Food Policy Pathways supports the next generation of food policy leaders, providing mentorship and professional development to public servants advancing responsible food and agriculture policy.
The Problem
Food policy sits upstream of a great deal: public health, environmental resilience, animal welfare, and food security. It is also a field where a small number of people in the right government offices shape outcomes for millions.
Food Policy Pathways set out to launch a mentorship and placement program for the next generation of food policy leaders in the United States, and knew it needed the right infrastructure to do it. Rather than run the program on spreadsheets and manual workarounds, the team came to Impact Ops in November 2024 for a purpose-built CRM at its core.
They needed a single place to manage candidates and mentors, and a foundation that could handle communication, matching, check-ins, and reporting as the program grew, without piling administrative work onto a lean team.
The Process
We started with the CRM itself, a single system in Airtable for candidates and mentors, and added capability as the program needed it rather than building everything up front. We added automations, then AI-assisted matching, then reporting, each when the program needed it. Two years in, we continue to operate and extend the system: adding automations, resolving issues, and adapting it as the program grows.
The Outcome
One system now runs the program end to end, from application to placement.
A structured pipeline: The system has handled 986 applications to date, each moving through a defined process that includes independent scoring, so selection stays consistent as volume grows.
AI-assisted matching: Matching began inside Airtable, but was still done by hand: the team read through applications on both sides to find a fit. As the mentor network passed 270 people, that stopped scaling. AI agents now surface likely matches from candidates’ and mentors’ application responses, so the team spends its time on judgment and decision making. More than 1,100 of the 1,621 introductions made through the system have been between mentors and candidates.
A network: Beyond mentor matches, the system supports introductions between candidates and between mentors. Roughly a third of all introductions are peer-to-peer, building a community around the program.
Lifecycle automations and surveys: Candidate and graduate check-ins, mentor-approval tracking, RSVPs and reminders across events, and email-list hygiene all run automatically.
Impact dashboards: Surveys before and after placement, two-month graduate check-ins, and exit surveys feed dashboards that turn everyday activity into verifiable impact data, standardized across reporting periods. The team can show concrete results to donors, partners, and supporters on demand.
These systems freed the team to focus on its mission rather than administration. Sixty-six candidates have since moved into government roles, and 82% of them now work on food policy. The program has grown to serve as a model for others. A new organization has since launched along the same lines, and we’re building their CRM too.
“As a small but growing nonprofit, Impact Ops helped us build the infrastructure we needed to scale our mentorship and placement programs far beyond what our team could have managed manually. Their thoughtful systems, AI-enabled matching, and impact dashboards have not only saved us countless hours but have also become a source of motivation, helping us celebrate the real-world impact we’re creating together.”
Rachel Atcheson
Founder & Executive Director, Food Policy Pathways