Case Study: San Diego Food Systems Alliance
The San Diego Food Systems Alliance is a diverse community of leaders across San Diego County—farmers, fishermen, food business owners, workers, organizers, policymakers, funders, and residents—working to build a food system that works for everyone.
With a core staff of ten, the Alliance mobilizes a large, cross-sector network around an ambitious local vision while supporting the viability of food-related businesses and community-led solutions.
The Alliance was growing its influence and impact while remaining deeply committed to building an organizational culture and structure that reflected its values—but it wasn’t yet clear how to do both at once.
They held strong commitments to relationality, power sharing, and shared leadership, but were still figuring out how to design an organization that truly embodied those principles in practice. Their work was highly emergent, and they hadn’t yet found the balance between honoring that emergence and providing enough direction and accountability to coordinate effectively, make decisions, and sustain momentum.
They were asking:
How do we design leadership structures that reflect our values without losing effectiveness?
How do we share power in real, workable ways?
How do we support staff at all levels to participate meaningfully in leadership?
How do we set and evolve priorities in a fast-changing environment?
The Alliance was growing its influence and impact while remaining deeply committed to building an organizational culture and structure that reflected its values—but it wasn’t yet clear how to do both at once.
They held strong commitments to relationality, power sharing, and shared leadership, but were still figuring out how to design an organization that truly embodied those principles in practice. Their work was highly emergent, and they hadn’t yet found the balance between honoring that emergence and providing enough direction and accountability to coordinate effectively, make decisions, and sustain momentum.
They were asking:
How do we design leadership structures that reflect our values without losing effectiveness?
How do we share power in real, workable ways?
How do we support staff at all levels to participate meaningfully in leadership?
How do we set and evolve priorities in a fast-changing environment?
Our impact:
The Alliance developed leadership practices that were both values-aligned and operationally effective.
Staff gained greater clarity about roles, authority, and decision-making, while also feeling more supported to lead from where they were. The organization strengthened its ability to navigate power and emotion constructively, adapt priorities over time, and coordinate action across its network—laying a strong foundation for sustained, collective impact.