Six years ago nonprofit firebrand Robert Egger went west to California to start L.A. Kitchen. The ambitious nonprofit sought to tackle several tough problems at the same time. It created healthy, made-from-scratch meals for older people while providing job training for people struggling to enter the work force. The organization made the meals from fresh fruits and vegetables that farmers couldn’t sell at full price because of blemishes, funky shapes, or other imperfections.
The effort won high-profile support early on, in part because of Egger’s record founding Washington’s successful D.C. Central Kitchen. The AARP Foundation awarded a $1 million grant, and the Nonprofit Finance Fund made a $2 million loan to help L.A. Kitchen get off the ground.
But it wasn’t enough. Two weeks ago, Egger couldn’t make payroll and had to close L.A. Kitchen. He described the organization’s struggles in the context of big-picture issues affecting the nonprofit world. He said foundations and government rarely provide support for ideas that are cross-cutting and innovative.
“What I ran into is what many of us run into every single day, the fierce grip of normal, the tyranny of routine,” he told participants here at Upswell, a social-change conference organized by Independent Sector that has drawn grant makers and nonprofits. “I was stopped by the four-compartment plate.”
Egger’s vision was meals that combined grains, proteins, and vegetables.
“Blended meals” are healthier, he says, and with the number of older Americans growing rapidly, meat-centric meals aren’t a realist solution to feeding older Americans. But the organization was counting on a contract from the department of aging, which was wedded to traditional meals where different types of food were separate.
“Make no mistake: The barriers on that were not confined to the department of aging,” Egger said. “The same idea of separation and no touching permeates philanthropy.”
L.A. Kitchen worked to make a difference on multiple fronts, including feeding older people, training people for jobs, and cutting down on food waste. Most foundations weren’t willing to support the organization’s comprehensive work, interacting with it on a single-issue basis.
“The silo construct of philanthropy is a chokehold on our innovation.”
Wielding Power
Another barrier for L.A. Kitchen and nonprofits as a whole, Egger said: a lack of political clout.
Nonprofits’ economic impact is still lost on people outside of the social-change world, who buy into the idea that companies drive the economy and nonprofits do good deeds. Egger said he ran into that thinking when he sought the help of local elected officials.
“We are not considered equal to business, so when I go to talk to people, I meet an aide,” he said. “I wouldn’t meet the city-council member.”
Politicians don’t take nonprofits seriously because they don’t represent organized votes or money. Egger urged the nonprofit and foundation officials in attendance to reconsider their support of the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits nonprofit politicking. “We need to own our power.”
‘Take a Knee’
Egger said that he will not lead another nonprofit. He said he’s been inspired by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s protest against racial injustice.
“I’ve decided that in my career, I’m going to take a knee,” he said. Egger said he believes that the opportunities he’s had in his 30-year career in the nonprofit world are due in large part to the fact that he was born a white man in America.
“One of the most important things that white men in America can do is in effect say, ‘My time is past. I’ve had my run. I’ve been in the spotlight,’ " he told the audience. “There’s a new generation coming, and the only way they’re going to achieve that glorious opportunity is if they climb up on my shoulders or the shoulders of my generational peers.”
Egger — who has worked closely with the prominent chef José Andrés through World Central Kitchen to revamp how humanitarian aid works — said he just wants to help the next generation of change makers solve the problems that eluded him and his fellow baby boomers: “I will give my heart and my soul and my imagination and every idea I have to anyone who comes asking to the best of my ability without a charge.”
