One Acre Fund works alongside Africa’s smallholder farmers, creating pathways to prosperity by supporting their efforts to grow more food and increase their income while helping to build stronger communities.
Eric Pohlman, CEO of One Acre Fund explains the nonprofit’s ethos: “Everything we do is based on a simple principle: putting farmers first. When farmers become more productive, they help to feed their communities and create thriving economies.”
Empowering farmers to become more prosperous
One Acre Fund serves 5.9 million farming households across 10 African countries and expected to deliver $550 million in impact in 2025 alone. One Acre Fund's impact is most inspiring when we look at the individuals behind the numbers.
Shanice Obongo is Retail Chief of Staff for One Acre Fund in Kenya. She gives the example of Mercy, a farmer in the country. “Before One Acre Fund, her harvest was barely enough to feed her family,” Shanice explains. “After gaining access to fertilizer and other resources through One Acre Fund, her yields multiplied. She now has enough food for her family and surplus to sell.”
Supplying smallholder farmers with everything they need
One Acre Fund aims to grow rapidly so that eventually every farm family has access to the tools, training, and opportunities they need to thrive. The organization has ambitious goals for 2030: to reach 10 million farming households and deliver more than $1 billion in annual impact.
Employee enablement is central to achieving these goals. Eric explains: “To reach our full potential, we need to strengthen our teams’ capabilities so they can deliver even greater impact for the farmers we serve.”
To bolster the skills and capacity of its people, One Acre Fund embarked on a long-term partnership with McKinsey.org.
Achieving scale through new approaches to working
In the first phase of the partnership, over 600 One Acre Fund staff participated in McKinsey.org-led training across nine essential skills, delivered through workshops, peer learning, online modules, and reflections.
A central element of the partnership was embedding shared language and common ways of working across the organization. Marie Chantal Umuhoza, Executive Support and Operations Lead for One Acre Fund’s Kigali office, comments: “Having a shared language has been one of the biggest impacts of McKinsey.org’s training for our organization. It makes collaboration and understanding easier and is helping us deliver better results.”
Following the training, One Acre Fund has enhanced its ability to prioritize. Team members learned the practice of setting “Big Rocks” (i.e., priority objectives) as an organizing principle. Sylvain Manirakiza, Impact & Innovation Lead, notes how transformative this practice has been: “One of my reports is doing exceptionally well. In the past, she could struggle to manage her workload, but after attending the training she’s able to clearly prioritize what matters most. It’s exciting to see.”
In R&D, teams are applying the “Big Rocks” mindset to improve decision making. “We’re using it in our product trials,” Milindi Sibomana, Chief Agriculture Officer at One Acre Fund, explains, “deciding which ones to move forward now, which to bring back later, which products to scale first.” This approach means that the team’s energy is directed to where it will create the greatest impact for farmers.
Channeling energy where it’s needed most
Through the McKinsey.org partnership, One Acre Fund’s staff are also beginning to build a clearer understanding of how their emotional, intellectual, and physical energy fluctuates throughout the day, and how to align their most demanding work with their highest-energy moments.
Leonce Ngaboyakema, Managing Director of One Acre Fund’s Tubura program, shares: “We work in a high-intensity environment, and managing your energy is essential if you want to sustain performance. The program has helped us recognize our own working patterns so we can always perform at our best.”
Honing skills on the frontline
The partnership with McKinsey.org is now entering its second stage, which is designed to deepen its impact on farmers.
Ruth Achillah, Global Learning and Development Lead at One Acre Fund, says: “I’m excited about this next phase because we get to take the McKinsey.org skills to our farmer-facing staff and see the impact translates directly into better outcomes.”
“Many of our frontline staff have not had access to this kind of skills development program before,” Ruth adds. “It’s going to be a rewarding experience helping them grow within their roles and build competencies that will serve them throughout their careers.”
Putting farmers first by improving outcomes
Achieving One Acre Fund’s vision depends on the strength and capability of the nearly 10,000 people who bring the organization’s mission to life. Its ongoing partnership with McKinsey.org is helping to strengthen that foundation. By embedding shared language, sharpening prioritization, and expanding essential skills across teams, the collaboration is equipping One Acre Fund’s staff to execute with greater effectiveness. Ultimately, these wins support a single goal: improving outcomes for the smallholder farmers who, quite literally, nourish their communities and economies.