Delaware Public Benefit Corporation · Pending B Corp
Accountability
As a public benefit corporation pursuing full B Corp certification, A Farmer's Share is accountable to everyone affected by our work. Here are the commitments we have made, how we keep them, how to raise a concern, and our annual public benefit statement.
Our Public Benefit Purpose
What we exist to do, and how we govern for stakeholders.
Read → 02Equity, Justice & Inclusion
How equity shapes our operations, our client work, and our communities.
Read → 03Climate Action Plan
Our targets, resources, and timeline for acting on climate.
Read → 04Raise a Concern
How anyone affected by our work can raise a concern, and what happens next.
Read → 05Lobbying & Advocacy
We advocate for fair, community-controlled food systems, responsibly.
Read → 06Public Benefit Statement
Our annual report on the public benefit we set out to create.
Read →01
Our Public Benefit Purpose
Our purpose
Our purpose is to build resilient, community-controlled local food systems where small family farms and the communities around them thrive. We work to keep wealth and decision-making in the hands of farmers, Indigenous and BIPOC growers, and the community organizations that feed their neighbors, as a counterweight to corporate consolidation.
As a women-led company, we advance anti-racism and gender equity in everything we do, so that everyone who grows, prepares, and shares food receives their full share of the benefits.
How it shapes our work
We act as connective fiber between farms, nonprofits, governments, and businesses. We start with one question: what is your vision? Then we bring the strategy, funding know-how, market connections, and tools to make it real, through advisory services, farmer aggregation, food-system research, and traceability tools.
We intend to measure our success by the income and resilience of the growers we serve, the strength of the community organizations we support, and the health of the land they steward.
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Equity, Justice & Inclusion
Equity is our core operating principle. This commitment applies to how we run A Farmer's Share, how we serve our clients, and how we show up in the communities where we work.
Why this matters
The U.S. food system was built on land taken from Indigenous peoples and labor taken from Black, brown, and immigrant communities, and those inequities continue today in who owns land, who gets credit, and who reaches fair markets. As a women-led public benefit corporation, A Farmer's Share commits to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in everything we do.
In our operations
Annual review. We review our policies and practices against these principles each year, starting in 2027, as part of our annual policy review.
Who we work with, and how we pay. We choose vendors, contractors, and collaborators that reflect the communities we serve, and we pay them fairly and on time.
Accessibility. We make our website and materials accessible, starting with an accessibility review in 2027.
With our clients
Where we direct our work. We direct our services toward BIPOC growers, Indigenous partners, and women-led organizations, including pro bono strategic planning for community organizations that could not otherwise afford it.
Equity-focused programs. We apply our ACRE framework and offer equity-focused programs, such as soil fertility tax credit initiatives open to small and BIPOC family farms. Many growers have good reason to distrust government programs. We respect that, offer these options without pressure, and earn trust over time.
In our communities
Centering excluded voices. We center historically excluded voices in our projects and research.
Indigenous sovereignty. We respect Indigenous sovereignty over seed, land, and cultural knowledge, and follow our partners' own protocols.
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Our Climate Action Plan
A Farmer's Share supports the global ambition to limit warming to 1.5°C. This plan sets out our targets, the resources behind them, and how we work with stakeholders to meet them.
Where we stand
We are a two-person advisory company. Both co-founders work from home. We keep an office in Sylacauga, Alabama, but we do not use it, so it adds no operating emissions. Our direct emissions come mainly from business travel. Kelsey travels to the farms and Indigenous communities we serve; Dawn drives to client meetings around Louisville about once a week and travels to a client in Alabama as needed. In-person work is essential to how we work: many of the growers and communities we serve do not meet virtually. Our plan focuses on measuring our footprint honestly and using our work to strengthen our clients' climate resilience, where our largest impact lies.
Our targets
Resources
- People: each co-founder logs her own larger trips and her typical weekly mileage; Kelsey compiles the estimate and reports; both share the client climate target.
- Tools: a simple trip log for larger trips, our accounting mileage and travel records, and a free small-business emissions calculator.
- Budget: staff time only; no dedicated budget.
Working with stakeholders
We share climate funding opportunities and resilient practices with the growers and nonprofits we serve, and welcome feedback through our client reports and our Raise a Concern procedure.
What this plan does not cover yet: home-office energy, which is small and shared with our households, and software and cloud services, which are hard to measure for a firm our size. We will review including them when we update this plan.
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Raise a Concern
If A Farmer's Share's work has affected you, your farm, your organization, or your community in a way you believe is unfair, harmful, or inconsistent with our commitments, we want to hear about it.
concerns@afarmersshare.comWho can raise a concern, and about what
Anyone can: clients, partners, growers, contractors, suppliers, community members, or the public. We accept any concern about our conduct, services, policies, or impact, including our equity, climate, and lobbying and advocacy commitments. If a concern falls outside our control, we will tell you why and, where we can, point you to who can help.
How to raise a concern
- Email concerns@afarmersshare.com with "Concern" in the subject line.
- Messages to this address are received by our co-founders and by an independent advisor from outside the company.
- If your concern is about one of our co-founders, write "Co-founder" in the subject line. Our independent advisor will handle it, and the co-founder involved will not take part in the review.
You may stay anonymous by writing from an email address that doesn't identify you. If you'd like a reply, use an address you check.
What happens next
- Acknowledgment within 5 business days. We confirm we received your concern and whether we've accepted it. If we don't accept it, we explain why in writing.
- Review within 30 days. Your concern is reviewed by someone who is not involved in it.
- Resolution. We talk with you about what happened and what would make it right, then agree on a remedy, such as a correction, an apology, a change to our practice, or a referral. If we can't agree, we offer an independent mediator.
- Updates and close. We update you at each step, at least every 30 days, and confirm in writing when the concern is resolved.
Your protection
- We will never retaliate against anyone for raising a concern in good faith.
- Your identity is shared only with the person reviewing your concern. No one reviews a concern about themselves: a concern about a co-founder is handled by our independent advisor, and that co-founder takes no part in reviewing or deciding it; a concern about our independent advisor or his work goes to the co-founders; a concern involving both goes to an outside professional, such as our attorney.
- Our concerns log is confidential, kept separate from client files, and accessible only to the co-founders and our independent advisor.
- Any retaliation is itself treated as a new concern and reviewed by our independent advisor.
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Our Lobbying & Advocacy Policy
We advocate, on our own behalf and through anyone working for us, only for positions that advance our public benefit purpose, the B Lab Standards, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our positions rest on reliable data and the lived experience of the communities we serve, shared with their consent, and we speak for a community only with its agreement. Our advocacy is not lobbying under federal or state law; if it ever would be, we will register first.
- Integrity. No political contributions, no bribes or favors, and anyone with a personal stake in an outcome steps back.
- Coalitions. We join only aligned groups, and leave if a conflict continues.
- Oversight. Our board approves and reviews this policy each year, and both co-founders agree before AFS takes a new public position or joins a coalition.
- Concerns. Raise them through our Raise a Concern procedure.
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Public Benefit Statement
Each year we publish a public benefit statement, as our certificate of incorporation requires. It sets out the objectives our board established to promote our public benefit, the standard we use to measure our progress, and our assessment of how well we met those objectives.
Download our 2025 Public Benefit Statement (PDF)