On the Ground
Creating sustainable solutions in coffee-growing communities
On the Ground partners with coffee farmer communities to improve standards of living. We fund what communities ask for — gender equity, schools, clean water, climate-resilient agronomy — and we stay long enough to see it through.
Sustainability starts where inequity ends.
Urgent — May 2026 — ongoing
Responding to Ebola in Eastern DRC
The Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is facing one of the most serious Ebola outbreaks in the virus's recorded history — in the same coffee-farming communities where On the Ground works.
An emergency response with the Muungano Cooperative, bringing hand-washing stations, supplies, and prevention training to coffee washing stations, schools, and churches.
Our mission
Sustainability starts where inequity ends
Our changing climate and unfair global economic structures are threatening the future of coffee. Industry sustainability won't come from self-serving attempts to protect a valuable crop — it will only come from a collaborative, industry-wide effort to support and develop coffee-growing communities.
We view our coffee-producing colleagues as equals, as friends. We believe families who farm coffee deserve the same access to basic human rights as the people who trade, roast and consume their coffee.
Read our mission
By the numbers
What partnership has produced
Results from our active programs and from work we have since completed.
- Couples through DRC gender equity training (active)
- 1,500+
- Students supported by DRC Back to School (active)
- 372
- People given clean water access in Chiapas (past program)
- 5,200+
- Built with Hase Gola communities in Ethiopia (past program)
- 4 schools
Active programs
Where we work today
Every project on this list began as a request from the community that now runs it.
Gender Equity in the DRC
South Kivu & Ituri, Democratic Republic of Congo
Since 2015, year-round gender equity programming with Congolese women coffee farmers and their husbands.
Project Back to School
Democratic Republic of Congo
Tuition, uniforms, and supplies so Congolese students — especially girls — can stay in school.
Cooperative Lending Program
Bolivia & the Democratic Republic of Congo
Pre-harvest solidarity loans so cooperatives can pay farmers the day they deliver their coffee, not six months later.
Historical programs
Work we have completed
These programs are finished. Their pages remain as a record of what the communities built.
The runs
Ultra-marathons that built the organization
Three campaigns — Ethiopia, Congo and Palestine — turned running into schools, gender equity programming and lasting partnerships.
Run Across Ethiopia
January 2011 · 10 marathons in 10 days — roughly 400 kilometers
The run that started it all: American and Ethiopian runners crossing the coffee highlands to build schools that are still full of students today.
Run Across Congo
May 24–30, 2015 · Seven marathons in seven days
Run. Empower. Transform. An all-women team ran seven marathons in seven days along Lake Kivu for gender justice in Congolese coffee.
Run Across Palestine
February 2013 · More than 100 miles over five days
Runners crossing the West Bank alongside Palestinian olive farmers — 5,000 olive saplings, micro-loans, scholarships, and a documentary.
Stand with coffee farming families
Monthly giving lets us plan projects into the future and respond immediately to humanitarian crises — where we're often the first organization on the ground.