Change Please Coffee: according to Andy Magel

Change Please Coffee is what is known as an “employment social enterprise.” They began in 2015 as a single retail coffee cart in Covent Garden, London, and have since grown in the UK to 10 coffee stores and a training academy, helping their workers transition from experiencing homelessness to having stable housing and a lasting career. Over the past few years, they’ve expanded to Charlotte, North Carolina, and now, they’re also in the Aurora suburb of Denver. Their business model is to run a coffee shop and also sell coffee to retail and wholesale customers, allowing them to invest 100% of profits from coffee sales to fund their mission.

We sat down—over coffee of course!—with Andy Magel, director of impact, at the Denver location, to learn more.

Why did Change Please expand to Denver and how are you making a difference here? 

Change Please was invited to Denver by a small group of funders—the Morgridge Family Foundation, the Adolph Coors Foundation, the Daniels Fund and the Dakota Foundation. Thankfully, they saw the impact the organization was having globally and wanted to bring the same support to our city. Our cafe opened in the summer of 2024 and we have been running regular training cohorts and serving great coffee ever since. We support the local community by offering work training experiences that complement the existing services offered by many other organizations in the area. We also have a long list of corporate partnerships that allow us to open doors for our trainees into exciting learning opportunities and ongoing career pathways. No one organization can meet all of the needs for training and employment, so we are honored to bring our unique model to the city.

What, if anything, has surprised you about the people you are meeting? 

I’m not so much surprised as I am impressed and inspired by the resiliency and grace that our trainees carry with them through their lives. Oftentimes, people have experienced very difficult and traumatic events but they continue to take steps forward. They are almost always open, humble learners who are kind and generous. There are so many stereotypes around people who have experienced homelessness but in my experience the vast majority who are navigating these challenges are hardworking, amazing humans simply looking for the opportunity to live a healthy life. As Fr. Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries has said, “The measure of the health of a community is when it stands in awe of what the poor have to carry, rather than judging how they carry it.” 

How do you define impact? 

In my opinion, the concept of impact is layered, nuanced and ongoing. Our ultimate goal as an organization is to support people on their journey to employment, health and self sufficiency. Practically, this can mean equipping our trainees with technical skills and walking alongside them as they move into long-term employment and housing stability. There also are so many more nuanced pieces of impact along the way — for example, rekindling a belief that you are worthy of a healthy life, maintaining and growing sobriety, restoring broken relationships, and even just the pride that comes with learning to pull a great shot of espresso. We consider all of that impactful to the individuals we serve and to the city that they call home. 

Do you depend entirely on charitable partners to be financially sustainable? 

No, we need our retail and wholesale partners to purchase and enjoy our coffee plus we need the generosity of our funding partners. Retail and commercial coffee sales support many of our essential expenses, like paying a living wage for training experience, while philanthropy allows us to provide the robust support our trainees need to move forward in their lives. Thanks to the generosity of our funding partners, we also can provide other basic needs such as job uniforms. 

If you could wave a magic wand and have three wishes granted, what would they be?

Hard question! I’m assuming that the classic rule of not wishing for more wishes applies here? The first three that come to mind would be for there to be a Change Please in every city. Also, that every employer would become a Fair Chance employer. And finally that every person who goes through the Change Please training program would find the health and happiness they’re looking for.