An Interview with William Jennings of Dreaming Out Loud

Dreaming Out Loud is a DC-based nonprofit with the mission of creating economic opportunities for marginalized communities through building a healthy and equitable food system. Their CSA program, called Black Farm CSA, aims to economically support black and brown farmers. The program was also created to bring more access to high quality food to the community.

We recently sat down with William Jennings, the Food Access Program Manager of the organization. Read on to see how Local Food Marketplace (LFM) helps Dreaming Out Loud spread the word about their program, increase food access, offer customizable farm shares, grow sales, and keep good data.

Black Farm CSA Facts:

• • Economically supporting marginalized communities
  • Using LFM to sell 4 different types of farm shares
  • Gained 1,000 new customer accounts in 2022
  • Home delivery to DC residents or pickup at farmers markets
  • Produce from black, brown, and value-aligned farmers

How LFM helped Black Farm CSA Grow:

• • More options and opportunities for customers
  • New customization options for CSA subscribers
  • Adding new sales channels
  • Strong data for nonprofit reporting

About the Organization

Dreaming Out Loud is a mission-based nonprofit that aims to fill the food access gaps in Washington DC. The organization operates as a food hub, which aggregates and distributes food produced by local Black farmers. In an effort to combat systemic inequalities in the food system, Dreaming Out Loud launched Black Farm CSA.

“We offer a CSA program called Black Farm CSA, because we want to highlight black, brown, and value-aligned farmers in the local area. We want to economically support them. We also want to highlight that these farmers exist, and this is the high-quality produce they are growing.”

Today, Dreaming Out Loud works with 30 local food producers. Black Farm CSA offers four different types of farm shares via their online platform: The “Farmer’s Bounty” Share, The Green Share, The “Ready-for-Dinner” Share, and a Customizable Share.

Spreading the Word

Dreaming Out Loud hosts in-person farmers markets, but also sees online sales as an important medium to reach more members of the community, and to spread the word about Black Farm CSA.

“Using LFM as an online platform to better spread the word about our CSA was a great approach,” says William. “We wanted to market to people that would see our online storefront. We are able to spread the word faster and better through an online platform.”

Local Food Marketplace’s software platform also offers markets like Dreaming Out Loud the option to list exactly which farm each produce is coming from. Market managers can share more about each farmer and producer through profiles on the “Meet Our Producers” page.

William found that offering products online through LFM has helped to increase food access for the community. With Black Farm CSA’s LFM-powered storefront, “there’s an easier approach to actually order. People don’t need to leave their house and travel far away. There could be economic barriers such as not having a car—so we’re offering a way to order online. We’re giving people the choice that they don’t even have to leave their home. They can order online and we can deliver to them.”

Why LFM’s Platform?

Prior to using Local Food Marketplace, Black Farm CSA was sold through a website with limited options. Without a robust software system, the organization was unable to offer many choices for their customers.

“With LFM, we can give our customers even more options. We are able to do delivery, and offer an e-commerce store.”

Flexible Payment Options

In the past, customers paid up front for the entire season of CSA shares. With LFM, the organization was able to implement a pay-by-order system.

“We set up our LFM site so that these shares are pay by the order. So you don’t have to pay a huge fee at the start of the season,” says William. “Our CSA program is more of a subscription program where you can pay by the week, you can put it on hold if you want, you can cancel it or you can switch to another of our four CSA shares. We want to make it as customizable and adaptable for the customer as they want.”

New Sales Channels

With their previous online site, Dreaming Out Loud was only selling their CSA shares online. With LFM, the organization is also listing individual items from their inventory on their ecommerce site.

“So, in addition to buying a CSA share online, LFM gave us the opportunity to give customers a way to buy a single product,” says William. “So, you can order a couple of apples or a bunch of collard greens instead of buying a whole CSA share. That led to an increase in new customer accounts because they could see all of the availability on our website.”

In fact, Black Farm CSA saw over 1,000 new accounts created in LFM over the course of 2022—their first year using the platform.

A Better Ordering Experience

Black Farm CSA uses social media posts to encourage online ordering. Source: https://www.instagram.com/blackfarmcsa/

“Using LFM also increased ordering because it made ordering more enticing.” For Dreaming Out Loud’s customers, LFM’s ecommerce site offers a more enticing ordering experience. William had found that customers appreciate the ability to browse the online store and chose single items based on their photos, rather than only being locked into a pre-ordered CSA.  

“We also make Dreaming Out Loud value-added products such as seasonings and granola and other items so we can not only sell the produce that we aggregate from our black, brown, and value aligned farmers, but we can sell value-added products that we make from their produce. Being able to sell that online too was a definite plus and a definite reason why we sell using LFM.”

Subscription Builder

Black Farm CSA introduced a new share option—customizable shares—in 2022. For this share option, shoppers can choose what items they’d like to have in their farm share each week. This was possible thanks to LFM’s new Subscription Builder software.

“We love that Subscription Builder gave our customers even more options. And it gave us a new way to do CSA. Before Subscription Builder we never had the customizable share option, so it was new for us, it was new for customers. I think it gave people a new idea of how CSAs can be run.”

What Customers Wanted

William found that before using LFM’s Subscription Builder, customers were asking for the option to customize the produce that came with their farm shares.

“And then LFM came out with Subscription Builder, and for some customers that really sealed the deal on why they wanted a CSA share from us.”  

Growing Sales

William attributes the growth of Black Farmer CSA to LFM’s user-friendly storefront, the ability to offer a whole inventory to customers, and the new customizable share options.

“We’re seeing an increase in the numbers of customer accounts that have been created on the site. That has jumped up dramatically. We’re also seeing an increase in the amount of orders we’re getting.”

Data Reporting

William sees accurate data reporting as an important part of keeping the nonprofit running. “LFM has really helped us out on that front. Before this year, our data was in multiple different places. We didn’t have a central home to access data. With LFM, all of it ties to the back end. You can see all of the data that has been gathered there and search for it easily. And that really gives us some more ease.”

“Since we’re a nonprofit, we need figures and stats. We don’t only need to know how the CSA is doing at the end of the year, but how it’s doing in the middle of the year, or the first month, or a random week in July. We need this data for outside reporting, so it’s a great function to be able to easily compile all the data reports to see how we’re selling and what we’re selling. It tells us more about why we’re selling when we can look at the data from the past not only months, but years.”

If you’re looking for the right software to help your organization sell local food, please don’t hesitate to reach out for a free demo of LFM.

Looking for more ways to grow your business and save time? Check out some free resources for farmers and food hubs:

• • • Read about how LFM helps one food hub work with over 50 producers:
      • “What helps is that LFM is organized in a way that as producers, we list inventory ourselves, set prices, and describe our own products. We maintain the transparency of sourcing—you can see where every product comes from and customers value that.” –Kate Donald, Stout Oak Farm
    • Looking to save time? Here’s how to gain 20 hours a week.
    • Check out our free Guide to CSA Retention
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