Mercy Corps is a global team of humanitarians working together on the front lines of today’s biggest crises to create a future of possibility, where everyone can prosper.
In more than 40+ countries around the world, over 5,400+ team members work side by side with people living through poverty, disaster, violent conflict, and the acute impacts of climate change. Mercy Corps is committed to creating global change through local impact.
Mercy Corps bring a comprehensive approach to every challenge, addressing problems from multiple angles. And they go beyond emergency aid, partnering with local governments, forward-thinking corporations, social entrepreneurs, and people living in fragile communities to develop bold solutions that make lasting change possible.
Dovetail Impact Foundation invests time, treasure, and talent in organisations that promote human flourishing.
DIF is based on the Biblical mandate that to whom much is given, much is expected. The foundation partners with organisations that use funds effectively, that do the most with the least, always being respectful and encouraging to those they serve. They endeavor to use their business experience and acumen to help the organisations grow in scale and competencies, while never manipulating their mission with DIF’s financial support.
CAF Venturesome is the social investment team of Charities Aid Foundation, CAF. It provides repayable finance to help social enterprises, charities and community-led housing groups make an impact. It is supported by funders who want to use their charitable funds to achieve a social as well as a financial return. CAF Venturesome recycles the money it lends out to enable many more organisations to be supported by one pot of capital. CAF Venturesome believes that partnership is the only way to work and has supported hundreds of social organisations across the UK and overseas.
Republica del Cacao is a B Corporation from Ecuador dedicated to creating the most authentic Latin American chocolate hand in hand with local communities. As part of our Digital Cooperatives project, we are working with Republica del Cacao to design didactical digital materials for women in Peru to improve their skills in micro-enterprise development and financial literacy.
At the start of 2018, the World Bank awarded Producers Direct as part of their Development Data Innovation Projects.
Collaborating with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); Climate Edge; and WeFarm, this project aims to help smallholder farmers respond to climate risks by integrating multiple sources of data and then presenting them with a personalized, accessible perspective on how to adapt and respond to specific challenges. The project intends to enable smallholders to engage with data in meaningful ways and transition from being passive recipients of data to active designers of the very data systems intended to benefit them.
Cafédirect was founded in direct response to the coffee crisis of 1989, when prices plummeted and farmers were struggling to break even, let alone make a profit. In 2010, Cafédirect raised the bar even further and created Producers Direct.
Cafédirect and Producers Direct have worked closely together over the years to help smallholder tea and coffee farmers to build their expertise, improving their crop quality, yields and building their livelihoods.
The Global Resilience Partnership aims to help millions of vulnerable people in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and South and Southeast Asia better adapt to shocks and chronic stresses and invest in a more resilient future. The GRP have been supporting Producers Direct since we were one of the winners of their first challenge to work with smallholder farmers to utilize technology to provide necessary data, tools and information to improve livelihoods, promote inclusion and build resilience.
Comic Relief has awarded Producers Direct three grants in support of programming in East Africa and to support Producers Direct’s producer-led governance. Most recently Comic Relief has supported in the setup and implementation of 3 Centres of Excellence in East Africa.
Producers Direct’s Innovation by Smallholders to enhance Productivity, Incomes, Resources and Enterprise (INSPIRE) is funded by the Big Lottery Fund. This project is based in Peru and is based around the setting up of Centre of Excellence with three of our producer partners in the country.
Producers Direct won the 2014 Google Impact Challenge for WeFarm. This enabled us to spin WeFarm off as a stand alone social enterprise. You can keep up to date with WeFarm’s incredible work bringing the power of internet to people without it here.
Fairtrade International has been a long-term supported of Producers Direct. Most recently they have lended extra support to our Big Lottery Fund sponsored project work, scaling out the Centres of Excellence in Peru.
OpenIDEO chose Producers Direct’s work with Digital Farm as a Top Idea for its call “How might we apply new technologies to make agriculture and water systems more resilient in the face of climate threats?” This work led to Producers Direct’s inclusion in the Climate Ventures 2.0 accelerator programme led by Good Company Ventures in Philadelphia. For more information about this check out our blog.
Nominet Trust is the leading social tech funder. It seeks to bring together, invest in and support people making imaginative use of technology to address complex social challenges. Nominet Trust has supported Producers Direct with early exploration into WeFarm as well our work looking at the applications of IoT technology for smallholder farmers.
Through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP), DEG (The German Investment & Development Corporation) and Cafédirect supported our work in the Rooted in Quality programme in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The Knight Foundation is a US based funder that aims to foster informed and engaged communities. The Knight Foundation was instrumental in supporting the WeFarm project at its initial stages.
Roasting Plant is an innovative coffee shop and roastery. Their Javabot System roasts beans in Micro-Batches, and brews every cup to order.
Conscious about every aspect of coffee, the company is socially and eco-conscious, only ever paying more than the Fair Trade price for coffee and supporting best practice in their suppliers and farms via collaboration with Producers Direct thereby ensuring that coffee bean farmers have access to a network of other farmers who share knowledge and learning in their communities leading to improved more sustainable farming
