The Clarity Project is a fair jewelry social enterprise founded by Shane Rogers, Rachel Lichte, and Jesse Finfrock that is dedicated to improving the quality of life for miners and their families. We sell beautiful, fairly sourced diamond engagement rings, wedding bands, and fine jewelry, and we invest all our profits with organizations that are working in mining communities. 

 

 

We use several designers ranging from friends and local artists in Northern California to Fair Made jewelry initiatives in Africa. We're always looking for new dynamic designs — both contemporary takes on classics and boundary-pushing custom pieces.

 

 

All metals in our jewelry are Fair Trade Certified, artisanally mined, or reclaimed through an environmentally sound process. The Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) and Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International (FLO) just launched the first ever third-party independent certification for gold. FLO and ARM have worked for years with small mines like Oro Verde and Cooperativa Minera de la Llanada in Colombia to establish this ground-breaking model. Standards such as these will open up market opportunities for millions of impoverished artisanal small-scale miners and their communities. We also offer third-party certified reclaimed and recycled precious metals from Hoover & Strong, a century-old company with a serious environmental outlook and commitment to reducing their footprint.

 

 

Our diamonds are sourced from a women's mining co-operative in Lesotho, the PRIDE mine in Sierra Leone, and several small-scale mines we work directly with in South Africa. We also offer verifiable origin diamonds that are mined, cut, and polished in Namibia, and occasionally melee from Canada. We are currently exploring new diamond opportunities in Botswana as well as fledgling projects in Brazil. All of our diamonds can be traced back to their mine.

 

The supply of fair diamonds is small, although that's beginning to change as miners respond to consumer demand. While we feel that the 'perfect' stone doesn't yet exist, we source only the very best and most fair stones.

 

Click Here To Download Our Levels of Sourcing (PDF)

 

 

There is no Fair Trade Certification for diamonds — yet! — but we ensure that our diamonds come from only the fairest mines. We purchase our stones from small-scale projects, which we vet heavily (including on-site visits) to confirm that we are purchasing stones that keep the miners and environment top of mind. We dedicate serious effort and resources to promoting the progress of these projects, which we hope to leverage into a comprehensive Fair Trade system. In fact, we are collaborating with TransFair USA, the only third-party certifier of fair trade products in the United States, to establish optimal fair trade criteria for diamond mining cooperatives.

 

 

Our mission is to improve the lives of the miners who have been marginalized for so long. As part of this, we buy stones from responsible mines and use the profits from ring sales to fund critical projects in mining communities. We are a small organization with big ideas, but only so many resources.

 

We are starting to work in Africa and South America because they have the most notorious histories with diamonds on a community level. Avoiding these countries because of their histories means avoiding the miners — even those innovative little co-ops that are doing socially and environmentally good work. For many people and communities, mining is the only livelihood option. And we want to support those that are changing the system from within.

 

There are challenges with this, for sure. It’s definitely not the only or the most convenient stance to take. It takes a lot of work and time to find those small co-ops. And because The Clarity Project works with only a few, small-scale mines, it can be difficult to find that perfect stone that many people dream about. For us, and our potential customers, this can be a hard truth to face while other jewelry companies advertise that “perfect” stone rather effortlessly. 

 

 

We view ourselves as a mission driven entity and act in many ways like a non-profit organization. Our difference? We see business and direct value exchange as an intrinsic piece of creating fair trade stones and supporting small scale mining efforts. It only makes sense to us that the industry that has created such pains for so long would also be a part of a solution.

 

Our ideal state would be to source stones directly from a small scale mine and invest our profits back into that same community. It's a journey though, we're not quite there yet but we're on our way. And for the time being, we're working with some impressive organizations whose work aligns very closely with our mission.

 

We manufacture some rings locally and also use the expertise of metal partner Hoover and Strong and South African fair-made manufacturer Vukani-Ubuntu.

 

The Clarity Project measures success by the number of children educated, crops planted, and health clinics opened, rather than solely relying on revenue and profits. We work with non-profit partners who track, evaluate, and make on-the-ground decisions about impact potential. Currently we do not have a separate giving entity; we offer grants directly to our non-profit organization partners, such as Shine on Sierra Leone. Last year, the year of our founding, we were able to generate enough profits from sales to pay for teachers’ salaries at the Muddy Lotus Elementary School in Bongema, Sierra Leone. This year we hope to contribute to several new and innovative environmental and microfinance programs.

 

 

We like talking to our customers. Sure, ordering online is the way of things these days. But, diamonds make for interesting conversation, and the folks who call us often have a lot of questions. With a new site and many product variations, we've found it best to talk through these questions over the phone. You can always feel free to send us an email or give us a call with questions. (You can even tell us to stop talking about all the details if we're getting carried away...we get it!)