4/2/2012 UPDATE: The Final Impact Report is now available here.

Final Impact Report Submission Deadlines:

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The SIFE mission is to bring together the top leaders of today and tomorrow to create a better, more sustainable world through the positive power of business. Considering relevant social, environmental and economic factors, SIFE teams effectively empower people in need by applying business and economic concepts and an entrepreneurial approach to improve the quality of life and standard of living for their target audience.

The Campbell’s Let’s Can Hunger Challenge, sponsored by Campbell Soup Company, is a comprehensive hunger challenge including: raising awareness, translating awareness to action in the form of urgent hunger relief and empowering those in need to defeat the cycle of hunger.

Through this initiative, SIFE teams in Canada, Mexico and the USA will:

• Successfully develop and execute an integrated marketing campaign to raise awareness about the issue of hunger
• Translate awareness into action by energizing the community and sustaining increased levels of giving to those in urgent need, as demonstrated by non-perishable food and/or fund donations collected
• Transfer knowledge, skills or resources to successfully empower individuals and/or families to defeat the cycle of hunger

The 5,000+ lb Challenge 

SIFE teams in Mexico and the United States have the opportunity to be awarded $250 for pledging to collect 5,000+ pounds of food/funds or more. After Final Impact Reports are submitted the teams raising the highest number of pounds will be eligible for additional awards. Note that awards will be reserved for teams on a rolling basis. A limited number of awards are available.

Mexico:

The first seven teams pledging to raise 5,000 pounds will receive an award in the amount of $250.

After Final Impact Reports are submitted, the team raising the highest number of lbs will receive an additional award of $1,000 USD, the team raising the second highest number of lbs will receive an additional $750 USD and finally the team raising the third highest number of lbs will receive an additional $500 USD.

United States:

The first 96 teams pledging to raise 5,000 pounds will receive an award in the amount of $250.  All teams raising 5,000 lbs or more shall be invited to attend an exclusive reception with Campbell Soup Company employees and executives at the SIFE USA National Exposition.

After the Final Impact Reports are submitted, the top 45 teams raising the highest number of lbs will receive an additional award in May 2012 as follows:

    Teams 1-5 will receive an additional $1,000

    Teams 6-15 will receive an additional $750

    Teams 16-30 will receive an additional $500

    Teams 31-45 will receive an additional $250

 

A team must meet its country’s minimum poundage goal to be considered for a Grand Prize. Minimums vary by country, check your country’s page under “The Challenge”.

Entries submitted for the Campbell’s Let’s Can Hunger Challenge will be evaluated by a panel of representatives from Campbell Soup Company.

HUNGER: A GROWING EPIDEMIC

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations reports that 1.02 billion people around the world are food insecure. Much of this population is also undernourished. The already steady trend of increasing numbers has been accelerated by the world economic crisis. The FAO cites causes also including “high domestic food prices, lower incomes and increasing unemployment.” To combat the increasing issue of worldwide hunger, the FAO has identified safety nets and sustainable hunger relief solutions as a “two track” approach to help relieve hunger, writing:

“Safety net interventions should address the immediate impact on the vulnerable while also providing sustainable solutions to the underlying problems…safety nets must enable recipients to become more credit-worthy and more able to access modern inputs and adopt new technologies, thus allowing them to graduate from the safety-net programme . . . to lift themselves out of hunger, the food-insecure need control over resources, access to opportunities . . .”

Combating this trend will not be an easy task, which is why innovative solutions are needed to raise awareness, help resource critical populations and provide those in poverty with the tools needed to defeat the cycle of hunger.  These are the underlying principles of Campbell’s Let’s Can Hunger Challenge.

The State of Food Insecurity in the World; Economic crises – impacts and lessons learned. 2009 online ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/012/i0876e/i0876e00.pdf.