CQI Triples Its Global Coffee Fund and Invites the Industry to Match
The Coffee Quality Institute just made a big bet on the people who grow your coffee. Speaking at the 22nd African Fine Coffees Conference in Addis Ababa on February 5, CQI announced it’s tripling its commitment to the Global Coffee Fund and launching a new matching grants program aimed at getting the broader industry to put money where its mouth is.
The numbers: CQI wants to mobilize $500,000 this year. That breaks down into $100,000 in direct grants for education projects, plus up to $200,000 in dollar-for-dollar matching grants — meaning if a roaster, trader, or allied business co-invests in a project that aligns with CQI’s mission, the institute will match it one-to-one. If fully subscribed, that’s $400,000 in new investment flowing to coffee-producing communities.
Why Addis Ababa, Why Now
The timing is deliberate. CQI chose Africa’s biggest coffee trade platform — where over 2,000 producers, exporters, roasters, and development partners gather under the theme “Brewing Africa’s Next Generation” — to make this announcement. It’s a signal about where the organization sees the greatest need.
“CQI is tripling our commitment and inviting the industry to co-invest,” said CEO Michael Sheridan. The subtext is hard to miss: in a year where coffee prices remain elevated and supply chain volatility is the norm, the organization is asking whether the industry will reinvest some of those margins back into the communities producing the coffee.
What the Fund Actually Does
The Global Coffee Fund has been running since 2022, but this expansion marks a significant scale-up. The fund targets two areas that rarely get enough attention: post-harvest processing education and developing local coffee educators in regions that lack them.
Think about what that means in practice. A lot of coffee quality potential is lost between the tree and the export bag — during fermentation, drying, sorting, and storage. Training producers to control those variables can transform a farm’s output from commercial-grade to specialty without changing a single plant. And building up local educators means that knowledge sticks around after the NGO leaves.
T.J. Ryan, CQI’s Managing Director of Programs, framed the matching grants as a way to “leverage global partnerships to increase impact at the producer level.” Applications for both grant programs are accepted on a rolling basis.
The Bigger Picture
This expansion comes during an interesting transition for CQI itself. Last October, the organization transferred its Q Grader certification program — the gold standard for professional coffee evaluation — to the Specialty Coffee Association. That move freed CQI to focus more directly on origin-level work, and this fund expansion is the clearest evidence yet of that pivot.
It also arrives against a backdrop of real volatility. Arabica futures have been on a rollercoaster, tariff threats disrupted US-Brazil trade flows in 2025, and climate events from Vietnamese flooding to Brazilian drought continue to stress supply. In that environment, investing in producer education isn’t just altruistic — it’s a supply-chain strategy.
Why This Matters
For anyone who cares about where their coffee comes from, this is the kind of infrastructure that makes direct, quality-focused trade possible. You can’t have specialty coffee without skilled producers, and you can’t have skilled producers without accessible education. CQI is trying to close that gap, and now they’re asking the rest of the industry to help.
If you’re a roaster or buyer who wants to participate, grant applications are open at coffeeinstitute.org.