Growing Opportunity: How The Good Acre and Pro Bono Volunteers are Supporting Minnesota Farmers
At HandsOn Twin Cities, we believe that when nonprofits and skilled volunteers come together, the results can be transformative. And that’s exactly what happened with The Good Acre, a nonprofit food hub on a mission to unlock economic opportunities and potential for local farmers.
The Good Acres: Supporting Farmers and Their Communities
The Good Acre is the largest nonprofit food hub in Minnesota and works primarily with first- and second-generation immigrant farmers, providing personalized business and technical assistance to help them scale their operations and meet growing market demands. At the same time, the organization works to increase the purchase of local food, distributing over $2.5 million in sales annually to institutions like food access organizations, schools, retailers, and households. By strengthening the capacity of their farmers, The Good Acre helps ensure communities have access to fresh, local food while creating sustainable economic opportunities for the people growing it, making a healthier, more equitable food system.
Their Challenges and Opportunities
Due to the growing demand for their work, The Good Acre faced significant challenges. Large-volume buyers often demand pricing that doesn’t align with their mission of equitable payments for farmers, their online sales and marketing efforts needed scaling, and farmers lacked tools to understand the true cost of production as they worked to grow their businesses.
Many nonprofits face a similar struggle: bringing their missions to life with limited resources. While businesses invest heavily in marketing, technology, and operations, most nonprofits direct nearly all funding toward their programs, leaving little to no capacity to strengthen internal systems or plan for strategic growth. Pro bono partnerships like those at HandsOn Twin Cities help close the gap by bringing in skilled volunteers to provide expertise that would otherwise be out of reach.
To address their challenges, through our Pro Bono Advisory Program, The Good Acre partnered with volunteers from a corporate partner on three key projects:
Blended pricing: Volunteers helped build a customized tool that allows The Good Acre to provide up-front pricing to farmers and buyers.
E-Commerce and Marketing: Volunteers helped identify strategies to scale marketing efforts and improve online sales.
Farm Business Calculator: Because The Good Acre works primarily with smaller farmers (less than 5 acres), many of whom are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants, they lack access to reporting tools. This tool will support farmers in planning their annual budgets, forecasting (especially as many are looking to expand), and setting competitive pricing.
“These projects have been incredibly impactful and well-managed from establishing scope of project to connecting with volunteers who have the right skills and timely management of the projects.”
The Impact
These projects have had tangible benefits for The Good Acre and the farmers they serve. By streamlining pricing, marketing, and operational tools, they have supported success for both customers and farmers by providing directly applicable tools and recommendations like proposal templates, workflows, and website improvements. This means more purchasing dollars that stay in our community and more local food on the shelves and in the homes of Minnesotans. The Good Acre's internal capabilities also grew. With the e-commerce and marketing project, they hired a Marketing Manager to help farmers grow their sales.
“Our partnership with HandsOn has been multi-faceted from one-day, hands-on volunteering, to full-day pro bono consulting, up to multi-week projects. We have appreciated the transparency and clarity provided by HandsOn Twin Cities’ to help keep applications and onboarding seamless and a lower lift for our staff.”
Culmination
The Good Acre’s work with HandsOn Twin Cities is an example of how collaboration between corporate volunteers and nonprofits can spark long-term impact. These projects not only addressed immediate challenges but also strengthened systems, expanded capacity, and deepened community connections. Through these partnerships, The Good Acre is better equipped to help farmers grow thriving businesses, strengthen local food systems, and bring fresh, local food to Minnesotans.