Erica Orton

Director of Evaluation

As Director of Evaluation, Erica leads the newly formed Evaluation Department at Fair Food Network, supporting the organization to measure progress towards their intended impacts and outcomes and intentionally reflecting on and learning from those findings.  Erica also supports external evaluation and community engagement efforts, as well as internal program and process improvement evaluation activities. 

Erica has been working in the field of evaluation for over 10 years in a variety of contexts including cultural institutions and museums, education and philanthropy.  Prior to joining Fair Food Network, Erica was the Learning and Evaluation Manager for the Bush Foundation, a Minnesota-based private foundation supporting community-led problem solving within and across sectors in the upper Midwest region. In her role she conducted and managed process and impact evaluations, led cross-foundation learning initiatives, and supported DEI and grantmaking efforts through data. 

Erica graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in music, art and American studies.  She currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her faithful companion, Hank the dog.  In her spare time she enjoys cooking, gardening, boxing, playing the bass clarinet and travel.