Nearly 40 years ago, Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) began helping farmers plant cashew trees in Ghana. On a recent visit, Audrey Andersson, General Conference (GC) vice president, ADRA International board chair, and GoodOne board member, saw how some of those investments are creating new opportunities today through GoodOne, ADRA’s social venture and for-profit company.

Andersson traveled to Ghana with Cherie Jackson. GoodOne general manager, and Alex Balint, GoodOne chief operating officer, to better understand the business and see firsthand what social enterprise can mean for farmers, workers, and their communities.

“I wanted to better understand how the GoodOne business worked and the impact and potential of social enterprise, both locally but also to ADRA,” Andersson said.

Building on decades of investment

ADRA has worked with cashew-growing communities in Ghana for decades. Their assistance includes helping farmers plant cashew trees. But growing a crop does not guarantee a sustainable livelihood.

Andersson learned that just four years ago, some farmers were cutting down cashew trees and selling the wood for charcoal. Cashews were purchased at extremely low prices and exported for processing, leaving farmers with little incentive to maintain trees that did not provide sufficient income.

GoodOne is working to change that.

The company works with farmers to improve pruning practices, increase yields, and reduce disease. According to Jackson, GoodOne also pays farmers a minimum of 10 per cent premium above government prices. The cashews are processed in Ghana through a factory partner that employs more than 65 people, helping keep more jobs and economic activity within the country.

For Andersson, one of the surprises was how many women she encountered throughout the process.

“The process is labor-intensive and provides employment for women in the community,” she said. “I was surprised at the number of women farmers.”

Andersson also saw how communities worked together. When older farmers or those physically unable to prune their own trees needed assistance, younger community members stepped in.

A better life at home

Andersson, Jackson, and Balint met with farmers from four different communities and listened to what the opportunity had meant for their families.

Some spoke about being able to educate their children and grandchildren. One farmer had earned enough to put a more substantial roof on his home.

One story particularly stayed with Andersson.

A farmer told the group that he had once left Ghana for Libya in search of a better life. When he heard about ADRA’s cashew-planting project, he returned home. Years later, when economic pressures once again made him consider leaving to seek employment, GoodOne began creating a new market for the cashews grown in his own community.

This time, he stayed.

“Today he didn’t need to leave looking for a better life,” Andersson said. “He had been able to achieve it in his community.”

For Jackson, stories like his demonstrate what GoodOne is trying to accomplish through a different approach to development.

“The key difference with this social enterprise is our emphasis on partnership through trade versus just being another development project or charity,” she said.

“We are selling a business solution to poverty. We are partnering with our customers to facilitate a living wage for our farmers, to give them agency and choices.”

Partnership through trade

ADRA representatives said the relationship between development and business is central to how ADRA and GoodOne work together.

For decades, ADRA invested in Ghana’s cashew sector, helping establish and strengthen production. But according to Balint, traditional value chains meant many farmers were still receiving only a small share of the value generated by the crops they grew.

GoodOne entered the market approximately three and a half years ago with a different role.

“GoodOne is the social enterprise of ADRA, a ‘market maker’ and ‘honest broker’ for our farmers,” Balint said.

He described the approach connecting ADRA and GoodOne as trade-based development, using trade intentionally to create more inclusive economic growth.

“We are intentional about using trade as a lever for inclusive growth and prosperity creation,” Balint said. “By adding value locally, integrating producers into regional and global value chains, and ensuring farmers and local processors capture more of the margins, trade-based development builds lasting prosperity and resilience.”

In practice, GoodOne looks beyond how much a farmer can produce to consider the entire journey of a product, including who processes it, who buys it, where it is sold, and how the economic value is distributed along the way.

The roles of ADRA and GoodOne are distinct but connected. GoodOne works within the marketplace, building demand and relationships with buyers while advocating for farmers and processors. ADRA’s development work can help strengthen the communities and agricultural systems that enable participation in those markets.

Balint said the results are already becoming visible.

“We have seen how this model is already lifting pricing in Ghana, our farmers earning more at the farm gates, reinvesting in their farms, sending their children to school, and overall, this scheme is creating more local jobs,” he said.

For Andersson, that builds on the foundation created through ADRA’s earlier work.

“Social enterprise leveraged the good that ADRA did in planting the cashew trees and is taking it to the next level,” she said.

A business built for impact

Cashews are a commodity, and Jackson knows GoodOne must compete for customers like any other consumer brand. That has meant focusing not only on its mission, but also on creating a product people genuinely want to buy.

Recently, GoodOne introduced new packaging designed to better communicate the freshness and quality of the cashews while standing out on shelves and online.

But there was another audience Jackson had in mind.

“I wanted the women in Ghana to feel proud of their brand,” she said. “The majority of farmers and factory workers we work with are women. I think the pack is a more elevated representation of them. Ghana is colorful and vibrant. This pack communicates that more effectively.”

GoodOne's goal is to build a successful business precisely because the business itself becomes part of the mechanism for creating greater economic opportunity.

For Andersson, GoodOne also raises a larger question about the future of humanitarian and development work.

“At a time when the sources of funding are in flux, social enterprise offers a way forward, forming partnerships between communities and business, leveraging first steps made by humanitarian projects,” Andersson said.

Bringing the story into Adventist schools

The GoodOne model is now creating opportunities to connect consumers in North America more directly with the communities behind the product.

Working with Sharon Aka, ADRA International director of Adventist Partnerships, and the North American Division (NAD) Education department, GoodOne has developed a fundraising program that allows schools to sell cashews while learning about the people and communities behind them.

An accompanying curriculum aligned with NAD educational standards has been developed for different age groups, making it easier for teachers to incorporate the program into their classrooms.

“The schools will be fundraising anyway, but using the cashews and curriculum makes it a much deeper experience for our kids,” Jackson said. “It introduces them to the work ADRA is doing globally and helps them to understand how they can make a difference right now, today.”

Jackson calls the students who participate “tr-aid partners,” combining the concepts of trade and aid. They raise funds for their own schools while helping create demand for cashews grown and processed in Ghana.

Her dream is to see every Adventist school in the NAD participate at least once a year. She would also like to see GoodOne cashews available throughout AdventHealth facilities.

Jackson believes the idea could move beyond cashews.

“Beyond cashews, we have relationships with farmers all over the world where this concept can be replicated,” she said.

Balint sees similar potential in the trade-based development model.

“This approach is replicable to other communities and countries and can work with different commodities,” he said.

The work of development

For Andersson, one of the most important lessons from Ghana was not necessarily about how quickly GoodOne could grow but how long meaningful development can take.

The cashew trees planted through ADRA’s work decades ago created an opportunity that no one at the time could have known would eventually become GoodOne.

“Without all the work of ADRA over the past 40-plus years, planting cashew trees, we would not be able to have a social enterprise,” Andersson said.

“These things take time to grow, and sometimes we get impatient, but the difference it is making in lives and communities was wonderful to see.”

GoodOne is still a growing venture, and Andersson is clear that growth brings lessons of its own.

“As with every new venture, there are lessons to be learned, and as we apply those lessons, the enterprise grows and gets stronger.”

The original article was published on the ADRA International news site.