Turning Potential into Prosperity: A Replicable Model for Thriving Rural Communities
The Coffee for Communities Project: Trust, Tailored Solutions, and Teamwork as Blueprint for Resilient smallholder families
Marisol Juan Ramírez, a 28-year-old mother from the Q’om community in Huehuetenango (Guatemala) is one of 4,000 participants in the Tim Hortons Coffee for Communities project. Motivated to create a better future for her seven-year-old daughter, she joined it in 2022. With support from agronomic and financial literacy trainings and youth programs, she acquired new farming and entrepreneurial skills. Marisol opened a small store and improved the farming techniques on her family’s coffee farm, resulting in a harvest outperforming the regional average. In 2024, she even purchased her own plot of land. Her story embodies the project's goal of fostering resilience and creating opportunities at a household level.
Since 2005, Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS) has been collaborating with Tim Hortons, a Canadian coffeehouse chainactive in co-designing of projects, on initiatives to improve the livelihoods of coffee-farming families, particularly in Central America. The last phase of their joint initiative, theCoffee for Communitiesproject (2022–2024), has just ended. Its goal: to strengthen household resilience by improving farm management, supporting family businesses, and reinforcingfarmer organizations and supply chainsthrough a very practical hands-on approach. “While earlier project phases focused primarily on agronomic topics, the new phase adopted a broader, family-centered approach, with a particular focus on including women and young people, and on building climate resilience”, explains Pablo Ruiz, Co-Regional Manager for Central America at HRNS.
The project was evaluated and designed with the help of a third party: Enveritas. This non-profit organization carried out a baseline survey, as well as annual surveys of 100 randomly selected project participants and a comparable control group. “Our evaluation suggests that project farmers have a high adoption rate of several good agricultural practices, including integrated pest and disease management, and are very satisfied with the project”, states Enveritas. With the help of additional internal analyses and monitoring tools, it was also possible to identify the key factors behind the success. So overall, Tim Hortons and HRNS can learn and adapt along the way of project implementation.
Results at a Glance: High Participation, High Adoption, High Performance
Over the course of three years, the Tim Hortons-HRNS partnership achieved wide-reaching results. A total of 3,863 farmers in the departments of Huehuetenango, San Marcos, Santa Rosa, and Jalapa participated in training on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), leadership, gender equity, and organizational development. Adoption was strong: 79 % of participants implemented GAP, while 73 % applied CSA techniques.
Compared to regional farmers not involved in the project, the gains were even more notable: Project farmers were significantly more likely to use organic fertilizers and compost, apply soil testing results, practice intercropping and integrated pest management, handle agrochemicals safely, and respond proactively to climate risks. Recordkeeping - a key indicator of managerial sophistication - was practiced by 28 % of project participants, compared to only 12 % regionally. These behavioral changes significantly improved productivity: Participating farms harvested an average of 811 kilograms of coffee per hectare, compared to 553 kilograms among non-participants.
Three outcomes are particularly noteworthy: First, more than half of the registered participants were women. “The project nearly doubled its original target for female participants, reaching a total of 2,244 participants”, explains Theresa Ruperti, Program and Partnership Manager at HRNS. Second, youth were meaningfully engaged, with 96 graduating as climate pioneers and 95 youth-led micro enterprises receiving support.Involving women and young people is essential to strengthening families' livelihoods and creating future prospects in rural areas, particularly in contexts of male migration and generational change, as is the case in Guatemala.Third, satisfaction ratings were exceptionally high: The program scored 4.7 out of 5 - among the highest recorded across Tim Hortons' global projects.
Six Key Drivers of Project Success
1. Trust & Long-Term Local Presence
“What particularly stands out is thatHRNS and its projects are well known in the region”, says Ruperti. The HRNS-Tim Hortons partnership has been active in Guatemala since 2006. This long-term presence, combined with a culturally rooted technical team, played a crucial role in building trust. Many staff members came from the same regions or spoke indigenous languages.“The qualitative feedback from our field team confirms that one of the main strengths of the program is an experienced technical team with close ties to coffee farming communities”, says Enveritas. Unlike buyer-led programs, HRNS acts as a neutral partner, thereby avoiding conflicts of interest. These factors contributed to high participation and adoption rates.
2. High Quality, Locally Adapted Training
Many years of development went into creating the training program, which combines global best practices with localized solutions. “Our collaboration with Tim Hortons has evolved over time. We exchanged world-wide expertise, resulting in improvements in the services delivered to farming families”,explains Ruiz.
This approach was not static: Lessons from previous phases, as well as evidence from the Enveritas baseline, annual surveys, and HRNS's own diagnostics were used not only for planning, but also to adapt training content and priorities throughout the project. As a result, the project successfully responded to the needs of farmers - for example, by strengthening the focus on gender, youth, and climate resilience.
Also HRNS trainers were key to the quality. Their technical expertise, continuous professional development, and cultural proximity to participants ensured both trust and effectiveness.
3. Blended Learning with a Practical Focus
The project used a mix of in-person workshops, digital tools, field visits, and hands-on training. This blended approach broadened participation, particularly in remote areas, and reinforced learning through multiple channels.Demonstration plots- 356 for GAP and 242 for CSA - enabled almost all participants to visit one and were a key part of this strategy. “Farmers learned by doing, not just listening”, emphasizes Ruperti. This method led to stronger behavioral change and deeper understanding of practices like agrochemical safety, record keeping, and climate adaptation.
4. High-Touch, Frequent Support
Frequent, personalized support was central to the project’s delivery. Farmers received regular technical assistance, field visits, and opportunities for peer learning. They also had access to materials such as fertilizers, soil tests and seedlings. By the final year of the project, over 90 % of participants had received active support, with almost 80 % attending at least four sessions. This high-touch support ensured continuity and reinforced learning.
5. Holistic, Family-Centered Approach
“What makes this project stand out is its balanced approach”, emphasizes Ruiz. Rather than focusing solely on the coffee product itself, the project addressed the broader ecosystem, including family livelihoods, gender roles, youth engagement, climate resilience, environmental sustainability, and farmer organizations. This reflects HRNS’s Theory of Change, which promotes systematic, long-term community development.
For example, recognizing that an increasing number of men are migrating to the US, leaving women and young people to lead agricultural activities, the project responded by intentionally reaching out to these groups. The program offered flexible training schedules that respected their daily realities, and specialized staff for each topic. “For HRNS, engaging women and youth is not only a matter of equity - it is fundamental to ensuring long-term sustainability”, Ruiz says.
6. Strong Partnerships
Finally, the project’s success would not have been possible without strong partnerships across public and private sectors, reflecting HRNS core commitment to collaboration.Close links with national partners in agriculture, financial services and social welfare - such as ANACAFÉ, Agrequima and Catholic Relief Services - enabled alignment with national strategies, co-investment opportunities, and long-term delivery of service. The project also worked with 24 formal and 74 informal farmer organizations.
A key element of this strategy was the launch of the Community of Practice (CoP) in eastern Guatemala. This platform created a space for dialogue and coordination among regional stakeholders in the coffee sector, recognizing that individual organizations often have limited reach and expertise. Key players, including Volcafe, the Universidad Regional and TechnoServe, are already part of this growing platform. During regular meetings, partners can share knowledge on best practices and coordinate efforts to address urgent issues.
At the heart of the initiative was the long-standing HRNS-Tim Hortons partnership, which brought consistency, shared expertise and credibility to the project.
Looking Ahead: Deepening and Expanding Impact
The Coffee for Communities project has shown that inclusive, locally embedded, and data-driven interventions can significantly strengthen the resilience of farming households. It also underlined the importance of trusted relationships and strong partnerships.
Returning to Marisol: Today, she leads a local parents’ organization, runs school feeding programs and continues to invest in her skills and community, showing how targeted support can create sustainable opportunities for young women in rural areas.
Building on these foundations, the next project phase (2025–2027) will maintain its focus on climate-smart agriculture, gender equity, and youth engagement, while expanding scale and integration. Priorities include extending the Community of Practice, as well as Agroclimatic Roundtables to help prepare for climate-related risks, and strengthening recordkeeping through guided, practical support. HRNS also plans to enhance its monitoring systems to better track social and environmental compliance. Further efforts focus on strengthening the business skills of farmer organizations.
We are excited to expanding and deepening the impact of our project in collaboration with our many valuable partners”.
