Share Our Strength: No Kid Hungry Model

In 2010, Share Our Strength launched its No Kid Hungry (NKH) campaign to spark change and end child hunger nationwide. NKH campaigns are public-private partnerships that use a combination of tactics to increase access to and participation in the federal nutrition programs for children and low-income families. In 2014, Share Our Strength received a Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grant to expand the NKH campaigns in six states and extend the evidence base of the program’s impact.

Study Goals:

The evaluation included two main components: an impact evaluation and an implementation evaluation. The impact evaluation examined questions about sociodemographic characteristics, food security, dietary intake patterns, and exposure to NKH SIF campaign activities. The implementation evaluation gathered information about the aspects of each NKH SIF campaign, development, and implementation.

Research Questions:

Three research questions guided the evaluation. The first two questions relate to the impact evaluation. The third question connects to the implementation evaluation. The research questions were:

• Is the NKH SIF campaign leading to increased participation in key federal nutrition programs?
• Is the NKH SIF campaign leading to decreases in childhood hunger?
• How did subgrantees implement their programs? What changes did they make in response to ongoing monitoring and feedback?

Findings:

The report found the following:

• Participation of eligible students in free or reduced-price breakfast programs improved between the school years 2014-2015 and 2017-2018 in all campaign target areas.
• There were no significant differences between main study intervention and control study results related to food insecurity.
• Students in the main study intervention group had significantly improved indicators of meal and snack consumption compared to the control group.
• All subgrantees reported success with at least two of the three key federal nutrition program areas – breakfast, afterschool, and summer.
• All but one of the six subgrantees reported that they were unsuccessful implementing strategies to increase participation in school breakfast.

For more information, download the full report, report brief, and appendices.