Drink Coffee. Help Refugees.

HireChance’s mission is to breach the whopping gap in access to career-building higher education in the refugee, asylum-seeker, and IDP communities around the world by providing fully funded certified courses, nano-degrees, and degrees in languages and tech. We do so by devoting 20% of our direct trade, 100% traceable specialty coffee sales for this purpose.

The majority of the 70.8 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide don't have access to quality higher education, career building opportunities, and decent jobs. According to UNHCR, only 3% of the 25.9 million refugees have access to higher education, while lack of disaggregated data on higher education access for the 41.3 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the 3.5 million asylum-seekers allows us to infer that this access remains elusive for the majority.

HireChance aims to provide these vulnerable groups with a higher chance at integrating in their host communities and gaining formal labor market access (LMA) by fully funding online career-building education in tech and languages through the sale of our 100% traceable specialty coffee. 

We are proud to source some of the world’s best, 100% traceable, direct trade specialty coffee and investing 20% of our sales towards the empowerment of refugees, asylum-seekers, and IDPs through online career-building education. Our solution can be broken down into three simple steps:

1. Sell Delicious, 100% Traceable Specialty Coffee

Through direct trade, we source sustainable, ethical, and delicious single origin, specialty coffee from refugee-producing/hosting countries, making sure coffee farmers are being paid fair prices for their premium beans. We bring it to the market through online and offline B2C and B2B channels.

2. Educate Refugees

We invest 20% of our coffee sales to transparently fund career-building online education in tech and languages for refugees, asylum-seekers, and IDPs around the world, providing a path to formal labor market access (LMA) in their host communities.

3. Win-Win Empowerment

Through the education attained, refugees are empowered and their employment opportunities increase exponentially, providing a win-win scenario for refugees, employers, and society at large.

As an early-stage social impact startup based in Seoul, South Korea, our initial target population is the 1015 refugees and 2203 asylum-seekers currently living in the country and who are eager for opportunities to be empowered, rebuild their lives, integrate into Korean society, and have a higher chance at gaining formal labor market access (LMA) through online education in tech and languages.

For that purpose, we recently launched our first Korean Language for Refugees Program in partnership with Eggbun, a Korea-based EdTech company, through which 10 recipients will have access to an 8-week Korean language program through Eggbun's mobile app. Applicants to the program thus far have expressed the importance acquiring language skills to be able to better adapt and navigate Korean society, as well as improving their opportunities in the formal labor market. Therefore, we are excited provide them with a tool that will positively impact their lives.

With our B2C launch approaching on World Refugee Day, we are hoping to achieve fast and sustainable growth that will allow us to launch and expand our online language and tech programs beyond South Korea by the end of 2020.

Refugees, asylum-seekers, and IDPs are some of the most vulnerable populations in the global job market, especially during these difficult times of economic recession brought upon by Covid-19. Regardless of their previous qualifications, forcibly displaced persons are more often than not relegated to low-skilled informal jobs. At HireChance we strongly believe that by equipping, retraining, and upskilling forcibly displaced persons with technological, digital and language literacy in the changing global job market through online education we provide a better chances to access and create good jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves.

HireChance can be best described as an innovative social enterprise that  brings the coffee and online education industries together to solve one of the most pressing challenges of forcibly displaced persons around the globe: lack of access to quality career-building higher education. 

Staple coffee companies in the industry such Blue Bottle, Starbucks, Bean Brothers, Intelligentsia Coffee, Coffee Bean and Tree Leaf are some of our biggest competitors. In the case of coffee social enterprises, even though companies such as Second Shot Coffee (London), IMPCT Coffee (Taipei), Redemption Roasters (London), Old Spike (London) are doing an amazing job at tackling different social issues such as homelessness, our market research found only two are directly working towards empowering and improving the lives of refugees through education and work: 1951 Coffee Company (Berkeley, CA) and Naeil Coffee (Seoul). Both have established their social enterprise model around the training of refugees to become baristas, thus allowing them to enter the formal labor market in their cafés or other brand's cafés thanks to their training. We consider their mission not in competition but complementary to ours.

We truly believe that businesses should seek to provide as much value to society as possible, and we believe that providing a product that matches our high end competitors, while transparently reporting profound impact will strengthen our brand identity among the 18 - 35 demographic, who we believe would rather drink good coffee that does good, than just ‘good coffee’ they currently get at any good coffee shop.

We rely on the existing technology of our education partners to provide the technology necessary for refugees, asylum-seekers, and IDPs to thrive in our initial and future programs. For instance, our Korean EdTech company partner developed a Korean language app that integrates AI in the form of a chatbot tutor that guides students through the app content. As we grow and expand to open our scholarships for applicants from around the world, we will rely o the existing MOOCs platform of our current and future partners such as Alison (based in Ireland).

Input: HireChance sells 100% traceable, specialty coffee through B2B and B2C channels.

Output: The output is two-fold: First, with every purchase, our B2C and B2B costumers will directly allow us to allocate 20% of their coffee purchases towards our career-building online education fund. Second, refugees that are part of our program will be able to have access to such education through such fund and will be delivered by our online education partners.

Outcome: HireChance will be able to contribute to bridging the existing gap in higher education for refugees around the world. By giving access to career-building online education, refugees will be able to acquire skills necessary to have a higher chance of gaining formal labor market access (LMA), leading to economic independence and empowerment.

Evidence: On the refugee education side, quantitative and qualitative evidence has begun to be gathered as our first language program has officially launched, and through which we will be able to evaluate the quality and impact of the education on participating refugees in the short and medium term. On the coffee side, we will gather evidence through our coffee sales, evaluating for instance which presentations of our products have most demand; what is the demographic of our customer base; how fast are we able to raise awareness of our product and increase sells.

With the launch of our first online language program we are sponsoring 10 refugees and asylum-seekers residing in South Korea. In one year we expect to help 5,000 refugees, asylum seekers, and IDPs. around the world, and by the year 2025 our goal is 1,000,000.

Within the next year, HireChance aims at establishing itself as a leading global social enterprise for the empowerment of forcibly displaced persons through online career-building education. With operations in South Korea and, very soon, in the United States, our goal by summer 2021 is to provide certified courses, degrees, and nano-degrees through our education partners to 1,000 refugees, asylum-seekers, and IDPs around the world. By the year 2025 we aim reaching and empowering the lives of 1 million forcibly displaced persons.

To achieve these goals, continuing to provide some of the best specialty coffee in the market for our customers is crucial as our ability to make an impact is directly related to our coffee sales. For this purpose, we will continue to partner with the best roasters that share a passion for our mission in our target markets. On the education side, our success at delivering the highest quality online education will continue to be thanks to the strategic partnerships with some of the best EdTech and MOOCs companies and startups in the industry. At such, their existing technology and world-class content will guarantee the quality of education to our scholarship recipients.

In our first target market, South Korea, we have identified some barriers to overcome:

- Prevalent divisive attitudes and opinions about the refugee issue by South Korean citizens. 

- Brand power is slightly more influential to customers than the social mission.

- Research shows that 1/3 of users cancel their subscription within 3 months. Despite the marketing (e.g. free trial period, discount, free shipping, etc.), more than half of the users cancel the service. 

- As one of the few social enterprises in South Korea, one of our most important goals is to educate our consumers about the global refugee crisis and the current challenges of refugees and asylum-seekers face in the country. 

- We are also aware of the necessity to consolidate HireChance as a powerful brand in the Korean coffee market - the 11th largest in the world- and so we aim to garner the power of social media and our extensive network of in-country contacts to be able to build a solid, loyal, and growing customer base .

HireChance is currently operated full-time by 2 team members: the CEO and the COO.

0 part-time staff.

0 contractors.

0 other workers.

Jenny and Craig have known each other for 1 year. We met when Jenny moved back to Seoul and was looking for her next professional chapter. We got introduced and it started as initially assisting with a number of projects, however, it became quickly apparent that the synergy between us and our shared mantra of being resourceful and getting things done led us to develop HireChance into what it is today and become co-founders.

We believe in the power of synergy to multiply our impact. That is why we are partnering with the best online education companies, coffee roasters, non-profits, startups, companies and international organizations around the world whose mission and values align with ours to creatively collaborate in bringing the best in online education, coffee, and on-the ground expertise with refugees together.

Community Partners: International Rescue Committee -San José, CA office; Amala Education (London); Humans in the Loop (Bulgaria).

Coffee Partners: Colombian Spirit (Armenia, Quindío); Let's Coffee (Daegu, South Korea).

Education Partners: Eggbun (South Korea), Alison (Ireland).

Value proposition - HireChance funds career-building online tech and language education for refugees, asylum-seekers, and IDPs around the world through the sale of 100% traceable, specialty coffee.

Key customers - Our target customers are Millennial and Generation Z who are eager to "vote with their dollars": support businesses that align with their values and who support social causes they are interested in.

Key activities - We sell direct-trade, 100% traceable specialty coffee through B2C and B2B channels initially to our customers in South Korea. Our B2C operations are based on our online store platform where customers can purchase on-demand or coffee subscriptions of our ground bean, whole bean, and drip bags of our Esperanza line from Quindío, Colombia. Our B2B operations have and will include co-working spaces, small firms, multinational companies, restaurants, and boutique hotels (post Covid-19).

Revenue streams - Our main revenue stream is the sale of our coffee through B2C and B2B channels.

Key expenses - Costs of green coffee beans; coffee roasting; coffee fulfillment; packaging; web development software.

Selling coffee within numerous markets at manageable margins while continuously striving t add diversified items to our portfolio of offerings.