Welcome back to another edition of The Goods — the newsletter covering the intersection of social good and strategic communications. We’re excited to debut our new Spotlight Series, highlighting interviews with impact leaders across sectors to deliver actionable tips around storytelling for good, change management, and adapting communications strategies in these tumultuous times.
Emily Yu, chief partnerships and program officer at Newman’s Own Foundation, joins us for this inaugural edition to discuss her career journey, the foundation’s unique impact model, and how the organization is preparing for the future.
About Newman’s Own Foundation: The Newman’s Own Foundation, which owns Newman’s Own food company thanks to the Philanthropic Enterprise Act in 2018, brings a unique perspective to “the business of doing good.” Living up to founder Paul Newman’s principles, its mission envisions a country where all children have what they need to thrive: access to nutritious, culturally relevant foods; opportunities to learn about healthy foods and sustainable food systems; and spaces to grow, gather, and cook food – nourishing themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Read our full interview with Emily Yu:
The Goods: Emily, you’ve had a storied career in the philanthropy and social entrepreneurship space. Tell me more about your journey.
Emily: I aspire to use my skills to help ensure that everyone has the opportunity to be healthy and thrive.
Starting out in communications, I had the privilege of working on several groundbreaking public sector campaigns focused on improving public health. These experiences led me to seek ways in which I could contribute to the resourcing and supporting of community-led efforts to create change. While in these roles in philanthropic foundations, I was given the gift of learning alongside communities and playing an active role in developing programs to address some of society’s most pressing challenges — including food justice, maternal and child health, transportation, and economic mobility. In my career I’ve learned the “how” of social changemaking is just as important as the “what.”
Inspired by technological advances and just as the pandemic was ending, I dove into the world of AI and started AI PRIORI®, an AI-powered software designed to help changemakers in the social sector review their content at scale so they can have a greater impact.
Most recently as the Chief Partnerships and Programs Officer at Newman’s Own Foundation, I’ve been working at the intersection of all of my past roles and considering what it takes to develop partnerships and programs that can help to nourish and transform the lives of children who face adversity. With a number of innovative grantee partners and talented Foundation team members, I am excited by what we’ve been able to co-create with others and what is to come.
The Goods: Set the stage for the need for your work. Where do you fund, and can you share a success story or two?
Emily: Newman’s Own Foundation supports three areas in the United States and its territories:
- Nutrition Education & School Food
- Indigenous Food Justice
- Joyful Experiences for Children with Serious Illnesses through our partnership with SeriousFun Children’s Network (also founded by Paul Newman)
I recently visited FRESHFARM FoodPrints in Washington, DC, one of our Food Justice for Kids Prize recipients. Their unique model brings science, math and social studies to life for elementary school students through food education and real-world experiences, all with the goal of improving health outcomes for children. It was inspiring to learn, cook vegetables, and garden with a group of enthusiastic kids. I invite you to check out my reflections shared in our blog here!
The Goods: In a fragmented media and trust landscape, how have you adapted your storytelling strategy? What about your process works well?
Emily: Such a good question and one that we revisit regularly! Our primary audience consists of nonprofits, Tribes, funders, and others in the social sector who are working on issues that affect children. So our storytelling strategy centers around grantee partner stories and impact. We seek to not only raise awareness about these incredible organizations, but also create an opportunity for engagement for consumers, as well as fellow funders.
To that end, we also recognize that we have an important platform from which we can amplify the work of our grantee partners. If you look on any Newman’s Own products, you’ll see grantee partner stories and photos all reinforcing the fact that 100% of the profits and royalties from the sale of Newman’s Own products go to Newman’s Own Foundation and our mission. It’s important that consumers know what innovative work their purchase is helping to support.
There are so many great stories of impact—check them out at impact.newmansown.org!
The Goods: How do you ensure your strategy is inclusive and accessible to diverse audiences?
Emily: In the last few years, Newman’s Own Foundation has shifted to make our opportunities more open and accessible. A few notable shifts:
- At least one open call annually
- Holding listening sessions with our grantee partners as we redesigned our applications and evaluation rubrics
- Publishing our criteria publicly (see here for an example)
- Allowing for diverse methodologies in grant reports
- Using JustFund Common Application™ for grants
And while we have heard positive feedback from applicants and grantees alike across both our storytelling and funding strategies, we know that there is always more that can be done on these fronts and will continue listening and learning to improve.
The Goods: How are you looking to “future proof” your social impact model?
Emily: Thanks to Paul Newman’s foresight, he made sure that Newman’s Own Foundation would be sustainable—even after his passing. He did this not through an endowment or other trust-like model that most foundations typically use, but rather bypassing ownership of the food company to the foundation.
The Goods: Which aspects of your mission are more important now than ever? How are you adapting your strategies and tactics to meet the current moment?
Emily: When we look at where we are today in the United States—where more than 1 in 5 children (13.4 million) live in households where they do not have enough nutritious food to eat or know where their next meal may come from—it’s not hard to see how urgent and important food justice is to the health of our nation’s children.
Meanwhile, government leaders are proposing significant funding cuts to programs that have proven to be critical to the wellbeing of children at the state and federal levels, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Such largescale budget cuts and changes to national, state, and local policies are creating an environment of instability within the nonprofit sector and their communities.
How we get there with our grantee partners, and the support they need and receive from us, however, is going to have to evolve alongside these funding and policy shifts. We’re keeping our ears to the ground and listening to our grantee partners. One of the strategies we are employing is partnering with aligned organizations to make our dollars go further. This year we’ve forged more co-funding partnerships than ever before, with the express purpose of pooling resources so we can help more nonprofits, move money faster, and reinforce the network of organizations working to advance food justice. Be sure to check out our partnership with the Hunger to Health Collaboratory 2025 Prizes for Innovation that award funding to support food justice for children.
The Goods: What skills or lessons do social impact professionals need to learn?
Emily: Understanding the flow of capital.
I once heard the talented team at the Center for Community Investment state that “money often flows down the path of least resistance.” This fundamentally changed how I think about grants and the role of the philanthropic sector. In summary, money in communities such as large grants and investments in infrastructure or land often go to the entities that have processes in place to receive it and are prepared to deploy it. Once you use that lens to view financial transactions, you realize that community organizations and the participatory strategies they use are often, by their very nature, not in a position to influence the processes and systems that hold them back.
The Goods: How are you keeping sane or perhaps leaning on your peers during these unprecedented times?
Emily: Making time to cultivate my passion for AI and machine learning has been a lifeline and helped me cope with the challenging times we are in now. It has not only served as an opportunity and reason to connect with others, but perhaps most importantly, it has been incredibly satisfying to build something with a team and be able to help others solve their pain points with it.
And when all else fails, I watch some K-dramas!
The Goods: How does your experience as a founder and entrepreneur inform your current work at Newman’s Own Foundation?
Emily: It’s helped me learn how to fail forward. Once I accepted that failure is necessary on the path to success, I became more resilient. More importantly, those experiences made my next idea and the execution of it better.
With Newman’s Own Foundation, our work sits at the intersection of consumers and social change. The programs we develop, the partners we work with, and the ways in which we deploy resources requires a cross-sector approach, creativity, and an appetite for innovation. By applying an entrepreneurial approach to these processes, I can be intentional about helping grantee partners and others in shared spaces become more resilient—because that’s what creating social change that is systemic and sustainable requires.
The Goods: “Newman’s Own” as a brand contains multitudes and surely means many different things to different segments of the institution’s audiences. How do you balance leaning into your organization’s legacy with carving out a distinct brand and vision for the Foundation?
Emily: This question is very timely. Paul Newman would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. As an award-winning actor, social entrepreneur, racecar driver, and philanthropist, Paul Newman made sure that the brand, the food company’s products, and the Foundation were all household names.
While many still hold a deep affection for Paul and his legacy, the brand cannot rely as heavily on Paul’s celebrity status the same way it once did. As one of the first purpose-driven brands, we’re continuing to use our platform to share the stories and impact of grantee partners. You’ll find these on our website, product packaging, and more.
The Goods: What do you hope for-profit brands can learn from your model of marrying business with philanthropy?
Emily: Running a for-profit business is not an all or nothing proposition when it comes to doing good in the world. The reality is, it’s in the for-profit sector’s best interest to invest in and support communities so that they can thrive. We think Paul’s greatest legacy is actually our business model—and we’ve invited others to join us with the start of the 100% for Purpose™️ Club! Learn more and join us at 100forpurpose.org.
In the words of Paul Newman, “I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”