By Richard Berkfield and Donnie Ager
In my last months at Food Connects, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this journey, the incredible experiences, the hard-won lessons, and the many, many moments of growth. This transition has given me a chance to ask: What do I most want to pass along to the team, to our partners, and to the broader community we've built together?
During my time here, I've witnessed the powerful transformation that happens when good people, big ideas, and community trust come together. Much like sugarmakers boiling sap into syrup, I’ve tried to distill the complexity of this experience into something rich, sweet, and lasting.
Here are six key learnings I’m carrying with me from this chapter, lessons that I hope will continue to serve Food Connects, and our shared work, for years to come.
1. Shared Leadership: The Secret Sauce
Shared Leadership has been at the heart of Food Connects since its founding, and has proven to be one of our "secret sauces" for success over the years. Although there were two official co-founders, the truth is that the original team all acted as founders. Each person was empowered to lead in their own way, and that spirit has remained part of our DNA.
This approach to leadership was a major paradigm shift, especially coming out of a traditional model where leadership was hierarchical, top-down, and isolated. I remember working under Baby Boomer leadership earlier in my career, where it was common to have one person at the top expected to have all the answers. At Food Connects, we flipped that model on its head. We embraced a model where the person in charge admits when they don’t have all the answers, and trusts others to develop their own power, take ownership, and lead alongside them.
I think this ethos of shared leadership aligns strongly with my GenX roots, valuing independence, encouraging others to find their strength, and supporting them in honing and using those strengths for the good of the team. It reminds me of my early experience as a collegiate Ultimate Frisbee player. There were no referees and no coaches, just co-captains selected for complementary skills and a commitment to the "Spirit of the Game." Leadership was shared, and responsibility was collective. It was both paradigm-shifting and empowering for an 18-year-old, and it’s the same sense of empowerment we tried to instill at Food Connects.
One of the greatest privileges I’ve had has been hiring amazing people and then watching them thrive. At Food Connects, leadership wasn't about one person calling the shots, it was about building a team where each member's skills were valued and where leadership was distributed based on the situation and need. It wasn’t always easy, of course. Ego sometimes got in the way. Decision-making during our rapid growth phases sometimes lagged because not everyone was moving at the same speed or had the same information. But a good team player, just like a good Ultimate Frisbee player listens, adjusts, and steps into the role the team needs at any given moment.
We learned that being at the "top" didn't need to be lonely. In fact, by building a culture of shared leadership, we found it could be deeply collaborative and connected. Countless examples throughout history and in the Food Connects journey, prove that organizing differently, empowering everyone, and sharing both burden and success creates stronger, more resilient organizations.
Of course, shared leadership doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intentionality, trust, communication, and a lot of humility. It’s about being self-aware enough to know when to step up, when to step back, and when to ask for help. It's about focusing on the health of the team and organization over any one individual’s ego or recognition.
Over the years, as our team grew and evolved, maintaining shared leadership became more complex, but even more important. We realized that formalizing communication structures, investing in relationship-building, and intentionally creating space for multiple voices at the table was critical to keeping our culture strong.
Looking back, I firmly believe that our commitment to shared leadership is what allowed Food Connects to grow sustainably, to innovate, and to weather the challenges and transitions we've faced. It remains one of the core values that I hope will carry forward well into the future.
2. Social Entrepreneurship: Not Just Charity or Business
One of the most transformative lessons from my time at Food Connects has been the power and necessity of Social Entrepreneurship. Early on, we recognized that there was another way to approach business and impact work, beyond the tired dichotomy of "for-profit" vs. "charity." Why so black and white? Why not take the best parts of both models and create something new?
Social entrepreneurship gave us a third option: using entrepreneurial principles and business models to address social problems and create positive, lasting impact while also generating revenue for sustainability. At Food Connects, this paradigm shift became a core part of who we were and how we operated. We took calculated risks. We made strategic decisions that were about mission impact and financial resilience. And we proudly worked at the messy intersection of business and social good.
This was no small feat in a nonprofit world that often still expects organizations to rely solely on grants and donations. Over and over again, we had to answer the tough questions:
“How are you going to sustain the project once the grant period is over?”
Our response became almost automatic:
“We are using this one-time grant to build capacity that will increase our earned revenue, which will then replace the funds from this grant.”
Copy and paste that answer about a hundred times, and you start to see the persistence and mindset required to shift the model!
It wasn't just theory, we lived it. We set ambitious goals for building earned income streams through our Food Hub and other programs. We embraced the idea that generating revenue wasn’t selling out; it was building strength and sustainability. Every risk we took, investing in infrastructure, expanding our team, piloting partnerships was rooted in the belief that building a resilient local food system required both impact and financial viability.
We also had to develop our appetite for risk. That’s not easy in the nonprofit world, where every dollar is scrutinized and every decision carries weight. But social entrepreneurship demands a willingness to take smart risks for greater returns, not just financial, but social returns.
Once again, the larger theme of paradigm shifting comes into play. It was invigorating to be part of a community and a broader movement where this model wasn’t just tolerated, it was embraced. We found ourselves in conversation with funders, policymakers, and partners who understood and encouraged entrepreneurial approaches. And when you find yourself surrounded by people asking the right questions and taking action, it fuels your own commitment to think bigger and act bolder.
Social entrepreneurship at Food Connects also taught me that sustainability isn't just about money, it's about building organizational structures, relationships, and business models that can adapt, evolve, and thrive over the long haul. It's about setting up systems that make a real and lasting impact, not just creating programs that wither when funding dries up.
At its core, this work is a continual balancing act: staying mission-focused while being financially savvy, staying values-driven while being agile, and always making decisions that honor the bigger vision of healthy families, thriving farms, and connected communities.
Looking back, I feel immense pride in how Food Connects embraced social entrepreneurship, not as a trendy buzzword, but as a real, working model that changed how we operated and expanded our impact. I hope this mindset continues to guide the organization well into the future.
3. Collaboration: More Than a Buzzword
Another major theme that defined my time at Food Connects, and one that continues to shape my leadership philosophy is the critical importance of Collaboration. In a sector as complex and interconnected as local food systems, it quickly becomes clear: no single organization can do this work alone.
From the very beginning, collaboration wasn’t just something nice to do; it was essential. Systems change, the kind of transformation Food Connects envisions, requires breaking down silos between organizations, sectors, regions, even generations, and creating true win-win partnerships.
Fortunately, the collaborative spirit is alive and well in Vermont and throughout New England. We found incredible opportunities to practice collaboration everywhere: working with schools, farmers, distributors, nonprofits, funders, policymakers, and other food hubs. But it wasn’t just about working together when it was easy; it was about leaning in when it was hard, when there were tensions, competition, overlapping goals, or unclear boundaries. That’s where the real work (and the real magic) happened.
Collaboration demanded transparency.
One of our internal mottos was:
“Food Connects isn’t for everybody. We might be the solution you’re looking for or not, and that’s okay.”
Being upfront about who we were, what we could offer, and what we couldn’t, created space for genuine, productive partnerships. It wasn’t about empire-building; it was about dreaming big together. We wanted to scale through partnership, not by growing a monolithic organization that tried to do it all. We kept connecting at the 30,000-foot level, while staying firmly grounded in local communities and real human relationships.
True collaboration requires self-awareness. Each organization, each team, each person had to know their own strengths, their limitations, and where they could best plug in to serve the greater good. It wasn’t just tactical, it was deeply relational. Trust had to be built, nurtured, and sometimes repaired.
And trust didn’t come automatically, it took time, training, and intentional relationship-building.
I can still picture the countless late nights spent talking through challenges, laughing, dreaming big, and getting sh*t done together. Vulnerability wasn’t a weakness; it was a necessity. Sharing struggles, asking for help, celebrating wins together, all of it was key to developing the kind of relationships that could withstand the inevitable storms. And, crucially, collaboration could (and should) be fun.
One of the most refreshing discoveries of this journey was finding leaders and partners across New England who knew how to have fun while doing serious work. It was a reminder that dreaming big, building coalitions, and tackling systemic issues didn’t have to be grim and exhausting all the time. We could laugh, take risks, and lift each other up, and in doing so, create better outcomes for everyone involved.
If the theme of paradigm shifting was present anywhere, it was here. It required moving from competition to cooperation. From turf wars to shared vision. From isolated victories to collective impact.
At Food Connects, we learned that collaboration isn’t a tactic, it’s a way of being. It’s a commitment to showing up for each other, staying open, communicating honestly, and believing that together, we can build something far greater than any one of us could on our own.
4. Food Hub Networks: Trusting Something Bigger
If collaboration was foundational, then Food Hub Networks were a next-level evolution, taking the spirit of cooperation and scaling it across geographies, cultures, and economies.
When I think about the food hub networks we helped build, Vermont, New Hampshire, New England, and Eastern Food Hub Collaborations, I’m filled with pride. These weren’t just loose communities of practice where people shared best practices (though that was a crucial starting point). We went further. We built something even riskier and more powerful: operational collaboration, financial collaboration, and strategic collaboration.
What made these networks different and so groundbreaking was that we didn’t stop at relationship-building. We pushed into shared financial transactions:
Joint grant writing and collaborative fundraising
Shared logistics and infrastructure
Buying and selling across hubs
Negotiating margins that were already razor-thin in the food industry
It meant putting our money where our mouth was. It meant that trust wasn’t theoretical, it was real, it was tested, and it had tangible stakes. We had to think regionally while staying rooted locally. And, wow, did that require stretching ourselves!
Expanded geographies meant working with different accents, different business cultures, and different ways of doing things. It wasn’t just Vermont anymore!
Technological advances became critical allies. Without modern inventory systems, shared ordering platforms, and data integration tools, none of this could have worked. Embracing technology wasn’t optional, it was essential for scaling the collaborative dream.
Cultural norms had to be navigated and respected. Trust and shared vision had to cross state lines and organizational histories.
Building these networks tested everything:
Our commitment to social entrepreneurship (were we willing to sacrifice some short-term profits for long-term gains?)
Our belief in shared leadership (could we trust others to lead critical pieces?)
Our skills in collaboration (could we manage inevitable conflicts and keep moving forward together?)
And the reward was profound: Instead of working alone, small and isolated, we became part of a regional movement that could shift entire supply chains. We could strengthen local farms while growing markets. We could shorten supply chains while expanding access to healthy, local food across wider populations.
None of it was easy. We had late nights negotiating deals where margins were painfully thin. We had moments of doubt when trust faltered or logistics broke down. But the shared vision always pulled us forward:
A New England food system that is stronger, more resilient, more equitable, and more locally rooted.
The work we did to build food hub networks was, and continues to be, a model of what’s possible when collaboration becomes structural, not just relational.
It’s a blueprint for how small organizations can have outsized impacts by connecting, trusting, innovating, and daring to dream together.
5. Mission Creep: Learning to Say No
One of the hardest and most humbling lessons I learned at Food Connects was about mission creep, and the power (and necessity) of saying no.
When you care deeply, and when the needs around you feel endless, the temptation is strong to say yes to everything. Especially in the early days, we wanted to do it all. And at one point, we were running five programs, spreading ourselves thin across multiple important initiatives.
But here’s the painful truth we had to face:
We weren’t satisfied with the impact of any of them.
It wasn’t about a lack of passion or effort. It was about focus. It was about resources. It was about impact.
As an organization, we had to have some brutally honest conversations. We had to ask ourselves hard questions:
Where are we truly making a difference?
What is our highest and best contribution?
What are we willing to let go of, even if it means disappointing some people?
And so we made the difficult, strategic decision to cut back from five programs to two.
I won't sugarcoat it: it was terrifying. It meant letting people down. It meant burning some bridges. It meant walking away from opportunities that seemed good on paper but weren’t aligned tightly enough with our core mission.
But in doing so, we reclaimed something essential: clarity.
We doubled down on what we did best:
Growing the Food Hub
Strengthening the Farm to School program
And from there, we grew, sustainably, strategically, and powerfully.
Even after that big reset, the pull toward mission creep never fully went away. Every grant opportunity, every new idea, every well-meaning request had the potential to knock us off course. But having a strong strategic plan, and learning to say no gracefully, kept us aligned.
One of the greatest lessons I will carry forward is this:
You can't be everything to everyone.
Focus is a superpower.
Saying no is an act of service to your mission.
It’s not about doing less because you’re lazy or afraid, it’s about doing less so you can do it better.
Looking back, I’m proud that Food Connects had the courage to make hard calls in service of a bigger vision. And I’m grateful for the growth that came from those tough moments, because it set the stage for lasting, meaningful impact.
6. It Takes a Village (Across Generations)
Another major lesson from my time at Food Connects, one that feels deeply personal, is the realization that it truly takes a village to do this work well.
Not just a village of partners and collaborators, but a village across generations, across different ways of working, and across profound technological shifts.
As a proud GenXer, I cut my professional teeth under Baby Boomer leadership, just as the world was undergoing massive technological change.
We had to learn new tools on the fly, and then teach those tools to others.
We became bridges between the analog and the digital, between Boomers and Millennials.
We had to translate cultures, and not always gracefully, I’ll admit!
Working across generations demanded something that’s harder to come by than technical skills: Emotional Intelligence.
It meant recognizing that sometimes when I was frustrated with a Boomer colleague, it wasn’t about the issue at hand, it was about the deeper dynamic of "talking to my Dad." It meant understanding that Millennials, with their radically different relationships to work and technology, weren’t trying to undermine tradition, they were evolving it.
And it meant embracing a different kind of leadership, one based on trust, self-awareness, and humility.
We learned to laugh at ourselves.
We learned to lean into the awkwardness.
We learned to let technology help, not hinder:
Shared documents we could edit together, in real-time, across time zones.
Communication tools that allowed us to stay connected without being chained to an office.
Systems that gave everyone, regardless of generation, equal access to information and decision-making.
This journey across generations wasn’t always smooth, but it was powerful. It helped us build a culture at Food Connects that was resilient, adaptable, and truly collaborative.
It also reminded me, again and again, that no one does this work alone.
Mentors helped light the way.
Colleagues stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me in the trenches.
New generations brought fresh energy and insight.
Technology amplified our efforts.
When I think about the future of Food Connects, and of local food systems in general, I know it will continue to be built by a village: a village that spans generations, skill sets, and mindsets. And that gives me tremendous hope.
Because in a village like ours, we are stronger together than apart. We can adapt. We can grow. And we can continue to create the kind of food system, and the kind of world, that we all deserve.
Final Reflections: Interconnectedness
If there’s an unofficial seventh theme here, it’s interconnectedness.
Shared leadership strengthens collaboration. Collaboration fuels food hub networks. Food hub networks demand social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship requires risk-taking and mission discipline. All of it is sustained by strong relationships across generations, skills, and technologies.
It’s a web , not a ladder.
In nature, strength doesn’t come from standing alone; it comes from connection. From roots that intertwine underground. From ecosystems where each element supports the others.
That’s what we built at Food Connects. That's what we must continue to build in our communities, our food systems, and our world.
The work is bigger than any one person, organization, or program. And that’s a good thing , because when we work together, when we trust the strength of our interconnectedness, we create something truly resilient, adaptable, and beautiful.
I am deeply honored to have been part of this web. And while my role at Food Connects may be changing, my connection to this work, and to all of you will remain.
Thank you for being part of the village.
Thank you for believing in the possibility of something better, together.