FAQs
In the book of Exodus, Moses received the 10 commandments from God and then returned to camp to find the people worshiping a golden calf. God told Moses to take the people to the land He promised them, but “I’m not going with you.” Moses pleaded with God, “if You’re not going with us; please don’t send us because I don’t want to go anywhere that You’re not. Is it not your presence with us that separates us from all people?” God was pleased with Moses and shared, “I will go with you. Go stand on the rock; and it will come about, while my glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by.” As Moses was obedient to stand on the rock, God put him in the cleft of the rock. It was while Moses was in the cleft of the rock that God revealed Himself in a way He had never done before. The glory of God experienced in the Cleft!
As a young man studying God’s Word preparing to do full time foreign missions, I was asked to go and hang out at the local coffee shop. Little did I know that short trip downtown would take me on a journey I never saw coming. I loved being in that coffee shop – the atmosphere, the people, the experience. I sat in that little downtown coffee shop almost every day studying to do missions. After being there for a couple of months, I began to see that great relationships were being built with the people around me. In these relationships, God opened up door after door to share His truth and encourage people, sitting with them over a cup of coffee. I saw people’s “eyes open” as God revealed Himself in a very real way time and time again. We were experiencing God! I began to anticipate and look so forward to sitting with someone over a cup of coffee as I knew God was going to bring us to the Cleft… It’s as if God was opening the ears of their heart and making fertile soil for seeds of truth to be planted and grow. Daily I would see God move in a new way in people’s lives. I understood Moses’ heart beat… “God, I don’t care where I’m at, I just need You!” Bring me to the Cleft so I can experience You!”
This was the birthing of the Cleft Coffee Ministries, called and equipped to bring people into a relationship with Jesus Christ and experience God… using coffee.
As God has called us to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 33), He has empowered the Cleft to launch our own brand of coffee with the Gospel message on every bag. We’ve been equipped to work through the body of Christ and empower churches with an amazingly effective tool to share the Gospel locally and abroad. Let’s work together and impact nations with the Gospel, one cup of coffee at a time!
Cleft Coffee is not a 501©3 organization. We are a Limited Liability Company, specifically an S Corporation. We are a for profit company operating within the marketplace. We are a business structured to generate profit for organizations. In deciding how to incorporate, there was no benefit to establishing ourselves as a non-profit organization as we don’t sustain our operation based on donations. Although we exist to serve, being established as a for profit entity better supported the purposes of our organization.
Cleft Coffee is not affiliated with any specific denomination or church. As an organization, we absolutely believe in the infallible Word of God, centered around Jesus Christ, the Son of God – God in the flesh. There are a variety of theological beliefs varied across denominations. We embrace the foundational elements of the Bible centered on Jesus and work with organizations of different denomination to accomplish great ministry and outreach, sharing the Love of Christ.
There are a lot of great coffee companies out there. But, Cleft Coffee is set apart for many reasons.
1) Our purpose! Every aspect of our coffee and ministry is aimed at sharing the love of Christ and impacting people’s lives!
-When we partner with organizations, the greatest percentage of the profit goes to our partner, not the Cleft. Why? Because this is why we exist…. To serve you!
-We put the Gospel message on every bag. Someone’s life can be changed for eternity because they received a bag of Cleft Coffee.
2) Our Coffee! Cleft coffee is amongst the highest quality coffee you can get on the market.
-We roast only the highest grade Arabica beans from all origins we offer
-We roast in small batches to guarantee an even, controlled roast
-ALL CLEFT COFFEE IS FRESH ROASTED TO ORDER!
-Our pricing for the quality is amazing. Company’s sell this quality of coffee for $18-25 pound. We sell it for $12 (and the bulk of the profit goes to our partner organizations).
3) The web-based technology we’ve developed to empower our partner organizations.
The Cleft Coffee website is like an iceberg. What you see on the surface is nice. But, what’s below the surface is massive! Our ability to utilize “affiliate tagging” in a variety of settings coupled with our extensive accounting and reporting allows us to empower very large organizations with a lot of members to use the Cleft system and raise funds all year long with very minimal effort. Our communication systems in place keep your organization and members updated in real time as our system works for your organization and individual members. We give businesses a virtual storefront with no overhead to maximize profit potential. Our technology also works for every partner of ours in giving the opportunity to greatly support our troops while creating an additional business revenue or fund-raising opportunity. Our technology and staff work around the clock, 365 days a year for each of our partner organizations and strategic business alliances. We know of no one else who does what we do!
We operate to financially empower our partner organizations. There is no cost for our partners. The Cleft has taken on these costs up front to do what we do for our partner organizations! You pay us nothing!
Coffee is a tool that enables us to connect with 80% of our communities. The Cleft puts the Gospel message on every bag of fresh roasted coffee. Your supporters have the Gospel on their counter-tops every morning.
Strategic Factors that Make Coffee Evangelism & Fund-raising Successful:
1.Effectively connect with a large support base.
In any ministry or fund-raising venture, your success depends upon how well you can connect with people. Coffee helps us connect with 80% of the people around us. Coffee is a “common ground” amongst people of all races, cultures, ethinicities and ages. This is a huge support base!
2.Provide a service or product that meets a real need in your supporter’s daily lives.
Your supporters already drink coffee on a daily basis! Now you get to be a part of providing them with a tremendous variety of the highest quality, fresh roasted coffee from all over the world.
3.Provide a service or product that is residual (ongoing all year long).
Most fund-raisers are a one-time event. You can sell brownies, do a car wash or put on a spaghetti dinner. When the event is over, you’re done. Not with coffee! Your supporters are drinking coffee all year long. The Cleft processes and programs easily facilitate this ongoing, residual opportunity to supply your supporters with fresh roasted coffee all year long.
4.Provide a product that isn’t a sacrifice for your supporters.
Your supporters are already purchasing coffee to meet their daily needs. That means that it’s not a sacrifice for them to support your organization by purchasing coffee. They are simply buying their coffee from a different source. In fact, through the Cleft process, it actually makes it easier for them to purchase their coffee and support you all year long.
5.Make an eternal impact on people’s live in what you’re doing!
The Gospel message is proclaimed when people drink Cleft Coffee. There are a lot of great coffee’s out there! But, Cleft Coffee is set apart for the best of reasons – Lives being changed with the Gospel!
Becoming a partner with the Cleft is very simple and takes less than 5 minutes.
Fill out the form at this link https://shop.cleftcoffee.com/users/partnership_request
Share with us about yourself and what you’re looking to accomplish.
The Cleft staff will review your request and your account could be up and running within minutes.
The technology we’ve built within our website empowers our partner organizations to begin using the Cleft Coffee system to raise funds all over the United States within minutes. Our affiliate linking technology works on behalf of our partner organization as well as each individual member within our partner organization. For example, when an organization partners with the Cleft, our website assigns a “unique identifier” (a long steam of letters and numbers that uniquely identifies your organization). We embed this unique identifier within a link that can be shared with anyone across the United States via e-mail, social media or placed on a website page. When someone clicks on this link it takes them to the Cleft website, logs them in as a supporter of your organization (because our database recognizes your unique identifier within the link). Your supporter purchases coffee and we collect the funds, fresh roast and ship them their order while you get e-mail notifications as well as updated live reporting on your customized, password protected dashboard on the Cleft website. We then send you the funds for your supporter’s purchase. All you do is share your link.
We give your organization an invite link (directly on your organizations dashboard) for anyone whom you desire to invite as a member of your organization. Your member fills out this form (which takes 2 minutes) and then we establish your members customized, password protected dashboard with your organizations links on their dashboard. This link, however, is slightly modified as we add an additional identifier to the organization link that recognizes the member within your organization. Now, your member can share their links all over the United States and we track each member’s fund-raising efforts within your organization.
Our accounting and tracking are very extensive!
We offer 3 different kinds of links:
Partner Link-This link is shared all over the United States. When your supporter purchases through the partner link, we ship the coffee directly to their home, wherever they are in the United States. We collect the funds and then send you the funds generated from that sale. The Cleft offers free shipping on orders of 20lbs or more. If the supporter doesn’t purchase 20 lbs, they pay shipping on this order.
Operation Share the Love link-Operation Share the Love is a program we have that allows individuals and organization to donate a cup of coffee or bag(s) of coffee and we send it to our troops serving our country. You can share this link all over the world. When someone donates even a cup of coffee to the troops, it raises funds for your organization. We send you the funds raised and we then send coffee to our troops. This program is tremendously impactful on so many levels!
Campaign Link-This works very similar to the Partner link. However, this link is generated when the organization launches a campaign. The purpose of a campaign is to clump all local orders together into one shipment. This is designed to save on shipping costs as the Cleft offers free shipping on orders of 20lbs or more. The deadline date is established by the organization and the link is shared with all local supporters. Once the deadline has been met, the link becomes inactive and the campaign is finalized.
-Most campaign orders are combined with our hybrid fund-raising approach. If a youth group were doing a fund-raiser, the organization can launch a campaign and the members share their campaign links with all of their local supporters. Then, each member can take the manual sign-up forms and (printed directly from their password protected dashboard on the Cleft website). They go to businesses and individuals whom they know and collect orders for coffee. Prior to the campaign closing, we have a place for the member to input all of the manual orders to be combined with all of the electronic orders. Now, on the manual order form, there is a place to collect the e-mail address. On the next campaign, these supporters can easily purchase coffee through the links online as you have their e-mail address. This makes the long term success much greater!
It sounds too good to be true that the Cleft technology and processes work for you even while you’re sleeping, but this is why we can be so successful without you having to devote so much time towards this venture. When you share the links our database auto-generates for you, your supporters can keep this link and use it anytime! It might be used right after you send it to them or a year later. Our system is active 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. So, share your links with everyone you know all over the United States and then sit back and let us do the work. You’ll get up to the minute updates via e-mail notifications when the Cleft system is working for you. You’ll also have access to all of the reports directly on your password protected, customized dashboard on the Cleft website. Our staff and technology works for you all year long. That’s beautiful! ?
This link is shared all over the United States. When your supporter purchases through the partner link, we ship the coffee directly to their home, wherever they are in the United States. We collect the funds and then send you the funds generated from that sale. The Cleft offers free shipping on orders of 20lbs or more. If the supporter doesn’t purchase 20 lbs, they pay shipping on this order.
Operation Share the Love is a program we have that allows individuals and organization to donate a cup of coffee or bag(s) of coffee and we send it to our troops serving our country. You can share this link all over the world. When someone donates even a cup of coffee to the troops, it raises funds for your organization. We send you the funds raised and we then send coffee to our troops. This program is tremendously impactful on so many levels!
This works very similar to the Partner link. However, this link is generated when the organization launches a campaign. The purpose of a campaign is to clump all local orders together into one shipment. This is designed to save on shipping costs as the Cleft offers free shipping on orders of 20lbs or more. The deadline date is established by the organization and the link is shared with all local supporters. Once the deadline has been met, the link becomes inactive and the campaign is finalized.
-Most campaign orders are combined with our hybrid fund-raising approach. If a youth group were doing a fund-raiser, the organization can launch a campaign and the members share their campaign links with all of their local supporters. Then, each member can take the manual sign-up forms and (printed directly from their password protected dashboard on the Cleft website). They go to businesses and individuals whom they know and collect orders for coffee. Prior to the campaign closing, we have a place for the member to input all of the manual orders to be combined with all of the electronic orders. Now, on the manual order form, there is a place to collect the e-mail address. On the next campaign, these supporters can easily purchase coffee through the links online as you have their e-mail address. This makes the long term success much greater!
When our partner organizations utilize our fund-raising opportunities, the following is how much you will raise per pound, bag or cup.
1 lb sold raises $3 / lb
I bag of Single Serve raises $2 / bag
1 bag donated through Operation Share the Love raises $3 / bag
1 cup donated through Operation Share the Love raises $0.30 / cup
There are a couple ways we reconcile with our partner organization when the Cleft has collected funds from online transaction on behalf of our partners.
- We automatically credit your account when these online transactions happen. When you place your next order, we can debit the amount from your transaction (making you pay less for the coffee you’re purchasing – even if it’s on a campaign for your organization).
- We can send you a check for the funds raised.
*We work with each of our partner organizations to meet the needs of your organization.
“Operation Share the Love” is a program Cleft Coffee launched in 2010 to send fresh roasted coffees to our troops serving our country. We have such a heartbeat for the men and women who serve our county. The challenges they face are life-altering and the sacrifices are unbelievable. These are realities that we cant change. But, we can do the best we can do love on them in the midst of these realities. As a company who uses fresh roasted coffee to impact peoples lives, we want to use our coffee to love on the men and women serving our country. We’ve continued to expand this program and open up more opportunity for our partner organizations to help us collect these donations for the troops. Everything we do is designed to be a win/win situation for everyone involved. Operation Share the Love has become a tremendous fund-raising opportunity for our partner organizations as every cup or bag(s) of coffee that our partner has donated through their supporter also raises funds for our partner organization. This is a beautiful thing!
We have multiple pages on our website that shares more about Operation Share the Love.
Check them out here:
Although someone donates to send a cup of coffee or a bag of coffee to the troops, the donation is actually purchasing a product that is being given. Therefore, Operation Share the Love donations are not tax deductible.
Cleft Coffee has a strategic partnership with the USO (United Service Organization). We work with the USO and distribute Cleft Coffee to our troops through USO locations, whether that be on a navy ship, a foreign base or in USO facilities across our nation.
-How does OSTL raise funds for our partner organizations?
Every individual or organization that partners with the Cleft is given the opportunity to raise funds for their organization by sharing with their network of supporters about Operation Share the Love. For every cup or every pound of coffee that’s donated through your network, a portion of the price is retained for the partner organization. $0.30 cents per cup or $3.00 per bag are raised for our partner organization who generates the donation at retail price.
The moment a cup or bag of coffee is paid for (donated) through the Cleft website, this cup or bag(s) of coffee are added to our inventory of coffee that’s ready to be roasted when a location has need. The Cleft and the USO remain in contact and when the USO has need in a specific location, we fresh roast the coffee and ship to that location. At this point, once we ship the coffee to the USO location, we deduct that amount of coffee from our “database inventory.” We have a constant influx of donations adding to the inventory with the constant deduction to this number when coffee is roasted and sent to the troops. Our extensive accounting and reporting monitors this process down to the cup. It is our goal to always have inventory accruing so we’ll always be able to send coffee when there is request for our troops.