SOLUTION OVERVIEW
Forgotten Harvest needed a way to distribute unpredictable food supplies more equitably across diverse communities. In partnership with WIT, they created a unified data platform with real-time insights, mapping, and reporting. The solution enabled them to identify underserved areas, optimize resources, and demonstrate measurable impact to funders—driving greater efficiency, equity, and fundraising success.
INDUSTRY
Nonprofit Organization
FUNCTION
IT
GEOGRAPHY
Southeast Michigan
Background
Forgotten Harvest is a nonprofit food rescue organization serving Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne Counties in Michigan. Each year, the organization rescues and redistributes nearly 50 million pounds of surplus food from grocery stores, distributors, farms, and restaurants to more than 250 partner agencies, including food pantries, shelters, and soup kitchens. Their mission is to fight hunger and reduce food waste while ensuring equitable access to nutritious food for the 600,000 food-insecure residents in Metro Detroit.
Challenge
Forgotten Harvest faced a complex challenge shared by many large-scale food distribution nonprofits: operating an unpredictable, “orderless” supply chain while ensuring equitable access to food across a diverse geographic region. Unlike for-profit distribution networks with purchase orders and demand forecasts, Forgotten Harvest’s inbound food supply fluctuates daily, both in quantity and type. This created challenges in planning, distribution, and impact measurement.
In addition, food insecurity in the Tri-County area is highly localized. Certain neighborhoods—even within the same zip code—experience drastically different levels of need. Without detailed, real-time insight into these micro-level patterns, the organization risked gaps in coverage, missed opportunities for resource optimization, and challenges demonstrating measurable impact to funders.
Opportunities
- Unifying disparate data sources into a single, platform-agnostic model for holistic visibility
- Identifying underserved neighborhoods by integrating operational, demographic, and food insecurity index data
- Optimizing volunteer, driver, and truck deployment based on real-time need and accessibility
- Providing leadership and funders with tangible evidence of impact to drive fundraising and program growth
Solution
Partnering with WIT, Forgotten Harvest implemented a modern Microsoft Azure data architecture with interactive dashboard and mapping capabilities in Microsoft Power BI. This unified platform brought together operational, demographic, and geographic data, enabling real-time visibility, predictive forecasting, and targeted distribution strategies.
Benefits
- Identified geographic and timing gaps in food distribution, enabling targeted interventions
- Reduced time-to-insight from weeks to near real-time for key operational and impact metrics
- Improved efficiency in volunteer scheduling, driver routes, and truck usage
- Leveraged data visualizations to secure funding and foster regional collaboration
Outcome
The new solution transformed Forgotten Harvest’s ability to plan, execute, and measure its operations. The solution enhanced leadership’s ability to visualize need versus actual distribution down to the neighborhood level, enabling proactive decision-making and more equitable food access. The platform also served as a storytelling tool—providing funders, board members, and partner agencies with compelling evidence of impact—helping to secure targeted grants to better serve seniors and homebound residents.
Operationally, the system improved resource allocation by aligning volunteer and truck deployment with real-time needs, reducing waste, and improving coverage during narrow distribution windows. The platform-agnostic data model ensures scalability and adaptability, positioning Forgotten Harvest to integrate data from other regional food providers for a collaborative, system-wide approach to combating hunger.
About WIT
WIT is an analytics and automation consulting firm with over 25 years of experience. We help our clients build solutions to maximize the value of their data and analytics assets, and automate key business processes. In partnership with elite software companies, WIT’s capabilities span a broad spectrum of business functions and industry verticals. To learn more about the work we have done for our clients, visit Our Experience page.