Meet Forward Future | Nonprofit Combating Food Waste

We had the good fortune of connecting with Forward Future and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Forward Future team, what was your thought process behind starting your own organization?
The thought process behind starting Forward Future was simple: give back to an industry that focuses on giving back. People volunteer for food banks and food pantries wanting to make life easier for others, so that’s what we wanted to do for them. After many of our team volunteered at food pantries, we realized that a less time-consuming donation management system would let hunger assistance organizations do more “helping others” by saving them precious time and resources. That’s what led us to build FoodNex, our mobile app that lets hunger assistance organizations do donation management quickly and simply. To date, FoodNex has helped coordinate donations of over 195,000 pounds worth approximately $217,000, and we hope to spread the word about this free app to organizations all across the country.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your organization? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Forward Future is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization aimed at combating food waste and food insecurity. Our biggest project thus far has been FoodNex, our mobile app helping food pantries and food banks coordinate food donations from donors to them. FoodNex enables them to ask for exactly what they need while also generating donation reports and histories for both donors and organizations. We’re proud of how lean we’ve been able to keep Forward Future, which has allowed us to keep FoodNex completely free to use. Of course, running an organization and developing the app meant wearing many different hats and fixing lots of bugs, but we stayed together as a team throughout all of it because of our ability to make each other laugh through the struggles. It really showed how important a good team is in all of this.
With that, we’d love to shout out our entire team: Akhil Peddikuppa, Vedant Tapiavala, Dat Tran, Mohamad Faizal, Marla Tumenjargal, and Prashib Pandey.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Day 1: We would visit the Dallas Museum of Art and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. I’d also take them out to the Yenat Gauda Ethiopian Restaurant. Day 2: We would visit the Perot Museum. Also, we’d enjoy dinner at Texas de Brazil, a Brazilian steakhouse serving delicious meats.
Day 3: We could go to Klyde Warren Park and eat lunch at food trucks (Halal Mother Truckers is a team favorite). Later that day, we could get dinner at Chennai Cafe.
Day 4: We could get brunch at Snooze and spend the rest of the day at White Rock Lake participating in fun activities at the various meeting spots around the lake and visit the Dallas Arboretum.
Day 5: We could get some delicious fusion food at Velvet Taco for lunch and then get creatively crafted burgers for dinner at Rodeo Goat.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Without Rob Guild and the food recovery team at the Stewpot of Dallas, our team would have struggled to develop a system to help streamline the process of food donation. Our frequent meetings with the team and their willingness and patience to help us was crucial in constructing software that helps improve people’s lives.

Website: https://www.forward-future.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forwardfuture_us/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/forward-future/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@forwardfuture404/

Image Credits
Rob Guild