TED Talks Daily - Why your zip code shouldn’t determine your lifespan | Dion Dawson

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

What if ending food insecurity meant ditching charity models that haven’t been updated since the 1960s? Dion Dawson, TED Fellow and founder of Dion’s Chicago Dream, shares how he turned a spontaneous idea for giving back to his community into a thriving social enterprise, delivering top-quality produce to thousands of Chicago households every week and reaching a million dollars in revenue in just 18 months. He’s proving that it’s possible to replace the outdated food pantry model with a data-driven system that delivers high-quality food — so your zip code doesn’t decide how long you live.For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Plan your trip today at westjet.com. Westjet, where your story takes off. This podcast is brought to you by Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. With Wise, you can send, spend, and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Plus, Wise won't add hidden fees to your transfer. Whether you're buying souvenirs with pesos and Puerto Vallarta or sending euros to a loved one in Paris, you know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be smart. Join the 15 million customers who choose Wise.

Download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is sponsored by Colgate Periogard. You know, when we get a paper cut or nick a finger while prepping dinner, we don't hesitate to grab a bandage or clean it up right away. But when it comes to our gums, a little tenderness or bleeding when we brush, we tend to ignore it. Why is that?

Especially when the fix can be so simple. Use Colgate periogard to significantly reduce gum bone. bleeding and inflammation. It helps fight bacteria that can cause early gum disease and improves gum health with daily use. Our mouths are trying to tell us something and it's worth listening. So next time your gums feel sensitive, don't shrug it off, help take care of it with Colgate Periogard, healthy gums, confident smile. You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you. new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. 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 Deion, 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. Stocked 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. If 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 Dionne Dawson, founder and chief dreamer of Dionne's Chicago Dream. We're a non-profit 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. Since 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,

and 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. We do a bi-weekly touch point where we collect scores in six different areas like ease of delivery, quality of produce, staff 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 Zier came up to be that I had grown up with and said, hey, what are you doing for Juneteenth?

And 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 4 in the morning. What started is someone challenging me to do.

something for the community for Juneteenth turned into a day in 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 but just feeling good from there it was 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 land nonprofit never makes it to a million of 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. We've never missed the 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. And 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. made 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. A difficult day as the chief dreamer of Dionne Chicago Dream pales in comparison to the words that I've ever had as Dionne 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. This episode is sponsored by Airbnb. It's finally summer, the season of road trips, lake swims and making memories with the people we love. I have been thinking about exploring Canada for a while, and for a trip like that, staying in an Airbnb just feels right. Whether it's a getaway with extended family or a few close friends, I'd want a place that feels like home, but with better

views and more space to unwind. Airbnb has some incredible spots across Canada that go way beyond the basics. Cottages with hammocks, fire pits, even canoes. Imagine staying somewhere with enough room for everyone, including the dog, where bedtime for the kids doesn't have to mean bedtime for you. It's just a different experience, relaxing in a cozy living room instead of a hotel lobby. This summer, my aim is to check out some of Canada's most loved homes from lakeside cabins and Bruce Peninsula to breathtaking escapes in Banff or Cape Breton, because some trips in Canada are just better in an Airbnb. The last time I nicked my finger, I threw on a bandage, took care of it right away.

But when I brushed my teeth and saw blood in the sink, I shrugged it off. It's time we stop ignoring our gum bleeding. Use Colgate Periogard to significantly reduce gum bleeding and inflammation. It helps fight bacteria that can lead to early gum disease and improves gum health with daily use. So just like you take care of your cuts, help take care of your gums with Colgate periogard. Healthy gums, confident smile. And now a special conversation between Ted Fellow, Dion Dawson, and Ted Fellow's 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? And 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 has 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. Most things that are created for the social good, without 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, can 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 did. not 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 to find ways to improve it and innovate in 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 this 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. No, no, absolutely. You know, 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, okay, cool, let's not look at it from a dismantle 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? Because 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 lots? 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. And 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. And 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. Of course. And 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.

Well, 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, 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 and 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. 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?

And 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. It has to 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.

And 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, and 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, 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, you know, that relates to hospitals. Like, 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 are 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, you 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 is 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 it's 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? Do 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.

So that's what's encapsulated in that $26 billion industry. Fascinating. So that you don't help with blood, sugar, different things like that. And so, you know, what we stumbled upon is understanding that, okay, cool, outside of food is medicine, you have Dionne-Sikago 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, and 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 when 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 is 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. How 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's 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 poor product or platform where all of these food organizations and companies can connect their people to their inventory and then connecting the people and the inventory

to potential delivery. So that's something that I've actually been working on in the background with a certain product is going to be launching fairly soon. What I learned 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, about large, the food system is disconnected. From home all the way upstream to the farm is just inefficient,

is disconnected, nobody's talking to each other. And 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? How 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 that it was communicated as the solution. Right. Not as one of the solution. And so even though that's, you know, 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, you know,

millions of pounds of food. I 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're going to 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. So there's money that can still be made or ridden 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 saving the food can survive, then we're not looking at changing anything. Because 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 wage. 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. So 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 a 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 Timothy Salome when he said, you know, I want to be great and I'm not shying away from it.

You 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. And now the idea that has evolved, that 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 lead, but it's leading where you have to and when 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. That was Dion Dawson, a 2025 TED Fellow. To learn more about the TED Fellows program and watch 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 Godengi and Owen McLean. Story edited by Corey Hageham and produced by Ian Lowe.

Production manager is Serring Dolma. Additional support comes from Lily James Olds, Leonie Horster, and Allegra Pearl. This episode was mixed by Lucy Little and Christopher Faisy Bogan. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team. Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tonica Sungmar Nivong.

Additional support from Emma Tobner and Daniela Ballerzzo. I'm Elise Hugh. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening. This episode is sponsored by Airbnb. It's finally summer, the season of road trips, lake swims, and making memories with the people we love. I have been thinking about exploring Canada for a while and for a trip like that staying in an Airbnb just feels right

whether it's a getaway with extended family or a few close friends I'd want a place that feels like home but with better views and more space to unwind Airbnb has some incredible spots across Canada that go way beyond the basics cottages with hammocks, fire pits, even canoes imagine staying somewhere with enough room for everyone

including the dog where bedtime for the kids doesn't have to mean bedtime for you. It's just a different experience, relaxing in a cozy living room instead of a hotel lobby. This summer, my aim is to check out some of Canada's most loved homes from Lakeside Cabins and Bruce Peninsula to breathtaking escapes in Banff or Cape Breton, because some trips in Canada are just better in an Airbnb. This episode is sponsored by Colgate Periogard. You know, when we get a paper cut or nick a finger while prepping dinner, we don't hesitate to grab a bandage or clean it up right away. But when it comes to our gums, a little tenderness or bleeding when we brush, we tend to ignore it. Why is that? Especially when

the fix can be so simple. Use Colgate Periogard to significantly reduce gum bleeding and inflammation. It helps fight bacteria that can cause early gum disease and improves gum health with daily use. Our mouths are trying to tell us something, and it's worth listening. So next time your gums feel sensitive, don't shrug it off. Help take care of it with Colgate Periogard. Healthy gums, confident smile. This podcast is brought to you by Wise, the app for international people using money

around the globe. With Wise, you can send, spend, and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Plus, Wise won't add hidden fees to your transfer. Whether you're buying souvenirs with pesos and Puerto Vallarta or sending euros to a loved one in Paris, you know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be smart. Join the 15 million customers who choose Wise.

Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. Terms and conditions apply.