3A Blog — uganda

I often get the question, “How did you end up selling coffee from Uganda?” Typically from people that have known me for a little while. But, sometimes from total strangers. So, here’s the story… I was going through a bit of a difficult point in my life. I had everything you could want: great wife, beautiful children, nice home, nice cars, etc. The problem is that I felt a gaping hole in my life. I ended up meeting with my pastor a few times, just chatting about life. He challenged me to raise $25,000 to build a school in Uganda....

Lately, I’ve really been getting into the whole local vs global charity debate. We are a US-based non-profit that raises money for developing countries, so I’m sure you can already guess what my view is on this. However, I don’t think it’s a right vs wrong debate. I’m in no position to judge who needs help more than the next person. And you’re probably reading that going, “Yeah, but you give to other countries, so you must feel they are more needy”. Point taken. You’re right, I do. But that doesn’t mean I feel people here in the US are...

I’ve seen the argument plenty that if you want to do something charitable, then just give your money to a charity. The theory is that it will get used better by a charity than a socially responsible organization (or, in our case, a non-profit selling a product). OK, I’ll agree to that. 100%. For example, $9 would go further with World Vision towards providing clean water than that same $9 will go if it’s used to buy our coffee. True. Here’s the problem: That’s not for me. I’m not good at asking for money. There are TONS of great charitable organizations out...

When we started Three Avocados, some people asked “Why coffee”? Most people assumed we had some knowledge of the coffee industry. Nope, none at all. So then, why sell coffee? The answer is quite simple – it’s consumable and people already spend money on it. The specialty coffee market is huge. And, they grow coffee in Uganda. Three Avocados coffee was born in Uganda. The concept originates there. It had to be something that could be produced in Uganda, for Uganda. So, we did some research to figure out if this was a viable market. Sure enough, it seemed like...