Rockefeller Food Systems Fellowship

The Rockefeller Foundation-Acumen Food Systems Fellowship is an intensive, one-year leadership
development program offered through Acumen Academy, the world’s school for social change.

The Food Systems Fellowship will introduce moral leadership concepts to a globally diverse cohort of 20 food systems builders who are creating more equitable, nourishing, and regenerative food systems. With leading food systems facilitators, Fellows will participate in a blend of immersive seminars, workshops, and self-directed leadership experiments. The program will combine in-person and virtual learning over the course of the Fellowship year.

After Year 1 of the Fellowship, Food Systems Fellows will join Acumen’s global community of social
innovators building a world without poverty and injustice.

Benefits

Embrace the gradual and meaningful process of creating systemic change within food systems at the personal, organizational, and societal levels:

1. Personal– Examine the identities, values, and choices that have shaped your journey until now and cultivate a deeper understanding of yourself and your work within food systems. Explore the meaning of a just society and the moral and historical foundation of social change through text-based dialogue.

2. Organizational– Cultivate the ability to lead effectively when opposing but interdependent values are in tension. Understand how to lead diverse stakeholders through recurring and complex challenges.

3. Systemic–Question your assumptions and beliefs about leading effective change in food systems. Navigate the food system you operate in using moral imagination.

4. Our curriculum draws on powerful leadership frameworks, tools, and approaches, including Adaptive Leadership, Authentic Voice, Good Society Readings, Polarities Management, Immunity to Change, and Systems Thinking.

Selection Process

1. Apply: tell us about your journey in food systems work so far and your vision moving forward. 16 Oct – 1 Dec 2022

2. Complete Assignments: show us your capacity for leadership and the impact of your work. 2 – 15 Jan 2023

3. Attend the Selection Conference: connect with food systems finalists across the world and explore
why this is the right time for you to be a Fellow. 11 – 12 Mar 2023

4. The Rockefeller Foundation – Acumen Food Systems Fellows 2023 Cohort Announcement: Apr 2023

5. Immerse Yourself in the Food Systems Fellowship:  Apr-Nov 2023