some organizations choose to become a nonprofit rather than a social purpose corporation!
- Serving a network of nonprofits vs a single nonprofit: Within a network of organizations, there is not always one answer that works for all others. We talked to Justin about the dynamic of “co-opetition” a.k.a. cooperation and competition within the network, and how a healthy balance naturally exists within a network running similar programs and hoping for similar impact.
- Those experiencing barriers to employment have untapped skills: As one example, some refugees come to programs like Project Feast to learn how to “cook burgers”, but the programs encourage participants to share their cuisine and culture with others. Sure, Project Feast can teach their students to become a line cook to flip burgers, but there is so much more value and meaning when students recognize their own talents in cooking. The goal is to empower instead of trying to make them fit in.
- The grind → Helping Others: Both Justin and Jenny (from the Sports Bra) have deep expertise in their industry and skills in cooking, but experienced burn out from the grind of working in restaurants. Both decided to find ways to use their talents in ways to help others and build community, and we got to see their passion ignited again. We feel very fortunate to have been able to work with such inspiring people over these two weeks!
We had an unbelievably amazing two weeks on the Open Road, and we’re grateful for the chance to still make the journey after Graduation. Special thanks to the Ross School of Business, Business + Impact, the Zell Lurie Institute, and the Ford Fund for making this once in a lifetime opportunity possible!
