Primary Stakeholders
While we work through partner organizations, our efforts focus on creating meaningful impact for individuals – especially women and youth – as well as for families and communities in cocoa-growing regions.
For many families, cocoa cultivation is the primary source of income. Some also engage in other income-generating activities to support their needs. When cocoa farming thrives, it not only sustains households, but also boosts local economies and contributes to broader social development.
Despite the importance of cocoa cultivation, communities in cocoa-growing regions face persistent challenges, including limited access to clean water, quality education, and healthcare. Our strategic focus is to help address these systemic barriers, support sustainable livelihoods, and foster locally driven development that creates lasting change.
Focus Areas
Our efforts focus on two areas that contribute to our desired impact: ensuring individuals and families in cocoa-growing regions in selected countries have decent and resilient livelihoods, while also protecting local ecosystems.
1. Income diversification and economic empowerment:
In many cocoa-growing regions, individuals and families face economic challenges due to their reliance on cocoa farming. Factors such as low productivity, price volatility, climate risks, and limited access to financial services and markets hinder their ability to diversify income and achieve financial stability. Women and youth, in particular, face barriers including limited access to skills training, financial services, land ownership, and market opportunities. This reduces their ability to contribute to household and community resilience.
At the same time, many farmers lack the organizational capacity to engage in decision-making processes that affect their livelihoods. Weak farmer organizations prevent them from influencing policies and systems that shape their economic opportunities.
We aim to empower farmers and rural entrepreneurs to diversify income, improve profitability, strengthen resilience, and enhance farmer organization and representation.
We focus on strengthening key actors across public, private, and civil society sectors to provide access to financial services, business development, and market opportunities and to promote sustainable farming practices. Moreover, we work to build the capacity of farmer organizations, enabling them to better support their members and actively engage in governance.
We also collaborate with research partners to develop innovative solutions that can be scaled.
2. Ecosystem protection and regeneration:
The long-term sustainability of rural communities depends on environmental health, which is crucial for economic development. Ecosystem protection and regeneration are essential for maintaining healthy landscapes, preventing further degradation, and supporting future generations.
Our objective is to support ecosystem protection and regeneration efforts by strengthening key actors that promote climate-smart practices and lead conservation efforts. Moreover, we collaborate with research institutions to provide data-driven insights into scalable conservation strategies.
Through these efforts, we aim to safeguard ecosystems while enhancing the prosperity of rural communities.
Funding Approach
Over the past decade, the Foundation has funded different projects with a focus on sustainable value chains, landscape projects, and research. Going forward, we support different types of initiatives aimed at driving innovation and sustainable development in cocoa-growing regions in selected countries.
Our approach includes:
* The foundation actively seeks partners to support within its defined focus areas of activity. As such, unsolicited requests for funding are not accepted.