About
Sustainability starts where inequity ends
On the Ground partners with coffee farmer communities to improve standards of living.
Why we exist
Coffee's future depends on the people who grow it
Our changing climate and unfair global economic structures are threatening the future of coffee. Industry sustainability will not come from self-serving attempts to protect a valuable crop — it will only come from a collaborative, industry-wide effort to support and develop the communities that grow it.
On the Ground was founded in 2010 by people already working in the specialty coffee trade who could see the limits of price alone. A fair price is necessary, but it does not build a school, dig a well, treat a survivor of violence, or change who holds decision-making power inside a household.
We view our coffee-producing colleagues as equals, as friends. We believe families who farm coffee deserve the same access to basic human rights as the people who trade, roast and consume their coffee.
Sustainability starts where inequity ends.
How we work
Community-defined, long-term, low-overhead
Communities set the agenda
Every project begins as a request from a farmer cooperative or community organization. We fund and support what they have already decided to build.
Partnerships, not one-off grants
We stay with the same cooperatives year after year — today in the DRC and, through cooperative lending, in Bolivia — so programs can mature instead of ending with a funding cycle. Our completed work in Ethiopia, Chiapas, Nicaragua and Palestine ran the same way.
Local leadership
Programs are run by people from the regions where they operate, including our DRC country director and the agronomists and educators employed alongside cooperative staff.
First on the ground in a crisis
Existing relationships let us move quickly when a volcano erupts, a river floods, or conflict displaces the families we already work with.
At a glance
The organization
- Founded
- 2010
- U.S. nonprofit status
- 501(c)(3)
- Programs: DRC Gender Equity, DRC Back to School, Cooperative Lending
- 3 active
- Ultra-marathon campaigns that funded the work
- 3 runs
Partner with coffee-growing communities
Give monthly, host an event, or bring your roasting company into the work.
Sources
Mission language on this page follows On the Ground's own published statements. Descriptions of approach summarize the program pages cited throughout this site.