Archive for December, 2008
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?
