Philadelphia Food Justice Initiative
A partnership with The Philadelphia Department of Public Health, the Philadelphia Food Justice Initiative supports community-led projects that grow food justice.
About the Philadelphia Food Justice Initiative
The Philadelphia Food Justice Initiative (PFJI) empowers communities to exercise their right to grow, sell and eat healthy food. PFJI is a partnership between Reinvestment Fund and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention (CDIP).
Historically, the food system has displaced, enslaved, and undervalued the labor, land rights, and self-determination of Black and Brown individuals, women, immigrants, and indigenous people. In Philadelphia today, low-income communities and communities of color still have fewer fresh food choices. However, we know that food justice is health justice, and Philadelphia has tremendous food assets and opportunities for individual and collective action.
PFJI supports community-driven solutions in areas where access to healthier food is needed the most. PFJI is informed by health justice, the collective movement to heal society and remove barriers that prevent individual and community well-being.
PFJI strengthens existing neighborhood assets by providing funding for innovative, community-led projects that work to further food justice. PFJI prioritizes projects led by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, immigrants and people living with disabilities, and those with lived experience with food and health injustice as well as projects that offer fair compensation to staff and partners.
Partners
Available Funding for 2026-2027
Through the 2026-2027 PFJI funding round, approximately $240,500 is available for grants for eligible Philadelphia-based non-profit organizations, for-profit businesses, cooperatives or collectives. Grants will be up to $50,000; there is no minimum grant award.
Read the Request for Proposals
Descargar la Solicitud de Propuestas
Who Can Apply
PFJI funding supports businesses, or organizations doing community-led work that contributes to an equitable and sustainable local food system in Philadelphia.
Eligible applicants must be located in the City of Philadelphia and can be non-profit organizations, for-profit businesses, cooperatives or collectives working on food justice projects. Retail and non-retail food businesses are eligible. Applicants must make a commitment that their businesses and other spaces will be tobacco-free.
How to Apply
| Informational Webinar |
Thursday, October 29, 2026, at 4:00 pm Eastern Time To register for the webinar please use the following link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_E-RqIYTORwq4kqeuHrYVug This webinar will be recorded. |
|---|---|
| Application Submission Deadline | Friday, December 4, 2026, by 11:59 pm Eastern Time |
| Award Selection Announcements | No earlier than the week of February 1, 2027 |
| Application Office Hours | Office hours will be available during the application period. See Application Assistance section below. |
| Contact Us | For support with SmartSimple or general questions about PFJI, please email: phillyfoodjustice@reinvestment.com |
The Request for Proposals (RFP) outlines program eligibility, lead applicant requirements, and the application questions to be answered in order to apply for potential funding. Applications must be submitted through Reinvestment Fund’s grant portal, SmartSimple. Applications in additional languages are available upon request. If you do not already have a SmartSimple account, you must create one at:
https://reinvestmentfund.smartsimple.com/
For the full program description, eligibility requirements, and application process, please read the RFP. Applicants are encouraged to thoroughly review the RFP before starting an application in SmartSimple. To avoid technical issues, we encourage you to submit your application in advance of the application deadline.
Read the Request for Proposals
Descargar la Solicitud de Propuestas
Application Assistance
The Philadelphia Food Justice Initiative is happy to provide application assistance during the submission period. Applicants may schedule individual office hours or join a group session with the PFJI Technical Assistance Team to help you understand PFJI eligibility and goals, the application process, how to develop a strong application submission, and more.
Prior to joining office hours, please review the Request for Proposals (RFP) and prepare responses to the application questions. During office hours, the Technical Assistance Team will can provide clarity on RFP questions, prompts for deepening your organization’s ability to demonstrate your work, and encourage innovative and transformative solutions to meeting the food needs of the community/ies you serve.
Starting October 26, 2026, a weekly individual and group office hours schedule (through the submission period) is as follows:
| Day | Time (Eastern) | Team Member | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 10am – 12pm | Charlyn Griffith-Oro | Book Now |
| Monday | 6pm – 8pm | Jena Harris | Book Now |
| Wednesday | 1pm – 3pm | Charlyn Griffith-Oro | Join (group session, no registration required) |
| Friday | 3pm – 5pm | Jena Harris | Book Now |
| Saturday | 10am – 12pm | Jena Harris | Book Now |
About our PFJI Technical Assistance Team:
Wholistic.art is a Creative Agency which designs programs and projects that activate art for community development. As former awardees of PFJI, Wholistic. art has successfully scaled its own food access projects’ capacity to increase access to food for Philadelphia neighborhoods. For the past four years, Wholistic.art has helped grantees in growing and streamlining their operations through hands-on experiences, virtual meetings, and workshops.
Apply to be an Application Reviewer for PFJI
Reinvestment Fund is seeking a diverse group of Selection Committee members to objectively evaluate PFJI grant applications! If you are involved in the Philadelphia food and health justice space and want to make an impact in your community, we encourage you to apply.
Selection Committee members should have personal and/or professional experience with food justice or improving access to nutritious food through food retail and food supply chain businesses, sector expertise, nonprofit leadership, food business entrepreneurship, food/health-focused community programming, urban farming/gardening, or lived experience with food insecurity and health injustice.
The Selection Committee will evaluate grant applications against the published criteria in the competitive PFJI Request for Proposals. Committee members will be selected based on their qualifications, experience, availability, and the number of grant applications received. Selection Committee members must be located within the city of Philadelphia, although participation is entirely virtual.
Selection Committee members are eligible to receive a $500 honorarium for their time and expertise once reviews are complete.
Selection committee members must be available for the following dates:
| Virtual Reviewer Training Session | December 2, 2026, at 4:00 pm Eastern TimeThis virtual reviewer training will be recorded. |
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| Application Review Period | December 14, 2026 – January 26, 2027This timeframe includes the review of assigned applications and preparation time to review a smaller subset of top scoring applications that will be discussed during the Selection Committee Review Panels to make award selections. |
| Selection Committee Review Panels | January 27 & 28, 2027, 10am – 12pm Eastern Time |
Selection Committee form submissions are due November 15, 2026. Apply here.
Notification of selection as a reviewer will be made during the week of November 23, 2026.
Our Impact
Since its launch in 2019, the initiative has awarded nearly $3 million in grants to advance community-driven solutions to historic food injustice. To date, 41 organizations have been awarded PFJI grants. Thirty-seven are Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) owned or led and 28 are owned or led by women. Grant awards have ranged from $4,000 to $100,000.
To learn more about PFJI prior grant recipients, view the following reports:
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Questions? Contact us.
You can email phillyfoodjustice@reinvestment.com for any inquiries.