Founders’ Note: February 2026

Written By Abhinav Khanal

Hi friends,

I'm writing from San Cristobal de Las Casas after the most meaningful few weeks we've had at Bean Voyage; and it's made me SO excited for all that we’re building for the next five years. Our core team (Sunghee, Itzel, Majo, and I) just spent February in the region doing deep design work with coffee communities. We hosted workshops, we sat in storytelling circles, we shared meals and took a LOT of notes.

More on all of these below. Thank you for following our evolution all these years.

With gratitude,

Abhi

3 WINS

  • Farmer School: We gave our biggest seed capital to support farmer action plans in Costa Rica this year, and our regional leads, Lau and Vivi are doing incredible 1:1 work to support each producer as they build out their action plans. The Honduras farmer school pilot is coming to a close next month and we’re seeing really inspiring stories of improvements in the yield from last year’s cohort.

  • Women-Powered Coffee Collective: coffee samples  from the 2026 harvest have started coming in and they're promising (harvest was delayed). Roasters, if you haven't reached out yet about receiving samples, now's the time: coffee@beanvoyage.org

  • Women-Powered Coffee Summit: the community call for past WPCE-ers invited ideas for how we can continue supporting this community with lots of interest in more learning opportunities. We’re also very excited to bring the 5th edition of WPCS to Chiapas from October 15-17, and the team has finalized some key partnerships + logistics this month!

2 CHALLENGES

  • I wish we didn't have to fundraise while doing this deep community work. The pressure can block the learning. There's this great point in Lean Impact by Ann Mei Chang about how social impact orgs need real R&D budgets — just grants to learn, spend time with communities, share meals, and truly understand. When you get that space, the depth of work you can do is magical.

  • As our model evolves from working directly with farmers to partnering with cooperatives, how do we measure impact in a way that stays consistent? If you've navigated this shift in your work, I'd love to hear how you approached it.

1 ASK

Only about 7 early bird tickets left for WPCS 2026! Grab yours before they're gone. (Thank you to everyone who's been spreading the word!)

RECOMMENDATIONS:

We spent this week doing strategy reviews, and these tools were our favorite. Sharing in case they're helpful for your work too:


Our team has 3 more days of strategy retreat next week. Are there any readings you recommend us to dive into together?

SOMETHING PERSONAL:

L:R: Majo, me, Itz, and Sunghee

One of my favorite courses to facilitate is design thinking at UPeace Center for Executive Education, originally built by Mohit Mukherjee (my social impact Yoda!).

The best part about design thinking is being able to put it into action. We’ve been using this process since 2017, and every community visit starts the same way: empathy and listening first, solutions later.

This trip reminded me why that matters. When producers drew their coffee journeys (an activity that we call “draw it”), we saw struggles we'd missed. When we shared meals and stories, we heard dreams we hadn't understood.

When we stayed curious instead of jumping to solutions, the real problems emerged.

These conversations are not only informing our plans for this year but the long term view strategy. Our gratitude to partners at CoffeeFEM89, Sublime Mujer, Café Capitan, La Tribu, COFEMO for sharing coffee, stories, and their precious time with us.

Cheers from San Cris as I sip on Rosa Elisa's coffee!

Abhi

Abhinav Khanal
Next

Founders’ Note: January 2026