Why your zip code shouldn’t determine your lifespan | Dion Dawson

0:07You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Today's talk is part of our brand new 2025 TED Fellows films adapted for podcasts just for our TED Talks daily listeners. We will be releasing these special episodes showcasing our amazing fellows on certain Fridays throughout the rest of 2025 and into the new year. So stay tuned. TED's Fellowship supports a network of global innovators, and we're so excited to share their work with you. Today, we'd like you to meet food equity champion and TED Fellow, Dion Dawson. For Dion, it all started with a fridge, a community fridge to be exact, that was set up on the sidewalk in his home neighborhood of Englewood on the south side of Chicago.

0:52Stocked with fresh, free food every day for those who need it, Dion shares how that fridge was the impetus for him to start Dion's Chicago Dream, which today has grown into a multi-million dollar non-profit social enterprise that fights food deserts and food insecurity in Chicago while creating jobs and empowering individuals. but not in the ways you might imagine. After we hear from Dion, stick around for his conversation with TED Fellows Program Director Lily James Olds. It's coming up.

1:32If you look historically at food responses, the pantry model has been unchanged since the 1950s. everywhere in places that looked like mine. It was inefficient. It didn't champion quality or the end user experience. And it just bothered me. I'm Dion Dawson, founder and chief dreamer of Dion Chicago Dream. We're a nonprofit social enterprise that focuses on providing access to healthy food consistently. Making sure that your zip code does not determine how long you live. We deliver a 10-pound box of fresh fruits and vegetables to more than 4 ,300 households in the Chicagoland region per week. It could be everything from a pineapple to different types of apples, citruses, Swiss chard, spinach, pomegranates.

2:20Since 2020, we've provided a little over 3.5 million pounds of fresh produce that we've purchased, packed, and delivered. And we've never charged any of our recipients today. Our produce and our quality is top-notch. We've never taken a single piece of donated produce. We purchase everything. It may cost us a little more, but that's fine. You don't want to dictate what people think they deserve. If we're thinking about people living longer, healthier lives, you want to give them the best opportunity to be healthy. You can't do that with expiring food. One of the things that we wanted to do a little different is make sure that we're talking to people.

2:55We do a biweekly touchpoint where we collect scores in six different areas like ease of delivery, quality of produce, staph treatment, and even stress after delivery. And so we can see that we're lowering stress levels daily by more than 80%. It's quite simple. Just serving people and delivering quality food, produce. When this all started, I was working overnight at Amazon. I knew absolutely nothing. I didn't know any statistics. I'd never done nonprofit management or grant writing, none of it. That blind ignorance will get you way further when you just don't know what you're up against. On Juneteenth in 2020, a Gen Z-er came up to me that I had grown up with and said, hey, what are you doing for Juneteenth?

3:41And I had no idea. You know, I just, I tried to kind of play along, but he said, no, what are you doing? And I just said, I'm going to feed 100 families. I didn't think about it. I don't know where it came from. And from there, it was two GoFundMe campaigns later and buying 800 pounds of food and bagging chicken leg quarters at four in the morning. What started as someone challenging me to do something for the community for Juneteenth turned into a day and an event that made me feel like I had never felt before. And wanting to chase that feeling of not having to convince myself that I wasn't the problem or not having to convince myself that something was good.

4:21But just feeling good. From there, it was on. It just lit a fire in me. We're up to 48 employees, about 15 vehicles. We're opening up a 20 ,000 square foot location later this year. We've grown in an environment where growth has been difficult. The average black-led nonprofit never makes it to a million in revenue. We did it in 18 months. As a company, we've never been in the red. It's a social enterprise nonprofit that is still a business. Early on, it was really about individual donors and grants. And then over the years, We've tried to continue to figure out how to diversify the revenue so that we can be sustainable.

5:02We've never missed a payroll. We've never lost an employee. We've never had a volunteer. I just think that if someone does a job, they should get paid for it. It's a commitment back to people. Without a wealth-building vehicle attached to whatever social impact work you're doing, then you're just perpetuating the circumstances that you're trying to fight. You can still do good business and do good by people. And you don't have to build like everyone else. There were so many people early on that tried to guide us into taking donated food, into using volunteer hours and trading board seats for money.

5:35And because of us rebuffing a lot of those things, here we are almost five years later. And this work has really not only defined a lot of people's lives, but it's allowed me to wake up and go to sleep knowing and never questioning. I have no goals. I just believe that anything is possible. Part of just being a dreamer is understanding that I decide what I focus on. We've gotten the opportunity to write our own story. It's really about joy, happiness, being okay, knowing that you gave everything you had. All of these are things that are important, and we don't champion them enough. It's always about reminding each other what difficult is.

6:17A difficult day, as the chief dreamer of Dion's Chicago Dream, pales in comparison to the words that I've ever had as Dion Dawson. You evolve. You learn. This is the first time in my life where I can honestly say I've never stopped learning. Every single day. I learn. I apply. I try. Probably failed more in this five years than in my first 30. But I don't have it figured out. I think that's the fun part. Yeah, that's pretty crazy.

6:52And now a special conversation between TED Fellow, Dion Dawson, and TED Fellows Program Director, Lily James Olds. Hey, Dion. What up, Lily? How you feeling? I'm feeling great. I'm excited to talk to you today. So I'm going to jump right in and ask. You talk about the traditional food pantry model as being unchanged for decades and, you know, really not prioritizing the experience of the person using it. What is missing or outdated in those traditional pantry models that made you do things differently? Well, I think first and foremost, the pantry model, emergency food, food equity, health equity, I try to look at it like a product, right?

7:33And so if you look at it like a product or a paid service, then you would see that the end customer is not highlighted or illuminated in the process. And so if we're just talking about bettering our product, we would ultimately better our product if we had user feedback. And the problem is, is this in its entirety had been created, uplifted and sustained without any modifications or improvements based on the experience of the people it's serving, as opposed to the people that control me. I had to be critical of something that was created for good. And that is extremely difficult when you talk about the human experience.

8:22Most things that are created for the social good, for altruism, for the betterment of humanity, there's less judgment on the efficiency and efficacy of the thing. And it took a lot for me to kind of get there. So I think the first thing that's missing is having that questioning attitude around if this is working and this be better. What are we missing? Because what we've seen is the human predicament society right now is it requires so much nuance to just survive. And yet the things that are created to serve us are really, really one note because they're so outdated. It's almost like, you know, pulling out a floppy disk.

9:05Not only would, you know, a lot of people not know how to use it, but more importantly, it would immediately show how dated that thing was. You know what I mean? And I just think that if we look at it, you know, food emergency, it's a floppy disk right now. And I just want to kind of find ways to improve it and innovate it. No, I think that's so smart. And I think this also makes me think about when you say, you know, who am I to fight capitalism? And I feel like you're working in such strategic ways within the system and economic model that we all exist in. I'm curious to hear you go a little bit deeper and hear how you think about how you do think about working within that system strategically as a social entrepreneur.

9:49No, absolutely. One of my favorite quotes is basically saying that when it comes to entrepreneurs, I think that they're just too much on execution. And when it comes to social entrepreneurs, I think they're just too much on intent. And I think that we have to find a balance there. And so when I speak about the role in the relationship of capitalism and philanthropy, I think that a lot of times we spend so much time and language on trying to dismantle this thing that is deeply rooted and foundational in the American experience. And so, you know, what I say is, OK, cool. Let's not look at it from a dismantled place, because I think that if I focus on my emotional response to it, I'm wasting my time of figuring out how within this thing can we serve people?

10:45Because that's the key thing. If you're wondering, you know, what is the underlying theme? It's immediacy. I don't have time. This will not be solved in my lifetime. So while I have the baton, how can I look at capitalism? How can I look at philanthropy? And how can I figure out ways at which we can have elements of both while making sure that people are treated better, are fed better and live longer lives? Because, you know, you need money to move money. You know what I mean? This is capitalism. You can't just, you know, with no money say, hey, you with a billion need to do this. And so what I realized was, okay, you know, philanthropy, nonprofit work, it's all big business.

11:30And so I'm not upset about that. the saving grace for my journey has been the economic activity, has been the procurement of the produce and of the food, as opposed to just hoping people donate something and we can do something with that. There's no quality assurance there. And so looking at the economics of it is, okay, cool. Well, if there's billions in emergency food and food equity, health equity, then how can we make sure that some of those billions of dollars are used to pay the farmers, but not just because we're saying they need to be paid, but paying for their products so that they can then build out their infrastructure and they can connect back to the supply chain.

12:15And so this is something I want you to think about. When you hear food system, how many parts do you think of? Well, I think, I mean, it's so funny you say that because I think one of the things in the conversations we've had that's really stood out to me is also the bureaucracy of it. Like you're understanding the game board and where to put the next move. And so I'd love to hear you talk a little bit deeper too about those different revenue streams that you've talked about, kind of how you've looked at that game board and said, hey, here's how we're going to utilize this towards the end result that we want for our users and clients.

12:51Well, I think the first thing is, you know, I'm a comms guy. You know what I mean? And so none of my communication is by accident. When thinking about that game board, first and foremost, I made the decision early on to do all of this out in the open. You know what I mean? I don't have to code switch. I don't have to tailor all of my messaging to that specific audience. Because number one, I want to build trust. That's with anyone that interacts not only with me, but with my organization, with our model, with our impact, with our community, with the job creation, everything. I don't want this to be something where someone who's in my community on the south side of Chicago has one understanding of who I am.

13:40And someone with a billion dollars have a different understanding. And so I think first and foremost, what I decided to do was I decided to focus on how I showed up on that game board. Because a lot of times we don't take power and control in how we show up. What role can we play independent of all of the bureaucracy? And how can we show up even when things are pretty heated and we don't agree? But I think that, you know, for me, what I try to boil it down to is our core product and program has to be so great. It has to add so much value that it cannot be dismissed. It has to be viewed as an option.

14:24It doesn't have to be an option for everyone. And understand that it's not personal. Granted, do I feel like there are strong systemic issues that we have to get a hold of and fix? absolutely. But I also can't only lean to my emotion. And so I think when we started talking about the bureaucracy in food and when we talked about, you know, nonprofit and for-profit and social entrepreneurship, after the emotional visceral response, now I have to figure out, okay, well, what are we going to do? And how can we be the best at it? So if you're looking at that game board, first and foremost, we're in supply chain and delivery.

15:02And so in supply chain and delivery, how can we be the best at what we're doing, continue to innovate, continue to scale and grow so that more people can be motivated and inspired by it before we continue to go back out and look at the thing as a whole? The bureaucracy and the politics will be there, but I really truly believe that anybody that is going to stop and or beat me has to work as hard as me, and as often as me, and I just don't think that's possible. I don't know if any of those people exist, actually. I want to get a little bit in the weeds because I feel like this has been so fascinating to me from our conversations about that bureaucracy and specifically some of those revenue streams as it relates to food as medicine programs, how that relates to hospitals.

15:50Like, I'd love to kind of hear just the like in the nitty gritty, in the weeds of it so that those of us who aren't familiar with these models can start to see that strategic thinking that you've worked your way towards for so long now. Absolutely. So in terms of the earned revenue opportunity, it happened because we owned our assets. We buy the food. So there's a quality assurance involved and we pay our team. And so that's important because you can scale up or down paid operation. You cannot scale volunteerism because you cannot count on it to be consistent. The biggest thing there that I try to get people to understand is a lot of times when you hear about food is medicine.

16:32you hear about it through the lens of people living longer, healthier lives. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I want people to understand that it's still a market and a market opportunity exists. The food and medicine industry right now is about$26 billion. And so when you think about that, imagine how detrimental it is if this market that's already here is not viewed as a market or market opportunity for the very communities that it says is trying to help. So when you say it's that, you said$26 billion industry, right? The food is medicine. Can you define for those of us just what that encapsulates?

17:17Do you mean how much people want to be buying healthy food to live longer lives? Like that market, is that what's embedded in that? So food is medicine. Basically, like that is the amount of money when you're talking about procurement, contracting, and delivery of services from end to end, from the prescription being written from the doctor to the actual produce being provided. Throughout that supply chain, right now that market is$26 billion. So that the prescriptions are written by the doctors saying that their patients need a certain kind of food to live healthy, to recover from illness, et cetera.

17:51So that's what's encapsulated in that$26 billion industry. Yes. Fascinating. So, you know, help with blood, sugar, different things like that. And so, you know, what we stumbled upon is understanding that, OK, cool. Outside of food is medicine, you have Deion Chicago Dream, which is here. And our model is not only procuring the food, but delivery. Whereas in most other companies, you can procure it, but you don't have the ability to deliver. And so now we're collapsing two parts of that supply chain into one contract and one opportunity. So for us, we're shortening the amount of players that's involved.

18:31And we're also representing the very communities that we're trying to save. We're not waiting for someone to give us a piece of the pie. We're contracted to provide not only this product, but these services where we deliver. As a result, we're able to make earned revenue to sustain what we're doing. And so now you're talking about a$6 million business that one third of the earned revenue has come not from grants, not from independent donations, but from earned revenue through food as medicine. Yeah, that's so fascinating and so strategic. And I'm curious, with that in mind, you talked about you can't scale a volunteer organization in that same kind of way.

19:11How do you think about either scaling or evolving this model, growing it? What are your plans or hopes for that in terms of continuing to fight hunger in many communities? We have something that we've been working on in the background that is going to be announced in the next few months. But I think the biggest thing is, you know, if you're asking, where has this led me? It's actually quite clear. We don't have a universal system where everyone is speaking the same language. There is no core product or platform where all of these food organizations and companies can connect their people to their inventory and then connecting the people in the inventory to potential delivery.

19:54So that's something that I've actually been working on in the background. What a certain product is going to be launching fairly soon. What I learned is, is that this is not complicated. I think, you know, it takes a lot to pull off big ideas, but I think just with where I am in my journey, I'm starting to look and see more and more what's missing in terms of just the tools needed to ultimately just connect the food system. Because right now, by and large, the food system is disconnected from home all the way upstream to the farm. It's just inefficient. It's disconnected. Nobody's talking to each other.

20:31And a lot of times that just leaves a lot of room for innovation and improvement. I think one question that's been on my mind a bit in thinking about this conversation with you is, you know, you think so intentionally about the customer, the user. And you talked about how that was how you decided to switch this kind of traditional pantry model. So then on the other side of that, you have the fact that there is so much food waste, right? Like perfectly good food is often just, you know, thrown out because of sell-by dates or whatever from a grocery store. In your kind of system's mind, what are the ways that we could start to connect the dots overall on that in terms of both of those issues?

21:10How can we think about still giving the user the best possible experience of food, no matter their zip code? And then simultaneously, how do we think about scaling back on food waste or utilizing that food that could be donated in certain contexts? Well, I think the problem is also, you know, how food waste has been positioned. The problem is, is that it was communicated as the solution, not as one of the solution. And so even though that's not really what we focused on, there is a place for food waste to really get under control because it's out of hand right now. You can't have people starving and wasting millions of pounds of food.

21:50I think that immediately speaks to, number one, ordering issues. It speaks to how we've yet to evolve what happens when we've ordered or procured too much. I just think that right now when we think about food waste first, we have to get beyond the liability conversation. You can have a way of changing the liability language so that this food is not being wasted. But I think also I want to hit on the words you said is intentional. And I think that what we're seeing is that this system, you know, there is no big focus on really cutting down food waste. Why? Because so much of it is written off to prop up emergency food.

22:32So there's money that can still be made or written off from this food that did not go to use. There's still value there in capitalism. So you have to be careful because no one's going to turn down millions of dollars and write off just for the sake of saying they did something that was socially good. So I think really taking a moment to kind of reevaluate what do we want to do? I understand that there are a lot of organizations out there that try to redirect food waste and prevent food waste. But I think where we are now with food waste orgs, it's the expectation of millions of pounds. And if we're expecting this to never change so that this entity that's saving the food can survive, then we're not looking at changing anything.

23:18Because the very survival of this org depends upon the food waste in the millions. It's a chicken and egg situation, but I feel like it opens the conversation of, well, what are your expectations and what do you really want to do? The bigger thing is looking at companies that are contributing the most and saying, okay, well, are you planning to get this under control? Because I don't think that the food system is as fed up as it wants to be or as it thinks it is with food waste. I just don't think it is. Right. No, it makes sense. And just that future looking perspective, right? Instead of just what's right in front of you.

23:57So fascinating. I'm curious, is there anything else I didn't ask you about that you want to talk about today? I think what I will speak on just for a moment is this is a pivotal point, not only in world history, but U.S. history, food zoomed out to, you know, geopolitical, to science, to STEM, to AI. It's one of those industrial revolution-esque moments. And what I'm trying to do is make sure that those leaders and those thinkers and those builders are in a position to be as impactful as they can be. One of my favorite quotes this year was Timothee Chalamet when he said, you know, I want to be great and I'm not shying away from it.

24:43You know what I mean? And I think that my acceptance and other leaders acceptance of this moment and taking the responsibility of it is extremely important. The moment that it clicked for me was when I decided to stop wrestling with whether or not I'm a leader. I would hope that the moment that we're in, we're understanding that we have to take responsibility. Now is the time to really dig deep because it's a lot going on and I leave it up to that individual to decide what they can take in this moment because it's not for everybody to do everything. but everything is so interconnected right now that I would hope that a lot of leaders kind of take the moment to recognize that, okay, leadership looked different a year ago.

25:32And now the idea of that has evolved and I would hope that, you know, we can kind of continue to meet that moment because it's not easy. I find myself as a food leader in a lot of conversations that aren't food-based, you know what I mean? But I think that the thing that has made it a little bit easier for me is accepting that leadership is not only leading where you want to lead, but it's leading where you have to and where you don't want to. Thank you so much for this conversation, Dion. As always, it's such a joy to get to talk. Thank you. Of course, definitely. Appreciate it.

26:09That was Dion Dawson, a 2025 TED Fellow. To learn more about the TED Fellows program and watch all All the TED Fellows films go to fellows.ted.com. And that's it for today. This episode was fact-checked by Aparna Nathan and Eva Dasher. The audio you heard at the top comes from the short film made by Divya Gadingi and Owen McClain. Story edited by Corey Hajim and produced by Ian Lowe. Production manager is Saring Dolma. Additional support comes from Lily James Olds, Leonie Horster, and Allegra Pearl. This episode was mixed by Lucy Little and Christopher Fazey-Bogan. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.

26:48This episode was produced and edited by our team. Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tonsika Sungmar Nivang. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balorezo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.

27:11Thank you.