Archive of "One Village Coffee" Category
Letting go is not giving up
One Village Coffee has grown organically and it has always had an experimental factor to our development, but with out the team this would not be possible. The relationships and partnerships we develop along the way are the key factors to growth and sustainability. When looking at our relationships and our team it was clear certain people belonged in specific positions and I had to get out of the way. Any one on our team would tell you this is not an easy task for me to accomplish. I might have a bit of OCD or mania that provides my neurotic nature with just enough fuel to keep me “hands” on. However, any expert in the face of growth would tell you, “if someone can do it better than you than have them do the job.”
What was left providing me with a high level of anxiety, because without stuff to do, I needed to find new opportunities to build relationships in the coffee culture. The part left was the area most enter in first: Coffee Shops. Most people get into this business because of their passion for the brew, I entered this world because of my passion to create community and possibilities for new categories of business. Ways to build equity, while solving social issues like poverty in small villages around the world.
I believe in the power of groups of individuals and organizations working together to raise value in the exchange of goods and services while providing tools necessary for economic growth of human capital in overlooked and under resourced community’s like what I experience in Nigeria.
Long story short, I have contemplated firing myself for the past several months for the sake of the growth of OVC’s Mission. Recently, I had a conversation with a friend who is the President of a local insurance company in my town. He is in his early 30′s and has a lot of wisdom, his answer was simple after I asked him what he thought: “I do not think firing yourself is in the job description”.
Since then I have come to believe I have personal weaknesses in the area of competition, this was found out after a recent Volleyball match in my junior high gymnasium. I looked at pictures of my fellow classmates from over 15 years ago. In that moment, it seemed evident: I am one of those guys who has been given a lot and when my whole person is on the line. I tend to give up.
Addendum: Since stepping down from One Village Coffee I have found hope in the possibilities of a better future and this is why I started blogging again: to share those stories with you.
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?
Starting a business can be fun
Here is what I find exciting/fun:
1. Creating Jobs: I still can not get over the thought that somehow creating a marketable good in the economy of Specialty Coffee, has given people a place to work. (I get at least one email or call a week for the past several months about job opportunities. Thankfully it is not up to me or I would hire most people, because I enjoy giving people what they want.)
2. Being apart of Growth: It is a crazy thought that a year ago at this time we had four wholesale customers, now we have five times that. I do not know how good this is in the world of start ups, but according to our B-Plan we are doing well.
3. Something new: What we are doing at One Village Coffee is about building a business that supports Non-Profit work, or causes. This is not a new idea, but in the world of start up specialty coffee roasters it is unique. The fact that the wells we will build this year are connected to friends we have in Nigeria is tremendously fulfilling.
Wanting the Best for People
I had a conversation with one of the people on our Sales Team.
This is an amazing person with a heart to serve others. He is caught in a place I have found myself in several times. A place where hard work is just not enough of a motivation to do everything in there power to succeed.
I know he wants to do what is right and I believe he will.
This is how I know I want what is best for people.
When I surrender the right to tell them, when i believe in more than my own instinct.
I would like to be like this more often…
How about you?
What is a Preacher
A preacher is one who communicates the gospel to people.
I have often found it hard to view the pastor as the soul preacher, even more now than before. Today we have all sorts of preaching but very little gospel revelation.
I have scene the gospel and I have experienced the Kingdom in the most unlikely of places. The parts of the Gospels that inspire me are the part where the impossible is realized or the wrong is made right. IE, sitting with sinners, healing the sick or talking to woman.
There are parts of the Gospels so human they often go un noticed by most evangelicals, parts that reveal the very nature of man and the very possibility of God.
Tomorrow night I will share the story of One Village Coffee to over 100 employees of a Whole Foods Market in my community. This is an opportunity I am grateful for. From the perspective of the listener, I am just another voice in the market of wholesaling goods through their venue. From my perspective I am a man apart of a emerging organization designed around organic principles of growth. Care for the customer and contribution to greater society, the enabling of the poor to sustain a society longing for growth and change.
I am a simple person full of dreams for more than I can create, the possibility that God is involved in Creation and wants all of us to be involved together. Tomorrow night will be a moment like that, and my only hope is that I will be aware enough to see the Gospel. The place were the Good News of God So loved the World… The space and time where The Creator steps in and Create His image, divulging the secret of the Universe…
There is a God and that God is love, and in Him there is no darkness at all…
Wont you pray with me…
The Hardest Thing to Do is Try
For over a year now, I have been apart of One Village Coffee.
We are a group of people trying to help children through funding development in overlooked regions of the world.
We are a Coffee Roaster, providing sustainably certified coffee to the conscious customer.
We are an educator, storyteller and believer.
There is more to starting something than being good…
With out the common value of change, wrong choices and painful experiences we would not be here still alive and growing.
This past year has tested my beliefs, confidence and understanding. Almost every day I am in over my head. For the past month I have immersed myself in coffee equipment and brewing technique. It is my goal to create a program for people who love coffee and the way it can develop community.
I long for community…
Ever since I left vocational ministry to pursue the dream that is the Kingdom: the belief that God is involved in His creation and longs for the created to take part in,
The restoration of relationships
The acceptance of the un accepted
The empowering of the poor
The development of Freedom
The community of Faith.
I wake up with a small understanding of the mess of the Gospel:
Giving up the right to do what is best for me and only me.
To consider others that I see as less than me, better than me.
I can not be who I am created to be with out the constant reminder of how scary this is:
Life and the pursuit of happiness,
True success, in the upside down world
A capitalistic tool of business, marketing, and sales:
Providing a commodity produced in the under developed countries through the industry of Coffee.
Marketing our product to the customer who believes paying more is supporting more:
I sometimes struggle with the idea of capitalistic gain through the helping of the poor.
I sometimes struggle with the sale of an idea or dream.
Concepts that we are a people who are made to co create and begin to build a better world.
I am not sure what all of this means, but it is helpful to write it out.
Sorry it has been so long…
What $1000 did for Bala
This is a letter sent from the director of NIFES, Bala Usman.
I am posting this because I want people to understand how much we have been given, and how much a little will do. This is a dear friend of our family and the reason we set off to start a coffee company, One Village Coffee, in order to support Non-Profit. We are currently working on starting an umbrella non-profit, Open Hand Initiative (OHI) for all the over looked people doing this kind of work around the world.
Right now there is a partnership forming with the MAMA project and the Nigerian leaders through my father. The reason we want to start this non profit which will be funded through One Village Coffee, grants, personal donations and other business’s is due to the rising interest in the involvement our family has internationally.
We are the connectors to communities around the world and it is time to tell the story of these amazing people do so much with so little.
Here the words of Bala:
Dear Hackman,
Warm regards to you and your family.
Beloved, you are the blessing that God has blessed to see that our vision and dream of transforming Africa through the Nigeria.
This is to personally and formally thank you for the timely gift you sent to help with our Coffee farm development which is a basis of enhancing
thousands being enhanced and empowered to make impact and reduce the poverty level of our people. The said amount came to N116, 300:00 because they gave me some lower denominations for $900@N119 (N107, 100) and the $80 @N115 ( N9,200) and the balance of ($20) was charged
as commission for the transfer from the USA. I feel deeply concerned for and loved by your act of mercy and care for the unknown. May his Love overwhelm you.
This is the summary and briefs for the total sum sent:
The sum of N72, 500 earmarked for the bore hole due to its dept and materials and labor. The boreholes work has started and will be finished by tomorrow.
The sum of N24, 000 earmarked for the cow dung manure, which has been supplied, and
The sum of N12, 500 to pay the workers for the month of December -January 2008.
The sum of N3, 500 earmarked for the fuel towards the watering.
The balance of N1000 I used it to buy phone card for phone calls and 2,800 gas for my car and movement for supervision.
These are the things that we are able to do at the school.
I used the balance to purchase 16 bags of cement @ N1, 530 and used it to floor the 5 classes (N24, 480). We also did deposit N 25,500: for the roof Hedges to cover the open areas of the roof and then fixed the window louver glasses costing N14, 160 against the cold weather to protect the children. The chicken birds were sold and we used them to settle our children fees (N135, 000: 00)
I WILL LIKE to APPRECIATE and keep thanking you for your graciousness and kindness to make us have less tension and more relaxed mind. I am humbled by your thoughtfulness.
I AM DEEPLY GRATEFUL FOR THE THOUGHT OF MOBILISING A TEAM TO HELP BUILD TH OTHER PART OF THE SCHOOL. You talked about working to gather the materials for the building. Sir, Can I know what and what I should begin to gather and put together? We are deeply overwhelmed over your desire and discussion to have people mobilized to support and come build or help work on the building in the school
Grace and I are praying and planning to have some time spending part of my Rest in 2008. Love to your wife and the Children.
coffee salesmen as pastors
Almost every Friday for the past three months my partners and I have met with a business consultant about the direction and plan for One Village Coffee. Recently, we had time where we all confessed our position on the future.
“I have to admit when I first met all of you, I was not sure how serious you all were,” our consultant stated with honesty and humility.
“I am glad you wake up with the burden of making this thing work,” he said to me with direction in his voice.
“When you look on paper at the team you have to admit it is not that impressive,” my redefinition of what he said.
You have pastors, theologians, students, food service managers and salesmen.
Every time I tell Bob about our new sales rep, who is a pastor, he laughs, but his laughter has more to do with intrigue than disbelief. And I have to admit it feels good to be apart of the evolution of OVC, a living organism self creating around the idea of helping one village through becoming a coffee roasting company, supporting non profits and developing direct trade with the countries of origin.
In my mind of course it will take some pastors, and service oriented people. We are not going to succeed because of our business experience, but we will succeed because of what success means to us. Looking back a year from now, it might just be, because we have pastors and salesmen
