Ulupono Initiative, a Honolulu-based investment firm, is funding grant writers to help the state and Hawaii-based nonprofits qualify for federal grants that bring in millions of dollars to support local agriculture.
The firm, which has 13 employees, is a venture of The Omidyar Group, founded by Pierre Omidyar, who started eBay in 1995, and his wife, Pam. Ulupono Initiative invests in locally produced food, renewable energy and clean transportation. Since 2009, the firm has invested $89 million into local organizations, according to its website. In 2022, 50% of the firm’s investments went to support local food.
“What we’ve focused on is figuring out ‘how do we leverage our money to get more money for the farmers here in Hawaii,’ because our funding alone is not going to do it,” Jesse Cooke, vice president of investments and analytics, told Pacific Business News in an subsequent interview following the Sept. 8 Agriculture Roundtable, in which he was one of the panelists.
The philanthropic investment firm funds grant writer positions to support The Kohala Center, which provides microloans to rural businesses in Hawaii; the Oahu Agriculture Conservation Association, which mobilizes resources for Hawaii’s agricultural producers; and the Hawaii Farm Bureau, which advocates for legislation to benefit farmers and ranchers.
“Those three primary programs, in the last 10 years, pulled in $60 million [in funding],” Cooke said. “We basically fund a full-time person or half-time person throughout the year at those organizations to go after this money.”
There are many grants available to farmers from government agencies, said Denise Yamaguchi, chief executive officer and founder of the Hawaii Ag & Culinary Alliance, the parent organization of the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival. Farmers interested in learning about those grants can subscribe to receive updates from economic development offices for their county, as well as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state Department of Agriculture, she said. Groups such as the Hawaii Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations, The Kohala Center and Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation and others also share updates about private grants in their newsletters, she added.
Ulupono Initiative has been funding grant writers to seek out federal money that can benefit Hawaii. Three of its recent grants — sought and attained with the firm’s support — garnered a total of $73 million in federal funding from the USDA, Cooke said. Those grants include:
- $40 million from the Climate-Smart Commodities program: This grant helps farmers fund climate-smart farming practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The USDA is investing more than $3.4 billion in 141 projects, according to its website.
- $30 million from the Regional Food Business Centers program: This federal grant establishes regional centers, which provide farmers with grants and connect them with federal programs. Funds were awarded in amounts ranging from $15 to $50 million, according to the program’s website.
- $3 million from the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program: Ulupono Initiative worked with the Hawaii Department of Agriculture to apply for this funding. Through this program, the state can give out funding as sub awards to food distributors, food hubs and other parts of the supply chain, Cooke said.
In total, the funds secured for Hawaii so far are at least $130 million, Cooke said. The cost of hiring those grant writers was $1 million, he added.
“So, you’re talking a $130 million return on investment for those grant writers,” Cooke told PBN. “It’s a no-brainer. Hawaii needs to be a lot more proactive to go after these opportunities because people are paying [federal] taxes.”
Many state agencies don’t have grant writers on staff to go after federal funding, he said, while other states already have that in place.
“We do a lot of advocacy work and one of our main priorities is trying to make the argument that Hawaii’s government needs to have more of a grant writing culture to go after those federal funds more aggressively,” Cooke said.
