The Leader

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Since February 2005, a local coffeehouse, Brewing Grounds for Change, has sought to revolutionize business practices in the city of Milwaukee. Started as an effort to raise awareness of fair trade and ethics in business and trade, Brewing Grounds has sought to change the business atmosphere in Milwaukee and inspire others to follow in their footsteps.

"Brewing Grounds was started to raise the standard of coffee in Milwaukee in terms of quality and taste, and raise it in terms of the ethical standards as well," said Matt Nelson, co-owner and co-founder of the Grounds.

Concerned over a lack of economic prosperity in the city, the impact that underdevelopment had on the community and the business practices of some community businesses, the workers of Brewing Grounds felt that there was room for change. Nelson and a group of others decided to form a business model that would serve as an example of economic stability and one that would impact the community in a healthy way.

"In many ways we are a family business model in terms of caring about quality and building relationships with our customer base," Nelson said. "I think whenever you have a cooperative effort, the ability to transform communities is exponentiated because you have a lot of people involved and a lot of hearts and minds that are working together."

An interest in raising the standard of business practices in the city of Milwaukee was paramount.

"The intent was to have a coffee shop and business that doesn't do business as usual, a business based on the belief that you can have fairness and equity and worker justice and still have a great product," Nelson said. "It means dignity for the people who grow the coffee and it is the commitment that we have...to the growers."

Brewing Grounds also wanted to treat customers as members of the community.

"We see people as they are, as whole individuals," Nelson said. "We don't see people as numbers or as people who come in and do a transaction.

"We want people to interact with the families that were involved in the process as opposed to just interacting with a logo or interacting with fancy packaging or a mascot."

Brewing Grounds serves 100 percent fair-trade coffee. This means that from the worker who harvests the crop to the worker that serves you the product, there is an effort to treat all persons involved in a fair and just manner. This involves paying more for their products than is usually the case.

According to Nelson, before the founding of Brewing Grounds, there was no 100 percent fair trade coffee company or coffee shop in the community.

"A lot of people are doing a little bit of fair-trade, but to us fair-trade is not a slogan that you can use to suit and benefit your financial interests," Nelson said. "It's a very specific economic and commercial definition and it's an alternative to un-fair trade-trade that exploits workers and families around the world. Unfair trade puts less healthy, less safe products into everybody's consumption habits."

Brewing Grounds was concerned about the treatment of workers here in Milwaukee; to change that, they subscribed to a cooperative run business theory. Everybody currently working at Brewing Grounds is not paid a wage per se but, rather, they all co-operatively share in the profits.

"It's based on a profit sharing model and so we all work and make the business run and then we share in the profits," Nelson said.

"We see people as members of community who we want to engage with as they're enjoying the place that we have here."

Members of the community with expertise in various areas donated their talents to opening the coffee shop.

"This was an old fashion barn raising," Nelson said. "We had a crew of about 15 to 20 community members who came in here and did the work to make it open."

Brewing Grounds hosts a number of community events and organizations including book clubs, neighborhood associations, activist groups and public service organizations. They offer a variety of food items, free wireless internet and a large tea menu. Some of the tea comes from a traditional Chinese medical clinic that runs a tea shop.

"It's in the similar sprit of Brewing Grounds that our tea line is also something really rooted in the community and really rooted in health," Nelson said.

Brewing Grounds for Change is located at 2008 N. Farwell Ave.

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