Sustainable Change
is Community-Led
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We believe sustainable change comes from local leadership.
Through an 18-month Community-Led Development (CLD) Incubator program, we build relationships with local leaders in coffee-growing regions, cultivate their project design and management skills, and foster the development of their farming enterprises. Our work allows global communities to combat intergenerational poverty and marginalization in the coffee sector on their own terms, and according to their own visions for change.
Learn MoreOur Impact
18
incubator
participants
across the world
5,430
community members impacted by locally-designed initiatives
$270k
invested in community-led projects
Egg Laying Hens & Tree Nursery
Jovemcafé, Guatemala
Jovemcafé is a group of 25 young women coffee entrepreneurs in Com, Guatemala. After practicing TCC-recommended community visioning exercises, several members of the organization demonstrated increased leadership capacity, even forming a committee to design a second community-led plan (in addition to their initial plan of a tree nursery) as part of the Incubator: a collective egg-laying hen business to increase income between coffee harvest seasons. The group is now earning $1000 extra per month. Through their engagement with TCC, Jovemcafé members also report having increased confidence, connections, and capacity to continue turning their future project ideas into realities.
Youth Community Library & Scholarships Program
Biblioteca Girasol, Nicaragua
Biblioteca Girasol is a community library in the coffee-growing region of Matapalo, Nicaragua run by a team of youth leader volunteers. Despite their commitment to education in their community, most of these leaders are not able to attend high school due to the financial burden of buying school supplies and paying bus fares to reach the nearest public school. To respond to this challenge, through the Incubator, Biblioteca Girasol decided to launch a program that offers scholarships to youth leaders, and provides academic assistance and mental health services. This program now ensures that they can complete high school, and it supports them to continue giving back to their community, as they design and facilitate after-school programming for children who visit the library.
Technical Assistance For Robusta Producers in the Amazon
Asoamazonas, Ecuador
Asoamazonas is a youth-led group from the community of Huaticocha, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Their aim is to rescue agricultural activities in their region and add value to local products – especially cacao and Robusta coffee – by growing and processing them in a sustainable, environmentally-friendly way. With their Incubator project, Asoamazonas provided personalized technical assistance to 15 farming families so they could improve their yield and quality via organic and permaculture practices, obtain environmental certifications, and increase their incomes. In addition, they supported an after-school program for youth and children to promote reading, creativity, and coffee brewing skills; they also led a workshop for children about climate change.
Recovering Ancestral Land through Coffee
Asoseykún, Colombia
AsoSeykún is an Arhuaco community from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region in Colombia, that works to recover, reforest, and protect their ancestral land. Through the Incubator, they developed a strategy to meet this goal by processing and selling their coffee collectively at a fair price, ultimately increasing internally-generated income. The first stage of AsoSeykún’s project was a diagnostic of 23 coffee farms in their community to assess tree quantity and health as well as soil health. The second stage focused on infrastructure and training. As a result of this project and their learning, they were able to sell their coffee as dry parchment for the first time in 2023.
Girls’ Empowerment
Girl Power Foundation, Uganda
GPFU’s mission is to uplift adolescent girls and young women to utilize their skills and break the patterns that prevent them from thriving. Through their Incubator project in 2024, GPFU engaged 500+ community members – including women and girls both in and out of school – to increase women’s economic empowerment, enhance gender equity, and create a shared space in the community to support and be a part of these conversations. Specifically, GPFU designed three main focus areas for their project: vocational skills training for women and young girls that are out of school; sports activities for sensitization at school on mental and physical wellness; and community music, dance, and drama for creating unity and raising awareness on important topics.
Supporting Young Single Mothers
Abateraninkunga ba Sholi, Rwanda
Sholi is a cooperative that not only processes and sells coffee, but has also established a medical center, a clean water system, and a conference hall in the village. As part of the Incubator, Sholi developed a project to support young single mothers within their community by reintegrating them into the local economy. First, they provided land and a comprehensive training program surrounding coffee and sustainability for a group of 80 young single mothers to increase their incomes. Second, to supplement members’ income until they see the profits from the new coffee production, Sholi decided to foster alternative income options through skill development in artisan crafting and goat farming.