Good Ground

About Good Ground

Good Ground is Nourish West Virginia's collaborative platform for advancing values-based procurement and institutional investment as part of West Virginia's growing Food is Medicine ecosystem.

Convened by Nourish West Virginia at the WVU Institute for Community & Rural Health, Good Ground brings together healthcare organizations, schools, universities, community partners, farmers, food businesses, and other anchor institutions to align purchasing and investment with shared goals for health, nutrition security, community wealth, and resilient local food systems.

Why Procurement Matters to Food is Medicine

Expanding Food is Medicine requires more than developing healthcare interventions. It also requires a food system capable of supplying nutritious, culturally responsive, and locally available foods to healthcare organizations, community programs, and the people they serve.

Good Ground works upstream to strengthen this infrastructure. By aligning institutional purchasing with community health and economic goals, values-based procurement can create stronger markets for West Virginia producers, increase the availability of nutritious foods, strengthen regional supply chains, and help ensure that investments in Food is Medicine also generate benefits for West Virginia communities.

What is Values-Based Procurement?

Values-based procurement considers more than price when purchasing food. It uses purchasing decisions to advance broader institutional and community priorities such as health, nutrition, local economic development, environmental stewardship, equitable opportunity, workforce development, and resilient regional food systems.

Governance

Good Ground’s decision-making and core activities are implemented through a structure that includes a steering committee and project-specific workgroups. Nourish West Virginia staff convenes these groups to ensure equity is embodied in all aspects of our work.

Using this approach, Good Ground engages in four main activities:

  • Facilitating partnerships among community partners, anchor institutions and key stakeholders;

  • Creating co-learning opportunities for all its members and partners;

  • Mobilizing projects through predevelopment, administrative and financial support; and

  • Scaling the model by documenting evidence and expanding regional participation.

Community wealth; health and resilience; and market and institutional transformation are the outcomes we envision as we put our approach to work. 

Collaborative Vision

We believe in integrating agriculture and health in West Virginia. The graphic shown below is a compass for our work.

An illustrated green graphic titled "Integrating Agriculture and Health in WV" features a winding blue river connecting a farm on the left to a healthcare facility on the right. Two people silhouettes stand in the center talking near phrases like "Food is Medicine," "Collective Impact," and "Collaborative Planning for Community Wealth + Wellness."
'Integrating Agriculture and Health in West Virginia' is the guiding principle for Good Ground's work. The illustration is inspired by artwork that was developed during the Institutional Investment Accelerator, an 18-month cohort program—facilitated by the Food Systems Leadership Network with support from the Kresge Foundation—in which NWV Director Megan Govindan participated and from which she drew to develop the vision and values of food system innovation in West Virginia.
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