How Business and Consumerism Can Create Meaningful Impact with David Gaines

In this episode of Disruptors for Good, I speak with entrepreneur, author, and La Terza Coffee owner David Gaines about ethical supply chains, direct trade coffee, conscious consumerism, and the responsibility businesses have to the people they affect.

David shares how his career evolved from operating a small business alongside nonprofit work to acquiring La Terza Coffee and building a business where commercial growth and social impact reinforce one another.

The conversation explores the realities of the global coffee industry, including exploitative labor practices, generational poverty, and the role direct trade relationships can play in creating a more equitable system.

David also discusses the ideas behind his books, Radical Business and Why We Buy, Why It Matters, and offers a practical framework for treating employees, suppliers, customers, competitors, communities, and the environment with dignity.

In This Episode

David and Grant discuss:

• David’s early career working simultaneously in business and the nonprofit sector

• Why he acquired La Terza Coffee

• How social impact became embedded in La Terza’s business model

• The labor and economic challenges within the global coffee supply chain

• What direct trade means and how it differs from traditional commodity sourcing

• La Terza’s long term relationship with coffee producer Katia Duke in Honduras

• How improving coffee quality can increase income for producers

• Why Katia used increased revenue to build a school in her community

• The limitations of certifications such as fair trade and organic labels

• Why direct relationships can sometimes provide more transparency than certification

• How businesses can measure their impact across multiple stakeholder groups

• Why profitability is necessary for a sustainable social enterprise

• The role of healthy competition in improving an entire industry

• How consumers can use everyday purchases to support better business practices

• The difference between healthy consumption and overconsumption

• Why David believes consumerism reflects humanity’s interconnectedness

• How anger can reveal the problems people are called to address

• David’s vision for strengthening coffee shops and other community gathering spaces

About David Gaines

David Gaines is an entrepreneur, author, and the owner of La Terza Coffee.

Before joining La Terza, David spent approximately 15 years operating a small business while also working within the nonprofit sector. He initially created the business to provide financial independence while pursuing mission driven work, but eventually realized that dividing his time between two organizations limited both his income and his potential impact.

David later acquired La Terza Coffee from a college friend who had founded the company in the early 2000s. The opportunity allowed David to combine his interest in business strategy with a company that already had social responsibility embedded in its sourcing model.

His work with La Terza led him deeper into conscious capitalism and social enterprise. He became involved with the Social Enterprise Alliance, serving as a local chapter leader and later as a national chairperson.

Through his books and business leadership, David explores how companies and consumers can create meaningful change by recognizing the humanity of every person involved in an economic transaction.

About La Terza Coffee

La Terza Coffee is a specialty coffee roaster built around quality, direct trade relationships, and responsible sourcing.

The company works closely with coffee producers and importers to better understand how coffee is grown, processed, priced, and transported. These relationships allow La Terza to evaluate not only the quality of the coffee, but also the economic and working conditions behind it.

One of La Terza’s primary direct trade partner is a fourth generation coffee producer in Honduras and the first woman in her family to own and manage the farm.

She transitioned the farm from commodity grade coffee to specialty grade production. As the quality and value of the coffee increased, she invested part of the additional revenue into building a school for her community.

For David, the relationship illustrates how responsible purchasing can produce a wider ripple effect. Better coffee can command a better price, which can create stronger businesses, improved wages, educational opportunities, and greater community investment.

La Terza also works to improve its own operations over time, from employee compensation and company culture to packaging, customer relationships, environmental practices, and support for local communities.

The company’s name translates from Italian as “the third,” referencing the idea of the third place: a gathering space outside the home and workplace where people can build relationships and participate in community life.

About Radical Business

David’s first book, Radical Business, examines what it means to recognize the humanity of the people affected by a company.

The central premise is simple: businesses should treat other people the way they would want to be treated.

David applies this principle across seven stakeholder groups:

1. Employees

2. Customers

3. Suppliers and supply chain partners

4. Communities

5. Competitors

6. The environment

7. The business itself through sustainable profit

The book argues that social impact should not be limited to charitable donations or a percentage of proceeds. Instead, impact should be evaluated across the company’s entire operating model.

That includes how employees are paid, how suppliers are treated, where materials come from, how customers are served, how competitors are viewed, how environmental harm is reduced, and whether the company generates enough profit to continue operating.

David encourages businesses to establish measurable quarterly and annual goals for these areas, much as they would track revenue, profit, or growth.

About Why We Buy, Why It Matters

David’s second book, Why We Buy, Why It Matters, examines the consumer side of the economic relationship.

The book began with a question David had been asking throughout his social enterprise journey: How can consumers identify businesses that are genuinely doing good?

Rather than treating consumerism as inherently negative, David argues that buying, selling, and trading are fundamental parts of human life. People rely on one another for food, education, transportation, shelter, healthcare, information, and nearly every other part of daily life.

From this perspective, consumerism can be understood as an expression of human interconnectedness.

The book does not dismiss the problems of overconsumption. Instead, it asks consumers to become more intentional about what they purchase, which companies they support, and how those choices affect other people.

David encourages readers to begin with three practical steps:

1. Change how they think about consumerism.

2. Choose one responsible company or brand to actively support.

3. Invite several other people into the conversation.

The goal is not immediate perfection. It is to begin making more thoughtful purchasing decisions and to recognize the people behind every product and transaction.

Podcast Q&A

David Gaines is an entrepreneur, author, and owner of La Terza Coffee, a specialty coffee company built around quality, direct trade relationships, and responsible business practices.

In this conversation, Gaines discusses his path from nonprofit work to social enterprise, the hidden labor issues within the global coffee industry, and how La Terza works directly with coffee producers to create stronger economic outcomes.

He also shares the ideas behind his books, Radical Business and Why We Buy, Why It Matters, including why businesses should evaluate their impact across every stakeholder relationship and why consumerism can be a positive force when approached intentionally.

You spent years working in both business and the nonprofit sector. How did that experience lead you to La Terza Coffee?

My journey started about 15 years ago. At the time, I owned a small business that I had essentially created so I could work at a nonprofit without depending on the nonprofit for my income.

For years, I had one foot in each world. I worked about 20 to 25 hours a week in the business and another 20 to 25 hours at the nonprofit.

I reached some of my goals and achieved a certain level of success, but I eventually hit a ceiling. Neither the business nor the nonprofit work could grow because both had been designed around my limited time.

A friend of mine from college had started La Terza Coffee in the early 2000s. He loved coffee and was exceptionally talented at it, but thinking about the company’s long term business strategy was not something he was passionate about.

I loved business, long term vision, and organizational strategy. I eventually bought the company from him, and we remained partners for about eight years before he left to start his own coffee shop.

The appeal of La Terza was that social impact was already built into the business model.

I had always wanted my professional life to create meaningful social impact. With La Terza, I could combine what had previously been two separate jobs. The more we grew the business, the more impact we could create.

That experience led me into the world of social enterprise.

What did you learn about the coffee industry when you became more deeply involved?

Unfortunately, the global coffee industry still has a significant amount of exploitative labor built into it.

It often appears in the form of indentured servitude, and it can be difficult to identify.

A common example is a family that lives on a coffee farm and is provided with housing or food in exchange for picking a certain amount of coffee.

The quota may be set so high that the family cannot realistically meet it. When they fall short, the remaining amount can become a debt.

The situation becomes even more damaging when children leave school to help the family meet the quota. Education is one of the primary ways a family can move out of poverty, so removing children from school can create a generational cycle of poverty.

That is one reason direct trade relationships are so important.

What does direct trade mean for La Terza?

Direct trade is about building a genuine relationship with coffee producers and working with importers that share our values.

We want to know who is producing the coffee, how workers are being treated, and whether people are earning a living wage in the place where they live.

The relationship is also about quality.

We work with producers on different processing methods, evaluate flavors, and investigate where certain characteristics in the coffee are coming from.

As the quality of the coffee improves, the producer has an opportunity to charge more.

I do not want to pay more simply for the sake of paying more. I want to pay more for excellent coffee. A strong direct trade relationship makes it possible to improve quality and economic outcomes at the same time.

Tell us about your relationship with coffee producer Katia Duke in Honduras.

Katia is a fourth generation coffee producer in Honduras. She is the first woman in her family to own and manage the farm.

She is also the first person in her family to take the farm’s coffee from commodity grade to specialty grade.

Our relationship started with quality.

We receive samples from coffee producers regularly, and our head roaster has an extremely high standard. He is originally from Uganda and won the African Barista Championship three years in a row.

One day, he tasted a sample and told me the coffee was really good. That is not something he says very often, so I reached out to the producer.

That producer was Katia.

We have now worked with her for approximately seven or eight years, and she has become one of our primary direct trade partners.

As she improved the quality of her coffee and increased the farm’s revenue, one of the first things she did was build a school.

That is one of the things we often see when women are economically empowered. They frequently reinvest in education, families, and the broader community.

We were initially drawn to Katia because of the quality of her coffee, but the relationship has created a much larger impact.

How do certifications such as fair trade and organic fit into your sourcing model?

People sometimes ask whether our producer is fair trade certified or organic certified.

She is not, and I do not necessarily want her to be.

I have been to the farm. I know she pays a living wage, which can be stronger than basic fair trade standards. I also know she uses organic farming practices.

A certification would require additional time, money, and administrative work.

I would rather see that money used to build another school, improve the farm, or create another opportunity for someone in the community.

Certifications can be useful, but they are not the only way to establish trust or accountability. In some cases, a strong direct relationship gives us a deeper understanding of what is happening than a label does.

You have spent years thinking about what makes a business “good.” How do you define it?

For a long time, I wrestled with the question of what good actually means in business.

Some companies donate a percentage of their proceeds. Some use a buy one, give one model. Others support environmental causes.

But the issue is complicated.

A company might donate 10 percent of its revenue to an environmental organization while producing a product that causes significant environmental damage.

In that case, it may be more effective to reduce the harm caused by the business rather than donate money after the damage has occurred.

I eventually came back to a simple idea: Treat other people the way you want to be treated.

I had that realization while visiting Katia’s farm in 2017.

We were walking toward a table where a woman was sorting coffee beans into different quality levels. She radiated joy.

I walked away from that experience with two major ideas.

The first was that excellence matters. When we carefully roast the coffee, ship it fresh, and find the best roast profile, we are honoring her work.

Her role is essential to our business, even though it is a job I did not know existed until I visited the farm.

The second idea was that social impact might be much simpler than we make it.

It may begin with seeing people and treating them the way we would want to be treated.

That insight eventually became the foundation of my first book, Radical Business.

What is the central idea behind Radical Business?

The central idea is that to be human is to make things, and businesses should treat people the way they would want to be treated.

The book looks at seven key stakeholder groups.

The first is the supply chain. How do we treat the people who produce the materials and products our business depends on?

The second is the team. If we care about living wages in Honduras, we also need to care about living wages and a healthy workplace culture in Cincinnati.

The third is the customer. What does it mean to treat customers with dignity and respect?

The fourth is the community. Not everyone in our community will buy our coffee. Some people may not like it, and some may not be able to afford it. They are still our neighbors.

The fifth is the competitor. This can be difficult, but competitors are people too. Many of my local competitors care about the same things I care about. If we were not competing for the same accounts, we might be best friends.

The sixth is the environment. We should think about how we would want the environment to be treated if we could personify it.

The seventh is the business itself.

Profit is good and healthy. Profit is a form of organizational self care. A social enterprise needs a profitable engine if it is going to survive and continue creating impact.

How can a company measure its impact across all those stakeholders?

Impact should be measured in a similar way to financial performance.

Businesses create quarterly goals, annual goals, revenue targets, and profitability targets. We should do the same with our social and environmental impact.

For example, I would eventually like La Terza to use backyard compostable coffee packaging, but that option is not currently available to us in a practical way.

The next step is recyclable packaging.

Instead of becoming overwhelmed by the perfect long term solution, we identify the most responsible step we can take now.

We can measure our progress with suppliers, employees, customers, communities, competitors, and the environment.

Impact becomes much more practical when it is broken into specific quarterly and annual improvements.

Can competition actually help an industry improve?

Healthy competition can create meaningful progress.

The coffee industry has serious challenges, including forced labor and exploitative supply chains, but the industry also has an opportunity to demonstrate a better model for global trade.

Coffee is one of the most heavily traded commodities in the world.

If enough coffee companies build stronger sourcing models, we can collectively show other industries that trade can be done differently.

The textile industry, for example, also has significant labor issues. The coffee industry may be able to offer lessons about direct relationships, quality improvement, transparency, and producer compensation.

Competition does not have to prevent collaboration.

Coffee companies can compete for customers while still working collectively to improve the industry.

Your second book focuses on consumerism. What led you to write Why We Buy, Why It Matters?

Even after writing Radical Business, I still had a question that had been with me from the beginning of my social enterprise journey.

How do I find businesses that are doing good?

As a consumer, I still wrestle with questions such as which companies to support, how to define good, how to measure impact, and how to make responsible choices within a realistic budget.

I began thinking more deeply about what consumerism actually means.

If being human means making things, then being human also means buying, selling, and trading.

We cannot live without other people.

We consume from the moment we are born. We rely on schools, roads, healthcare systems, food producers, builders, and countless other people.

Consumerism certainly has problems. We have an overconsumption problem, and that includes not only physical products, but also news, entertainment, and social media.

But consumerism itself is not inherently bad.

I believe it is fundamentally human and even spiritual. It is a reflection of our interconnectedness.

When we buy something, we are participating in a relationship with other people.

How can consumers make better choices without becoming overwhelmed?

The first step is changing our perspective.

Instead of viewing every purchase only as an isolated transaction, we can recognize that we are supporting people, businesses, communities, and supply chains.

The second step is choosing one thing to change.

Do not destroy your budget or try to become a perfect consumer overnight.

Choose one company you believe in and become a strong supporter of that company.

The third step is to invite three other people into the conversation.

Talk about why you support the company, what you have learned, and how purchasing decisions can create an impact.

That is how the journey begins.

The goal is not perfection. The goal is to become more intentional.

What advice would you give someone who wants to create more impact through their career?

Start with something small.

Wherever you are currently working, ask how you can better recognize the humanity of the person on the other side of the interaction.

You might work in a call center and deal with people who are rude. Your first step could simply be choosing to treat them with patience and kindness.

You do not have to quit your job or launch a social enterprise tomorrow.

Change your perspective, identify one small action, and begin there.

Then start exploring what you care about.

People often think purpose is only found in the things they love, but I also think we should pay attention to the things that make us angry.

I often think about Fred Rogers.

As I studied his work, I learned that he was frequently angry about problems such as racism and injustice.

He used that anger as fuel. He turned it into positive stories and addressed difficult issues with children rather than avoiding them.

Anger can be information. It may be telling us that something is wrong.

So when you are trying to identify your purpose, ask not only what you love, but also what problems make you angry enough to act.

What is next for La Terza and your work as an author?

I would like to write a third book.

La Terza is Italian for “the third,” and the name refers to the concept of the third place.

A third place is somewhere that is not your home and not your workplace. It is a community gathering space where people can build relationships.

Coffee shops are classic third places, but parks, yoga studios, community pools, and similar spaces can serve the same role.

The idea for the third book would explore what community means and why human beings need relationships and shared spaces.

Our society is deeply divided. Regardless of which side of the political aisle someone is on, we are not in a healthy place relationally.

We need safe environments where people can see and humanize one another again.

La Terza’s future is connected to that mission.

We already provide coaching to coffee shops, but I think our work may expand to supporting many types of third place businesses.

Over the next several years, I want La Terza to become a stronger advocate and resource for spaces that bring people together.

The more healthy third places we have, the more opportunities we create for people to rebuild community and see one another as human again.