Why Your Zip Code Shouldn’t Determine Your Lifespan | Dion Dawson  ## Metadata - Author: [[TED Talks Daily]] - Full Title: Why Your Zip Code Shouldn’t Determine Your Lifespan | Dion Dawson - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/e9e27d56-dbe9-451c-b286-bae20932a549 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Why The Pantry Model Fails** - Dion frames the pantry model as unchanged since the 1950s and failing to prioritize quality or user experience. - He built Dion's Chicago Dream to buy, pack, and deliver top-quality produce rather than rely on donations. Transcript: Dion Dawson If you look historically at food responses, the pantry model has been unchanged since the 1950s. Everywhere in places that looked like mine, it was inefficient. It didn't champion quality or the end user experience. And it just bothered me. I'm Dion Dawson, founder and chief dreamer of Dion Chicago Dream. We're a nonprofit social enterprise that focuses on providing access to healthy food consistently, making sure that your zip code does not determine how long you live. We deliver a 10-pound box of fresh fruits and vegetables to more than 4,300 households in the Chicagoland region per week. It could be everything from a pineapple to different types of apples, citruses, Swiss chard, spinach, pomegranates. Since 2020, we've provided a little over 3.5 million pounds of fresh produce that we've purchased, packed, and delivered. And we've never charged any of our recipients today. Our produce and our quality is top-notch. We've never taken a single piece of donated produce. We purchase everything. It may cost us a little more, but that's fine. You don't want to dictate what people think they deserve. If we're thinking about people living longer, healthier lives, you want to give them the best opportunity to be healthy. You can't do that with expiring food. One of the things that we wanted to do a little different is make sure that we're talking to people. We do a bi-weekly touch point where we collect scores in six different areas like ease of delivery, quality of produce, staff treatment, and even stress after delivery. ([Time 0:03:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c8ae58ed-2d92-4db7-8b4f-c70cabe06fa9)) - **From A Juneteenth Promise** - Dion started by promising to feed 100 families on Juneteenth and bought 800 pounds of food after two GoFundMe campaigns. - That spontaneous act grew into sustained community work and lit his mission to keep serving. Transcript: Dion Dawson On Juneteenth in 2020, a Gen Z-er came up to me that I had grown up with and said, hey, what are you doing for Juneteenth? And I had no idea. You know, I just, I tried to kind of play along, but he said, no, what are you doing? And I just said, I'm going to feed 100 families. I didn't think about it. I don't know where it came from. And from there, it was two GoFundMe campaigns later and buying 800 pounds of food and bagging chicken leg quarters at four in the morning. What started as someone challenging me to do something for the community for Juneteenth turned into a day and an event that made me feel like I had never felt before. ([Time 0:05:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c371bdb8-845c-4dd5-b0fb-c125591bb0b6)) - **Sustainable Social Enterprise Model** - Dion turned his nonprofit into a paid social enterprise that reached a million in revenue in 18 months and stayed profitable. - He rejects donated produce and unpaid volunteers to ensure quality, pay workers, and build sustainable economic value. Transcript: Dion Dawson It just lit a fire in me. We're up to 48 employees, about 15 vehicles. We're opening up a 20,000 location later this year. We've grown in an environment where growth has been difficult. The average black-led nonprofit never makes it to a million in revenue. We did it in 18 months. As a company, we've never been in the red. It's a social enterprise, nonprofit that is still a business. Early on, it was really about individual donors and grants. And then over the years, we've tried to continue to figure out how to diversify the revenue so that we can be sustainable. We've never missed a payroll. We've never lost an employee. We've never had a volunteer. I just think that if someone does a job, they should get paid for it. It's a commitment back to people. Without a wealth building vehicle attached to whatever social impact work you're doing, then you're just perpetuating the circumstances that you're trying to fight. You can still do good business and do good by people. And you don't have to build like everyone else. ([Time 0:06:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/de2ce54b-1a5e-4f31-9e37-b1efa12da22b)) - **Growth With Paid Staff** - Dion notes his organization grew to 48 employees, 15 vehicles, and plans a 20,000 sq ft location while never missing payroll. - He emphasizes paying workers and avoiding volunteers to create stable jobs and wealth-building pathways. Transcript: Dion Dawson The average black-led nonprofit never makes it to a million in revenue. We did it in 18 months. As a company, we've never been in the red. It's a social enterprise, nonprofit that is still a business. Early on, it was really about individual donors and grants. And then over the years, we've tried to continue to figure out how to diversify the revenue so that we can be sustainable. We've never missed a payroll. We've never lost an employee. We've never had a volunteer. I just think that if someone does a job, they should get paid for it. It's a commitment back to people. ([Time 0:06:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5f5e0f13-136b-467e-99c6-e08b19fa51cb)) - **Use Market Forces Strategically** - Work within capitalism pragmatically to scale impact instead of trying to dismantle it immediately. - Use earned revenue and procurement to pay farmers and build infrastructure across the supply chain. Transcript: Dion Dawson Quotes is basically saying that when it comes to entrepreneurs, I think that they're just too much on execution. And when it comes to social entrepreneurs, I think they're just too much on intent. And I think that we have to find a balance there. And so when I speak about the role in the relationship of capitalism and philanthropy, I think that a lot of times we spend so much time and language on trying to dismantle this thing that Is deeply rooted and foundational in the American experience. And so, you know, what I say is, okay, cool. Let's not look at it from a dismantling place, I think that if I focus on my emotional response to it, I'm wasting my time of figuring out how within this thing can we serve people? Because that's the key thing. If you're wondering, you know, what is the underlying theme? It's immediacy. I don't have time. This will not be solved in my lifetime. So while I have the baton, how can I look at capitalism? How can I look at philanthropy? And how can I figure out ways at which we can have elements of both while making sure that people are treated better, are fed better and live longer lives? Because you need money to move money. ([Time 0:12:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/054bbf01-a642-4a1e-be11-b32dcfec7f3b)) - **Collapse The Supply Chain To Earn Revenue** - Owning procurement and delivery lets Dion collapse supply-chain steps into one contract and earn revenue from 'food as medicine' programs. - That approach turned a large share of earned revenue into sustainable operations for his $6M business. Transcript: Dion Dawson Absolutely. So in terms of the earned revenue opportunity, it happened because we owned our assets. We buy the food. So there's a quality assurance involved and we pay our team. And so that's important because you can scale up or down paid operations. You cannot scale volunteerism because you cannot count on it to be consistent. The biggest thing there that I try to get people to understand is a lot of times when you hear about food as medicine, you hear about it through the lens of people living longer, healthier Lives. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I want people to understand that it's still a market and a market opportunity exists. The food is medicine industry right now is about $26 billion. And so when you think about that, imagine how detrimental it is if this market that's already here is not viewed as a market or market opportunity for the very communities that it says Lily James Olds It's trying to help. So when you say it's that, you said $26 billion industry, right? The food is medicine. Can you define for those of us just what that encapsulates? Do you mean how much people want to be buying healthy food to live longer lives? Like that market? Is that what's embedded in that? Dion Dawson So food is medicine. Basically, like that is the amount of money when you're talking about procurement, contracting and delivery of services from end to end, from the prescription being written from The doctor the actual produce being provided. Throughout that supply chain, right now that market is $26 billion. Lily James Olds So that the prescriptions are written by the doctors saying that their patients need a certain kind of food to live healthy, to recover from illness, etc. So that's what's encapsulated in that $26 billion industry. Yes. Fascinating. Dion Dawson So that you don't help with blood sugar, different things like that. And so, you know, what we stumbled upon is understanding that, okay, cool. Outside of food is medicine. You have Dion Chicago dream, which is here. And our model is not only procuring the food, but delivery. In most other companies, you can procure it, but you don't have the ability to deliver. And so now we're collapsing two parts of that supply chain into one contract and one opportunity. So for us, we're shortening the amount of players that's involved. And we're also representing the very communities that we're trying to save. We're not waiting for someone to give us a piece of the pie. We're contracted to provide not only this product, but these services where we deliver. As a result, we're able to make earned revenue to sustain what we're doing. ([Time 0:19:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/691ab3ae-96b9-4fd8-9e26-087747e42cd4)) - **Build Shared Food-System Tools** - Build open tools and platforms so food organizations can share inventory and connect to delivery options. - Creating shared infrastructure reduces fragmentation across the food system and enables scaling. Transcript: Dion Dawson We don't have a universal system where everyone is speaking the same language. There is no poor product or platform where all of these food organizations and companies can connect their people to their inventory and then connecting the people in the inventory To potential delivery. So that's something that I've actually been working on in the background. What a certain product is going to be launching fairly soon. What I learned is that this is not complicated. ([Time 0:22:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9be47fe5-ef10-479f-aa7f-438096dc9c3d)) - **Food Waste As A Perverse Incentive** - Dion warns that food waste became positioned as the primary solution, creating incentives for organizations to rely on excess donations. - He argues this dependency can prevent systemic change and sustain inefficient expectations of millions of pounds of waste. Transcript: Dion Dawson Well, I think the problem is also, you know, how food waste has been positioned. The problem is, is that it was communicated as the solution, not as one of the solution. And so even though that's not really what we focused on, there is a place for food waste to really get under control because it's out of hand right now. You can't have people starving and wasting millions of pounds of food. I think that immediately speaks to, number one, ordering issues. It speaks to how we've yet to evolve what happens when we've ordered or procured too much. I just think that right now when we think about food waste first, we have to get beyond the liability conversation. You can have a way of changing the liability language so that this food is not being wasted. But I think also I want to hit on the words you said is intentional. And I think that what we're seeing is that this system, you know, there's there is a big focus on really cutting down food waste. Why? Because so much of it is written off to prop up emergency food. So there's money that can still be made or written off from this food that did not go to use. There's still value there in capitalism. So you have to be careful because no one's going to turn down millions of dollars in write-off just for the sake of saying they did something that was socially good. A moment to kind of reevaluate what do we want to do. I understand that there are a lot of organizations out there that try to redirect food waste and prevent food waste. But I think where we are now with food waste orgs, it's the expectation of millions of pounds. And if we're expecting this to never change so that this entity that's saving the food can survive, then we're not looking at changing anything. Because the very survival of this org depends upon the food waste in the millions. It's a chicken and egg situation, but I feel like it opens the conversation of, well, what are your expectations and what do you really want to do? The bigger thing is looking at companies that are contributing the most and saying, okay, well, are you planning to get this under control? Because I don't think that the food system is as fed up as it wants to be or as it thinks it is with food waste. ([Time 0:24:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f6e00f7e-f1a7-4eed-af4d-c29b0f7f839a))