Community Table
Top Hunger Nonprofit
Impact: $0.70 provides a meal to a person in need. Read More
Client Choice Food Pantry, Feeding the Future Program, Mobile Food Pantry, The Emergency Food Assistance Program and Commodities for Seniors meets the benchmark for high cost-effectiveness. The nonprofit's cost per meal is less than 75% of the local meal cost.
Note: The impact of this program may not be representative of the entire operation of Community Table.
Governance: Passes checks
Mission
ACFB provides its neighbors with food assistance and other resources to foster self-sufficiency and achieve long term success through innovation, compassion and community support.
Cause
Hunger
Rated Program
Client Choice Food Pantry, Feeding the Future Program, Mobile Food Pantry, The Emergency Food Assistance Program and Commodities for Seniors
Location
Jefferson County, CO
Website
Donations processed by the nonprofit.
Cause
Hunger
Rated Program
Client Choice Food Pantry, Feeding the Future Program, Mobile Food Pantry, The Emergency Food Assistance Program and Commodities for Seniors
Location
Jefferson County, CO
Website
Rated Program
Program
Client Choice Food Pantry, Feeding the Future Program, Mobile Food Pantry, The Emergency Food Assistance Program and Commodities for Seniors
Activities
Community Table provides groceries to beneficiaries.
Program Type
Food Distribution
Beneficiaries Served
People living in poverty
Geography
Jefferson County, CO
Outcomes: Changes in people's lives. They can be caused by a nonprofit.
Costs: The money spent by nonprofits and their partners and beneficiaries.
Impact: The cost to achieve an outcome.
Cost-effectiveness: A judgment as to whether the cost was "worth" the outcome.
Outcomes
Outcome Metric
A meal provided to a person in need
To calculate impact, we estimate how many outcomes the nonprofit caused.
Data Source
Outcome data collected during the program. Community Table publicly reports the amount of food it provides.
Time Period of Data
July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018
Ratings are based on data the nonprofit itself collects on its work. We use the most recent year with sufficient data. Typically, this data allows us to calculate direct changes in participants' lives, such as increased income.
Method for Attributing Outcomes
We assume that the distribution of a meal from one nonprofit's food distribution program does not diminish the amount of food distributed by any other (neighboring) food distribution program. This “counterfactual” assumption about the amount of food distributed in the absence of Community Table’s food distribution program implies that the benefit of a meal to a beneficiary in need constitutes a net gain; the gain is not offset by reductions in food provided to other beneficiaries in need. We therefore set the counterfactual to zero.
We don't know if the observed changes were caused by the nonprofit's program or something else happening at the same time (e.g. a participant got a raise). To determine causation, we take the outcomes we observe and subtract an estimate of the outcomes that would have happened even without the program (i.e. counterfactual outcomes).
Cost
Data Source
Cost data reported by Community Table and data and assumptions about partner and beneficiary costs.
Cost Calculation
$513,316 program costs + $358,158 partner costs + $0 beneficiary costs = $871,474 total costs
After estimating the program's outcomes, we need to determine how much it cost to achieve those outcomes. All monetary costs are counted, whether they are borne by a nonprofit service deliverer or by the nonprofit’s public and private partners. In-kind donations, of labor or supplies, are not counted.
Impact
Impact Calculation
$871,474 total costs / 1,294,123 meals provided = roughly $0.70 provides a meal to a person in need.
Numbers may not divide precisely due to rounding and time discounting.
We calculate impact, defined as the change in outcomes attributable to a program divided by the cost to achieve those outcomes.
Rating
Benchmark for Rating
Impact ratings of food distribution programs are based on the cost of a meal relative to the cost that a food-secure person incurs to buy a meal in that county. Programs receive 5 stars if they are less than 75% the cost of a meal and 4 stars if they are less than 125%. If a nonprofit reports impact but doesn't meet the benchmark for cost-effectiveness, it earns 3 stars.
Determination
The nonprofit's cost per meal is less than 75% of the local meal cost.
Why We Could Be Wrong
We welcome your suggestions for improving our methodology. Our methodology section includes explanations of how we mitigate these issues.
- The outcome could oversimplify total impact. Using "meals provided to a person in need” as the metric of analysis may obscure differences in, for instance, the nutritional quality of meals.
- There could be multiple important outcomes not captured in our analysis.
- Community Table may be spending additional money in order to serve harder-to-reach and/or particularly valuable populations.
- In the absence of better data, we assume uniform counterfactual rates for programs, at the risk of masking variation across nonprofits.
- Our estimates rely on data made public by Community Table on its website, annual reports, financial statements and Form 990s.
- We only analyze programs that meet our criteria. As a result, this report may not fully reflect the impact of Community Table.
- We do not assess what explains the nonprofit's cost-effectiveness.
We assign a rating to the nonprofit using the rubric:
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There are indications of governance or financial health issues at the nonprofit.
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After being given an opportunity, the nonprofit chose not to publish impact information.
We are not yet issuing this level of star rating.
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The rated program does not meet our benchmark for cost-effectiveness.
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The rated program is cost-effective.
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The rated program is highly cost-effective.
Nonprofit Comment
Not provided. This may be because we lacked contact information for Community Table or it chose not to comment. If you are a representative of this nonprofit, contact us to review and comment on your rating.
Before publishing, we ask every nonprofit we can to review our work, offer corrections and provide a comment.
Analysis Details
Analysis conducted by ImpactMatters and published on November 22, 2019.
An ImpactMatters analyst searched the Form 990s, annual reports, audited financials and the website of Community Table to calculate impact and rate cost-effectiveness. A second analyst conducted quality control.
We welcome corrections. If you are interested in exploring applications of ImpactMatters data, contact us at partnerships@impactmatters.org.
Governance Check
Community Table passes our governance check.
Conducted a financial audit
Overhead spending is reasonable (<35% of total spending)
Charity Navigator has not issued a fraud or mismanagement advisory
Community Table itself has not reported any material diversions of assets
Community Table itself has not reported any excess benefit transactions
Source: Community Table Form 990 and Charity Navigator
How We Calculate Impact
This rating is based on ImpactMatters analysis of the impact of Client Choice Food Pantry, Feeding the Future Program, Mobile Food Pantry, The Emergency Food Assistance Program and Commodities for Seniors relative to costs. Impact is the change in the social outcomes of people served by the program, net of the change that would have happened even without the program (the “counterfactual”); divided by cost. Learn more.
Rating is a complex exercise and we urge you to read our frequently asked questions for details of how and why we issue these ratings.
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ImpactMatters does not take money from nonprofits for ratings or recommendations.
Community Table
