3 hidden mistakes stalling your nonprofit's impact, and how one organization fixed them
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In the nonprofit world, organizations love to feel good about their work.
And we all love to see the photos of the ribbon cuttings, seeing the deliveries, and being a part of the story.
But sometimes, that desire to feel helpful actually prevents us from being helpful.
We recently worked with Hope Arising, a humanitarian organization dedicated to empowering families in Ethiopia. Their story is the perfect example of how even the most well-intentioned leaders can fall into the "Inward Mindset" trap—and how shifting that mindset can completely transform your results.
Here are the three mistakes they were making (and that you might be making, too) and how they fixed them.
Mistake #1: The "Output Trap" (Measuring Activity vs. Impact)
When Chantal Carr, the co-founder of Hope Arising, looked at her organization's dashboard, everything looked green. They were delivering thousands of gallons of clean water to rural villages in Dera, Ethiopia.
The Inward Mindset Reality: They were measuring outputs (what they did), not impact (what the villagers experienced).
The metric: "Gallons delivered."
The reality: It made the organization feel successful, it justified their grants, and validated their hard work.
But when they finally looked closer, they found a painful truth: The villagers weren't actually drinking clean water. The buckets the villagers used to collect the water were contaminated. By the time the water got home, it was just as dangerous as the river water. Worse, local criminals were sometimes stealing the water from vulnerable families before they could even use it.
Hope Arising was succeeding at their process but failing at their purpose.
Mistake #2: Assuming Vs. Asking
This is the most common trap for organizations scaling up. You hire experts. You build a strategy. You decide, from your boardroom, what the "beneficiary" needs.
The Inward Mindset Reality: Hope Arising assumed the problem was "scarcity of water." Therefore, the solution was "deliver more water."
Because they were so focused on executing their solution, they stopped seeing the villagers as people with their own perspective. They saw them as "recipients"—objects waiting to be saved.
They never stopped to ask the villagers if water was actually the main problem.
Mistake #3: Ignoring the "Last Mile" Reality
When you operate with an Inward Mindset, you focus on your specific silo. You think, "My job is to get the water truck to the village square. Once it's there, my job is done."
The Inward Mindset Reality: This creates an execution gap. Hope Arising was doing their part perfectly (the trucks arrived!), but the system broke down in the "last mile"—the dirty buckets, the theft, the usage.
In a B2B context, this is like a marketing team delivering 500 leads (outputs) that sales can't close (impact) because the leads aren't qualified. Marketing pats themselves on the back, Sales gets frustrated, and the business suffers.
The Turnaround: The Shift to an Outward Mindset
Chantal and her team realized they had been protecting their own ego rather than solving the real problem. They stopped "delivering" and started "learning."
They went back to the villages. But this time, they didn't bring answers. They brought a question.
They asked the families: "What do you hope clean water will do for you?"
The answer shocked them. The villagers didn't say "we want to be less thirsty." They said:
"We need clean water so our kids don't get sick. When they are sick, they miss school."
The Outcome
This insight changed everything. Hope Arising realized they weren't in the "water business." They were in the "education business."
By shifting to an Outward Mindset—seeing the villagers as people with valid goals and challenges—they completely overhauled their strategy:
They adjusted their water delivery to ensure it actually supported school attendance.
They tackled the "dirty bucket" issue to ensure health outcomes.
They aligned their metrics with thevillagers' goal (education) rather than their own goal (delivery).
The Result:
School attendance skyrocketed.
Teacher retention improved.
The community became self-reliant rather than dependent.
