Progress 09/15/24 to 09/14/25

Outputs
Target Audience:Beginning farmers of all siezes and types of farm operation suffer from a lack of access to equity capital to omplete their capital raises. While the focus of this program is small to midsized farms, we may end up working with some larger farm operations on specific projects. FFI is in Madison, WI but has a national reach in terms of our training and outreach and our partnerships. Beginning farmers exist throughout the country, but the highest concentrations of food and agiculture equity investors and foundations are concentrated on the coasts. This geographical disconnect is one of the barriers that this program seeks to address. We will leverage our local and national partnerships with farmer-focused training and outreach organizations to recruit beginnning farmers; create strategies and intentional outreach and program design to ensure socially disadvantaged farmers are represented; and design a triage process to ensure this program is readily available to beginning farmers seeking capital or trying to determine how to grow their farm through organic growth or a significant purchase. Changes/Problems:In year one, we set up infrastructure and tested systems with some smaller farmers who were not as ready to take on equity investment, based on a more traditional agricultural model that will not offer a conventional investor return. We are working on promoting examples of equity investment that works for farmers and creating more targeted marketing to reach farms that are more sophisticated and in need of equity financing re: succession plans and who are candidates for owner financing, or scaling up a larger value-added product. Though we are seeing the need for financing - our current intake has uncovered more capital gap needs for debt. As our intake processes grow and expand we expect more diverse financing needs to surface. If this does not occur, we may need to address environmental factors and adapt to a current capital climate where we may need to shift objectives from equity investment to assisting more farms to acquire debt financing or other financing. Legal services have yet to be engaged and it could be a portion of this budget will need to be reallocated. It is a bit too early to tell as year one involved a lot of onboarding, set up, and process/infrastructure testing. The hope is we have laid the ground work to reach more sophisticated projects in need of deep financial/capital access support which would activate the legal engagement needs. Investor engagement may be less formal and structured as presented in the proposal. Though we discussed having quarterly meetings to review deals - deals happen at their own pace and are often in need of intentional strategy. Investor meetings may be more curated and timely with individual relationship nurturing being the focus between deals to review or discuss. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Four beginning farmers received training in year one. This included a combination one-on-one coaching and training programs. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Coach or train 50 or more beginning farmers (goal: 70 by the end of this award) Convene investors around value propositions We are going to complete at least 25 more financial models to prepare farmers to ask for needed funding Convene sessions of farmer steering committee in early 2026 Design and launch Farm Finance Consultant/Investor Training Design and test small group and/or individual focus groups to gain feedback on programming

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1) Cultivate investor readiness to fund beginning farmers: Year one: SAFSF - June 2025 Sarah attended the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders (SAFSF) to network with investors and share more about this program and our work. In addition, FFI continued to nuture a relationship with the Angel Capital Association to better understand equity/angel investors and their perceptions around investing in food and farm. FFI will be hosting an educational webinar for ACA in January 2026 to bring education and awareness to investing in food, which will help further nurture investor relationships. 2) Improve beginning farmer readiness for funding: We worked closely with project partner Marbleseed to discuss beginning farmer needs and how to best bring this opportunity to their network of farmers and identified a process of introducing the program through their promotional/educational pathways: their seasonal newsletter and annual conference. FFI wrote an article profiling a farmer who participated in FFI training and coaching. This article was well-received, and as a result FFI will be writing a regular feature in the publication to provide answers to farmer financial questions and continue to recruit for ongoing programs supported by this grant. Additionally, we will participate and promote our "Unlocking Capital Access for Beginning Farmers" program at the annual Marbleseed conference in February 2026. Staff worked with our marketing team to create an outreach plan to identify eligible farmers from FFI's current customer base, along with a plan to recruit new leads through strategic partnerships. We created and tested a framework for effectively gathering information from new program participants, including an intake form/survey that gauges current financial acumen, needs, and pain points. This, coupled with a brief introductory call, allows FFI staff to identify the most successful training/coaching path for applicants. In Year 1, three beginning farmers received coaching, two developed proformas/projections, and two received capital. 3) Create fundable beginning farm financial packages Our Farm Finance Program Manager worked with the capital access clinic model to both shadow and understand how their process works to leverage students and templates to create financial modes to support capital raises. In addition, 2 farmers were moved through a financial package creation process - one of whom used the student clinic model and one of whom was directly supported by the Farm Finance Program Manager 4) Align investor interest with fundable beginning farmers In year one of this award, two farmers received capital as a result of the training and coaching this project provided. A loan was received to purchase equipment from a local farm credit entity for $8,500. A second farmer received a HELOC to finance early stage working capital.

Publications