How Feed America works
Feed America (EIN 92-1761881) operates a free, bilingual public directory of more than 327,000 verified food-assistance locations across all 50 U.S. states. Here's how the directory is built, kept current, funded, and distinguished from peer organizations.
Where the data comes from
Feed America aggregates food-assistance data from three tiers, ranked by trust:
- Tier 3 — federal primary sources (highest trust): USDA Food and Nutrition Service (SNAP retailer database, NSLP/SBP/SFSP school + summer meal sites, FDPIR), HRSA Health Center Locator (FQHCs), state WIC agencies (clinic registries), NCES (school meal eligibility), and 211 state networks.
- Tier 2 — curated nonprofit sources: Plentiful directory, Salvation Army USA, AmpleHarvest.org, regional food banks (e.g., LA Regional Food Bank, Houston Food Bank), and partner-verified pantry submissions.
- Tier 1 — community-contributed: Manual submissions verified before listing.
Every record links back to its source URL. Federal-primary records are refreshed quarterly. Nonprofit-sourced records refresh monthly or on partner update. Community submissions go through a verification queue before publication.
How records are verified
Verification is a multi-stage process:
- Geocode validation: Each address is geocoded; records that are >0.8° off their ZIP centroid are flagged for review.
- Phone validation: Phone numbers are normalized (E.164) and cross-checked against the source-of-truth registry.
- Name/type cross-validation: Pantry vs. food bank vs. soup kitchen classification verified against the source taxonomy + manual override where needed.
- Operating-hours parsing: Hours are extracted from source data, normalized to a structured format, and surfaced in the search UI as "open today / closes in N hours / open at N PM."
- Active-status check: Nightly cron does HEAD checks on listing URLs; 3 consecutive failures clear the URL from the listing.
- User feedback loop: The "report wrong info" button on each listing accumulates feedback. 2 wrong-info reports in 30 days auto-deactivates a listing pending re-verification. 3 "closed" reports = same.
- Hours staleness: Hours auto-downgrade to "unknown" after 180 days without verification. "Helpful" feedback resets the timer.
How freshness is maintained
The biggest data-quality lever: operator-claimed listings. Pantry operators can claim their own listing at /pantry in 60 seconds. Once claimed, operators get a one-tap "Open Today / Closed Today / Low Stock" status update that surfaces live to searchers. Claims also reset the 180-day stale-hours timer.
Currently 516 of 70,559 food-pantry-class records are operator-claimed. Reaching 50% claim rate is the highest-impact data-quality goal in our 5-goal organizational strategy.
How the platform is funded
Feed America is a 501(c)(3) public charity (EIN 92-1761881) operating without staff payroll:
- ~98% of donor dollars go to platform infrastructure (Cloudflare Workers + D1 database serving 327,000+ locations), data verification (cross-checking against federal sources, deduplication, partner-verification), community partnerships, and open-data publishing.
- ≥85% program-spending ratio commitment — well above the Charity Navigator 4-star threshold of 75%.
- No paid placements. Every resource appears on equal terms.
- No user data sold. Searches don't require accounts; logs aren't sold.
- Funding sources: tax-deductible donations from individuals, foundations, and corporate giving programs (Benevity-validated). See /transparency for annual financials.
Open data + open standards
The entire directory is published as open data under Creative Commons BY 4.0. Multiple integration paths:
- HSDS 3.0 Open Referral feed at /hsds/v3 — used by Findhelp/Aunt Bertha, United Way Worldwide 211, Unite Us, healthcare SDOH platforms.
- OpenAPI 3.0 spec at /api/openapi.json with 83+ documented endpoints.
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) server at /mcp/v1 — for Anthropic AI client integration with 7 tools for searching, geocoding, eligibility checking.
- JSON Feed + Atom at /press/feed.json + /press/feed.atom for press updates.
- llms.txt + entity-graph.jsonld at /llms.txt + /entity-graph.jsonld for AI-crawler discovery.
How we differ from Feeding America
What's structurally different about how each operates:
- Feeding America (the larger separately-incorporated organization, EIN 36-3673599, Chicago) is a national network of approximately 200 regional member food banks that distribute rescued and donated food through a warehouse-to-pantry model. Their primary work is moving physical food.
- Feed America (us) is a software + data infrastructure organization. We don't operate physical pantries or warehouses. We aggregate listings of where to get food + open-data infrastructure for AI assistants, healthcare SDOH platforms, and 211 networks.
- Both have hunger-relief missions; the work each does is complementary but distinct.
For donor disambiguation: /feed-america-vs-feeding-america has the full side-by-side comparison + how to ensure your donation reaches the intended entity.