What Eat the Change Impact does

Eat the Change Impact is a philanthropic grant-making program founded in 2020 by Seth Goldman and Julie Farkas as the charitable complement to Just Ice Tea. The organization promotes and expands access to climate-friendly foods in the United States by awarding annual grants to nonprofit organizations and individuals working on plant-based diets, food waste reduction, organic agriculture, biodiversity, and sustainable packaging. Grant recipients have included urban farms, food justice organizations, plant-based education nonprofits, and youth climate initiatives, with a particular concentration in the greater Washington, DC region. Notable grantees include AfriThrive, Black Veg Society, Building Bridges Across the River, Common Good City Farm, DC Greens, and Plant Futures.

The program's capital base is a donor-advised fund at Impact Assets, seeded with proceeds Goldman and Farkas received from selling their Honest Tea equity to The Coca-Cola Company. The fund awards 8-10 grants per year and has distributed more than $1.5 million over four years, including $250,000 in 2023. The 2024 cycle is restricted to renewal applications from current grantees in the DMV region, with final decisions made by the two founders.

The business model is philanthropic grant-making, not commercial revenue generation. There are no products, services, pricing models, or paying customers. Distribution occurs directly through annual application cycles, with marketing conducted primarily through the eatthechange.org website and cross-promotion from the affiliated Just Ice Tea beverage brand.

Name

Eat the Change Impact

Legal name

Eat the Change Impact

Website

https://eatthechange.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Eat the Change Impact is a philanthropic grant program founded in 2020 by Seth Goldman and Julie Farkas that awards annual grants to nonprofits and individuals promoting climate-friendly foods, funded by a donor-advised fund seeded from their Honest Tea equity sale to Coca-Cola.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Philanthropic Grantmaking Services

NAICS

Grantmaking Foundations (813211), Grantmaking and Giving Services (81321)

SIC

Services-Social Services (8300)

akta.pro primary industry

Environmental & Climate Grantmaking Foundations (BPAGAKAM)

akta.pro secondary industry

Grantmaking & Philanthropic Funds (Institutional Donors) (BPADAOAB)

Keywords

• Philanthropic grantmaking
• Climate-friendly food
• Nonprofit grant program
• Sustainable agriculture grants
• Community food access

Headquarters

HQ city

Bethesda

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Operations, Personnel, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Philanthropic Grant Funding: Funds are issued from a donor-advised fund at Impact Assets. Before selling their Honest Tea equity to The Coca-Cola Company, Seth Goldman and Julie Farkas allocated a significant portion of their holdings to Impact Assets, a donor-advised fund. The ETC Impact grants come from that fund.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Eat the Change Impact runs an annual grant program that awards funding to nonprofit organizations and individuals promoting climate-friendly eating in the United States. Grants support education, community access, urban farming, food waste reduction, organic agriculture, biodiversity, and sustainable packaging, with a directed focus on the greater Washington, DC region. Funds are sourced from a donor-advised fund at Impact Assets established by founders Seth Goldman and Julie Farkas using proceeds from the Honest Tea equity sale to The Coca-Cola Company.

Product overview

Eat the Change Impact is a grant-making philanthropy program (not a technology product company). The sole offering is the ETC Impact Grant Program, which provides annual grants to support organizations promoting climate-friendly eating. Founded in 2020 as a complement to Just Ice Tea, the program has donated over $1.5 million to support changemaking nonprofit organizations.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• ETC Impact Grant Program Annual grant program that awards roughly 8–10 grants per year to U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofits and individuals with fiscal sponsorship, focused on climate-friendly eating, plant-based diets, food waste reduction, organic agriculture, biodiversity, and supporting historically marginalized communities in the greater Washington, DC region.

Quantifiable outcome

• Donated more than $1.5 million over four years to support changemaking nonprofits
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights2 records

Direct peers

• Thousand Currents: Thousand Currents (formerly IDEX) funds grassroots food sovereignty and climate justice initiatives globally. It overlaps with ETC Impact's climate-food-equity thesis and uses a grantmaker-plus-capacity-building model.
• Tides Foundation: Tides Foundation is a donor-advised fund and social justice grantmaking platform that, like Eat the Change Impact, pools donor capital and disburses grants to nonprofits advancing climate and equity causes. It is a direct structural and functional peer operating at a much larger scale.
• The Good Food Institute (GFI): GFI is a nonprofit that funds and advocates for alternative proteins and plant-based food innovation. It directly competes with ETC Impact for donor attention and grant dollars in the climate-friendly food space and serves a similar audience of mission-driven food entrepreneurs.
• Wholesome Wave Foundation: Wholesome Wave provides grants and programmatic support to improve food access and affordability in underserved communities. Several ETC Impact grantees (e.g., Crossroads Community Food Network, DC Greens) pursue the same mission through different mechanisms.
• New Harvest: New Harvest funds and convenes research on cellular agriculture and alternative proteins. It is a peer in funding organizations working on the climate-food intersection via grants to researchers and nonprofits, albeit in a more specialized technology vertical.
• Fair Food Network: Fair Food Network operates food access and fair-food systems programs, including Double Up Food Bucks. It is a direct peer in the climate-friendly food and food justice space, with overlapping grantee profiles and program design.
• The Pollination Project: The Pollination Project issues small, trust-based seed grants to early-stage social change projects, often in climate and food. Its grant size and model mirror ETC Impact's approach to supporting emerging changemakers.

Broad incumbents

• The Rockefeller Foundation: The Rockefeller Foundation is a large, established foundation that funds climate, food systems, and equity initiatives at scale. It is a broad incumbent in the same philanthropic space, with overlapping thematic priorities but vastly greater scale and longer grant cycles.
• Bloomberg Philanthropies: Bloomberg Philanthropies is a major global foundation with deep commitments to climate action and food systems reform. It is a broad incumbent peer in the climate-food philanthropic space, with substantially larger grant capacity than ETC Impact.

Emerging players

• The Awesome Foundation: The Awesome Foundation is a decentralized network of micro-chapter foundations awarding $1,000 grants to projects worldwide. While broader in scope, it shares ETC Impact's small-grant, high-volume, community-led grantmaking philosophy.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Eat the Change Impact