Archive for December, 2008
meeting with friends
The past two days I have been able to spend time with friends.
Unfortionatly this is rare for me and becoming scarce as the business grows.
The problem is simple: One Village Coffee is about helping a community internationally, but I continually become more compelled to develop community locally. Simply stated: I believe relationships are the foundation for change, the kind of change that is sustainable.
The kind of feeling you get when you listen to Sigur Ros on a ride home, with the full moon guiding your way.
Sunday I drove around my town stoping at six different places with a dear friend, who was brave enough to start this venture with me. We were looking for a place to share a drink and catch up on life. Even though we work together, rarely do we spend time listening to eachothers lives.
Sunday was a meaningful night…
Today I had the oppertunity to meet up with some new friends three different business people in my area. During my time with them, I started to realize how significant relationships are and how little time I spend developing them since I started this business.
I feel like I have to do everything in my power to make this thing work. I have a deep fear that if I take my eyes off the task at hand, the whole thing will crumble.
However, in my quest to solve a specific social issue through business, I have personally suffered. I have become lopsided in my perspective of purpose. The reality is, even if and when what I am apart of completes something significant, that is not the most important thing in life, that is not my identity. My identity is somewhere between what people see and what I see in myself.
Here is where I live, somewhere in the tension of significance to myself and significance to others. This is where I need another perspective. A God’s eye view, which I know is impossible, but I desire non the less. I desire a God, bigger than my reality, bigger than my identity. Something to worship more than a cause, a being to believe beyond myself.
I have begun a journey to the center of all things.
Building a brand
This is not an easy task…
Lately I have spent most of my time telling the story of one village coffee and sampling to people who have yet to tasted the brew.
Here is what I have found:
People want to support something more than a product. The people who use their spending power to buy One Village are doing it out of a desire to build a community of change.
When I was a youth pastor I was trying to build a brand of my own image, I now find myself working inside a market around the idea of using commerce to solve social problems. The problem we are directly involved with is that of poverty.
The question that pleagues people much smarter than me: Why does Capitalism not work in underdeveloped countries?
I have my beliefs which are limited to my experience an understanding, coming from a white middle class perspective. Although my struggles have mostly been interpersonal or pyschological, I have had the luxury of such a challenge, when most of the world is looking for food.
Now a large majority of Americans are looking for work.
The tension I feel in building a brand that represents social change + value given to poor communities. Life valued as human dignity and value quantitatively given outside the realm of the traditional bottom line.
This is the tension of building a brand like One Village Coffee. A brand that needs others to believe in outside of myself. People who purchase the coffee and tell the story is a desire. The role I play in our collective, is becoming increasingly important and here are the questions I have:
Who are the people who want to do this with us?
Where are the channels of networks that will help to grow this cause across our country?
How do I mobolize, those who are involved and want to be involved in a greater way?
