Our Strategic Direction
Building on 40 Years of Nourishment, Community and Care
For more than 40 years, Open Arms of Minnesota has brought together nutritious food, compassionate service and community support for people living with serious illnesses.
Today, the Food is Medicine movement is growing, and more people and healthcare partners are embracing what Open Arms has known for 40 years: food has the power to nourish, heal and improve lives.
As the need for our services grows, Open Arms is preparing for its next chapter. Our strategic framework provides a shared direction for expanding our reach, strengthening our organization and helping shape the future of Food is Medicine in Minnesota and the surrounding region.
Looking Ahead
By 2030, Open Arms intends to be recognized as Minnesota’s leading Food is Medicine organization—known for high-quality, medically tailored meals, strong healthcare and community partnerships, and a commitment to reaching more people. As the only Food is Medicine Coalition (FIMC) Accredited organization in the Midwest, Open Arms brings nationally recognized expertise in medically tailored nutrition and 40 years of experience nourishing people living with serious illnesses.
By 2036, we envision Open Arms serving even more communities across Minnesota and the surrounding region while providing one million more meals each year.
Growth is important, but how we grow matters just as much. As we move forward, we will remain committed to:
- Providing meals to clients at no cost
- Protecting the nutritional quality and cultural relevance of our meals
- Treating every client with dignity and care
- Preserving the joyful and welcoming volunteer experience that defines Open Arms
- Making thoughtful, mission-centered decisions
- Honoring the people, relationships and traditions that built Open Arms
Our five strategic priorities – 2027 through 2030
1. Lead the Food is Medicine movement
Open Arms will continue strengthening its leadership in the Food is Medicine movement—the understanding that an intervention of nutritious and appropriate food can be an important part of preventing, managing and treating illness.
Our meals are designed by registered dietitians to meet the nutritional needs of people living with serious health conditions. Every client has access to an individual nutrition assessment and ongoing support from our nutrition team. This clinical, relationship-centered approach is one of the qualities that distinguishes Open Arms from traditional meal-delivery and food-access programs.
We will:
- Maintain Food is Medicine (FIMC) accreditation of our Medically Tailored Meals Program – the highest standards for nutrition, food safety, client care and privacy
- Strengthen and grow our relationships with healthcare providers, health plans and community partners
- Measure, evaluate, and demonstrate the impact of medically tailored nutrition.
- Bring leaders together through the Minnesota Food is Medicine Summit
- Advocate for state policies that make medically tailored meals available to more people
- Continue assessing how medically tailored groceries can complement our meal programs when appropriate
2. Expand our reach
A person’s ZIP code should not determine whether they can receive nutrition support during a serious illness.
Open Arms will explore thoughtful and sustainable ways to serve more people throughout Minnesota and, over time, in neighboring states. This may include shipping frozen meals, developing regional distribution partnerships, and establishing additional community-based locations.
We will carefully evaluate different operating models to ensure that growth supports client access while maintaining food quality, financial sustainability, and the personal care that defines Open Arms.
3. Prepare our facilities for the future
Our facilities must be able to support the growing number of meals we prepare and the communities we hope to serve in the decades ahead.
As previously announced, Open Arms is preparing to sell our Bloomington Avenue building and plan for a new Minneapolis location. This is a decision about growth—not about leaving Minneapolis or becoming a smaller organization.
We need more space for meal production, food storage, deliveries, volunteers, and programs. Limited parking and loading areas also restrict the number of delivery routes we can operate from the building. In addition, the facility will require significant repairs and improvements in the coming years. Even with those investments, many of its space, parking and operational challenges would remain.
We will develop a comprehensive facilities plan that includes creating a new Minneapolis location and making greater use of our St. Paul building. Together, our facilities must provide the production, storage, delivery, and volunteer capacity needed to serve more clients. They must also be safe, accessible, welcoming, and connected to the communities we serve.
The Bloomington Avenue building holds decades of memories and meaning. As we prepare for the future, we will honor and preserve the stories, traditions and relationships connected to this important chapter in the history of Open Arms—and carry them with us into what comes next.
4. Build long-term financial strength
A strong and diverse financial foundation will help Open Arms continue serving clients through changing economic conditions and periods of uncertainty.
We will build a balanced mix of charitable contributions, healthcare partnerships, government support, and other mission-aligned funding. We will place particular emphasis on expanding healthcare contracts and developing sustainable earned-revenue opportunities. At the same time, we will strengthen our financial reserves and carefully evaluate new opportunities to ensure they advance our mission.
We will also undertake a comprehensive fundraising campaign to support our long-term facilities plan and position Open Arms for continued stability, growth and impact.
Clear and consistent communication will be essential to this work. We want clients, volunteers, donors, partners and community members to understand our impact, priorities and vision—and the important role they can play in building the future of Open Arms.
5. Strengthen our community, culture and people
Open Arms is more than a medically tailored meal provider. We are a community of clients, volunteers, staff, donors and partners who believe no one facing a serious illness should have to do so without access to the right nutrition for their health needs.
For more than 40 years, volunteers have been at the heart of our mission. Their experience of joy, dignity, connection and belonging is not simply a way to accomplish our work—it is essential to who we are. As we grow, we will preserve this welcoming culture while creating new ways for volunteers to build relationships, contribute meaningfully, and see the impact of their service.
We will also expand volunteer leadership beyond traditional roles. Volunteers can mentor others, share their skills and experience, serve as community ambassadors, support special initiatives, and take meaningful ownership of work that advances our mission.
Our staff provide the expertise, leadership and daily commitment that make our mission possible. We will promote organizational stability by retaining talented staff members, developing leaders at every level, and providing the support and resources they need to succeed. This includes competitive compensation and benefits, career development, growth pathways, succession planning, and shared leadership responsibility for our future.
We will also embrace abundance as a working value—approaching opportunities with creativity, generosity and confidence in what our community can accomplish. By remaining open to new ideas, partnerships and possibilities while carefully stewarding our resources, we can respond to changing needs and make decisions based on our mission and aspirations, not only on limitations.
As we grow, we will:
- Preserve our joyful, inclusive and relationship-centered volunteer culture
- Strengthen volunteer recruitment, training, recognition and support
- Expand volunteer leadership, skills-based service and corporate and community engagement
- Create opportunities for clients, volunteers, staff, donors and partners to connect, share stories and help shape our work
- Invest in staff retention, development and leadership
- Apply an abundance mindset to decisions, partnerships and growth
Our success will be measured not only by the meals we provide, but also by the strength of our staff and volunteer leadership, the relationships we build, and the joy, possibility and belonging we create together.
The decade ahead
Open Arms enters its next chapter from a position of experience, strength, and possibility. We have the nutritional expertise, dedicated community and operational foundation needed to help lead the growing Food is Medicine movement.
Our strategic framework is ambitious because the need is great—and because our first 40 years have shown what this community can accomplish.
Together, we will bring medically tailored nutrition, hope and human connection to more people while protecting what has always made Open Arms special.
