PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
Shantell Bingham and Melanie Allen Named New Co-Directors of the LIFE Collaborative
[Dec. 6, 2024] The members of the Liberating Investment in the Food and Farm Ecosystem (LIFE) Collaborative are thrilled to share the news that Shantell Bingham and Melanie Allen have been selected to lead the organization. Together, the co-directors bring a wealth of experience in the field and in building infrastructure that will be important for LIFE at this critical juncture of expansion.
LIFE is a resource redistribution vehicle created by and for BIPOC-led food and land justice organizations working to end business as usual in philanthropy and return resources back to food and farm system solutionaries. LIFE’s aim is to ensure that frontline food and agricultural justice organizations are well resourced to materialize real change in the fight to transform the food system towards ecological restoration, community self determination, and climate resilience.
"LIFE's impact on philanthropy and in the ecosystem of food and agricultural justice in the last four years as an emergent collective of Black and Brown leaders across the country has already been impressive to me,” said Neil Thapar, co-director of Minnow. “With Melanie & Shantell as stewards, we'll be able to push for real change in philanthropy. I so admire Shantell's system-thinking approach as well as her deep experience in uplifting the intersections of food, agriculture, land, and climate justice. And Melanie brings a clarity of purpose and focus on transforming philanthropy from her work building out Black Farmer Fund that I have no doubt will keep us sharp as we need to be in this work."
Birthed out of a need to reclaim stolen narratives and co-opted work at the height of the COVID pandemic, LIFE was created as a result of 17 organizations coming together in the summer of 2020 to pen an open letter to food system funders calling out exploitative grantmaking practices and uplifting corrective measures. This call to action was a catalyst for philanthropy to respond to greater accountability, and seeded a coordinated effort led by grassroots food system solutionaries to drive systemic change across the funding landscape. To date, LIFE has reclaimed over $4.5 million, created a democratic governance process and distributed over $3.5 million (and counting) to the food and farm ecosystem in just 4 years.
“I’m excited about the new co-directors, who bring a wealth of experience and fresh energy,” said Edna Rodriguez, executive director of Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI). “The energy from the new LIFE co-directors, combined with the commitment of current LIFE group members, will accelerate efforts to shift power to grassroots-led movements. LIFE challenges the notion that philanthropy is merely about wealthier individuals giving to those with fewer resources.”
Shantell started as LIFE’s new co-director in July 2024, focusing on LIFE’s resource redistribution, internal operations, and strategic partnerships for asset mobilization. Shantell brings robust insights, rooted in strong local and national organizing. Her experience includes strengthening community controlled infrastructure for urban farming, grocery cooperatives, and healthy school meals as the Program Director of Cultivate Charlottesville’s Food Justice Network.She most recently served as the Organizing Director at the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) where she supported communities across the US, including Indigenous territories and colonized island nation-states, in their fight against polluting industry and advancing a just transition to a regenerative economy. Shantell is the great-granddaughter to North Carolina tobacco sharecroppers, railroad workers, and domestic laborers, a mother to Elijah, and has been recognized locally and nationally for her commitment to building justice.
Shantell’s co-director, Melanie Allen began her position at the end of October 2024. Her role will focus on funder organizing, political education and developing strategies to disrupt and challenge traditional philanthropy. A former Fulbright scholar studying the impact of environmentally induced migration on yam farmers in Benin, Melanie most recently was a founding staff member at Black Farmer Fund (Program Director and later Co-Executive Director) where she focused on building out programs that fostered community power, knowledge exchange, technical assistance and interdependent networks amongst Black food actors in the Northeast. Prior to Black Farmer Fund, Melanie has worked with Decolonizing Wealth Project, 350.org, Les Jardins Chez Marlene and Amnesty International. Melanie’s connection to food sovereignty and land stewardship are deeply rooted from her experiences spent in Jamaica with her grandparents, who both grew up in farming families and instilled practices and values around seed saving, being in right relationship with the land, and food being a collective resource.
“Funding vehicles that are truly community led, driven and designed are important,” said LIFE strategic consultant, senior advisor and former executive director of the National Black Food and Justice Alliance, Dara Cooper. “We know how traditional philanthropy has been disruptive to and disregarded critical work in the food movement. LIFE offers a much different, effective and promising model with leaders who know the field best creating our own vehicles rooted in dignity. Shantell and Melanie are the right leaders in the right place at the right time for LIFE and the necessary aims of the food movement,” said Cooper.
