Fair prices are the floor, not the ceiling.

Positive impact projects are central to how we think about coffee. We don’t just support them by buying at fair prices — we directly engage and directly fund social projects on an ongoing basis.

We favor projects with tangible results in the realms of education, water access, and health. We find that these projects go much further in actually making communities healthier and stronger, rather than simply sending money without direct oversight and management of its use.

Funded textbooks for elementary schools across the Highlands, built a new school in partnership with Deeper Roots Coffee, and opened a new school library most recently. Combined, these projects serve thousands of children — significant impact in a country with one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world.

Funded and installed across communities without piped water. Most of the Highlands has no piping system — without a water tank, people collect water from nearby rivers, an arduous task that can take hours out of a day otherwise spent on more productive things.

In partnership with QueenPads — a women-owned social and green enterprise based in Papua New Guinea — we’ve funded reusable hygienic products and educational sessions for women involved in the production of several of our coffees. Menstrual health and hygiene remain a taboo subject in PNG, and access to adequate products is limited; QueenPads’ team traveled across the Highlands to conduct educational sessions and distribute products, fully funded by Benchmark. We plan to continue this project alongside the others.

In partnership with the Deputy Chief Ophthalmologist for the Western Highlands Provincial Health Authority, the Fred Hollows Foundation, Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity (VOSH), and the University of Illinois at Chicago, we’ve conducted multi-region vision clinics servicing our partners in Hagen, Goroka, and Port Moresby. PNG has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, largely driven by preventable and treatable causes — this project provided free vision screenings for our partner pickers, mill staff, and hand-sorters. We’re building this into an ongoing program, with infrastructure already underway to train local partners alongside our annual clinics.