Hope Arising

In 2007, Chantal Carr established Hope Arising, a nonprofit dedicated to delivering clean water to rural villagers in poverty-stricken Ethiopia. Several years later, Carr collaborated with The Forever Young Institute, an organization that partners with Arbinger to help nonprofit groups improve their development, implementation, strategic planning, accountability, and overall results.​

Not Knowing If You're Actually Helping

Hope Arising was confident that clean water was a resource the Ethiopian villagers truly needed. The organization worked diligently to provide consistent, sustainable, and abundant access to water in areas where it was previously unobtainable. "When we started working in Ethiopia, we went there to help orphans, and we think we're gonna do that. They took us and they showed us barren, dry wells, no water. They couldn't wash, they couldn't eat," Chantal recalled about the early days.​

"The greatest need was water. We were just crying. I mean, they were so desperate. The government was shucking in water to keep them alive," she explained about the dire situation. The response was immediate: "So we just looked at each other and said, 'Well, I guess we'll do water?'"​

The team delivered on that commitment impressively. "Took us three years, but we got 20 miles of clean, spring water down. We built two reservoirs. We added 22 water points. They get water now that's clean," Chantal described their infrastructure success. But as she experienced Arbinger's training and the application of Arbinger's tools, Carr grew introspective. One tool emphasized the critical importance of measuring impact in nonprofit work.​

After encountering Arbinger's tools, Carr realized that Hope Arising was not yet measuring the impact of its humanitarian efforts. While Hope Arising had gathered anecdotes about how much their efforts were appreciated, Carr realized a sobering truth: they did not truly know whether they were meeting the needs of the Ethiopian people. "That shows output, but it doesn't show impact," she realized about their metrics.​

Clean Water That Wasn't Actually Clean

With this discovery, the Hope Arising team began to systematically assess what was happening on the ground. This endeavor uncovered significant issues. The buckets used by villagers to collect clean water from Hope Arising's trucks were often contaminated. By the time the water was actually being used by families in the village, it was no longer sanitary.​

Another problem the organization discovered was that the water they delivered sometimes did not make it back to the villages at all: local thugs would steal water from the villagers to use for their own livestock. Measuring impact in nonprofit aid efforts revealed a painful situation. Despite earnest efforts by Hope Arising to deliver plentiful clean water to villages across rural Ethiopia, the villagers themselves were not actually getting clean water.​

Success Metrics That Didn't Show Success

Their previous measurement of success—gallons of clean water delivered to villages—was shown to be incomplete. To truly succeed at their mission to help the people of Ethiopia, they needed to find a new way to evaluate their efforts. The Arbinger process helped them identify the gap: it identified steps for deeply understanding the needs of those you seek to serve, adjusting your efforts to meet those needs, and measuring the impact of the changes to ensure they are aligned with the needs originally identified. This process helps to guarantee that helpful intentions are actually realized.​

From Discouragement to Energy

This finding clearly could have spread discouragement and frustration in the organization. Surprisingly, however, the Hope Arising team felt energized and hopeful. They were eager to find a way forward and better achieve their mission. Utilizing the Arbinger process, they began creating a new method for measuring the impact of their efforts.​

"When we were talking and working through our Arbinger strategic plan, they said, 'But what are you going to measure for impact?' And we hadn't thought of that," Chantal explained about the breakthrough moment. The team started asking the right questions: "Given what we now know, what kind of metric would show us our impact and not just our output?"​

Going to the Villagers for Answers

With these questions in mind, the team started talking to villagers across the region. In dwelling after dwelling, they heard the same thing: "We need clean water because we need our kids to be able to go to school. When our kids are sick from dirty water, they miss school. And if kids can't go to school, the traveling schoolteachers don't get paid. So they move on to other villages. But if our kids don't get educated, they'll never escape this poverty."​

"And as we started to talk and work through the process of getting beyond outputs and impact, the measurable thing that we finally came up with was the number of kids in school," Chantal described the discovery. This wasn't just a metric—it was a revelation about their real mission.​

Discovering the Real Business They're In

This was a revelation to the Hope Arising team in two ways. First, they had found a better way of measuring impact in nonprofit endeavors: number of days children are in school. Measuring this would show them their impact on what mattered most to the recipients of their services, allowing better alignment of intentions and outcomes. By contacting local governments, they were able to access data about school attendance.​

The second revelation was this: Hope Arising wasn't actually in the water-delivery business; they were in the helping-kids-get-to-school business. By going deeper to uncover the real needs they were trying to meet in Ethiopia, the organization was able to expand its vision. They began to explore and innovate many additional ways they could help in addition to ensuring the delivery of clean water.​

"Before, when they had water, the number of kids in school was high and consistent. And as the water situation deteriorated, the attendance rates just declined dramatically," Chantal explained about how water connected to the outcome villagers actually cared about. She continued: "Again, it came back to Arbinger and it came back to... how do you show that all these things are actually changing lives?"​

Expanding to Holistic Family Transformation

The mission evolved from infrastructure delivery to life transformation. "It began with water, because there was no water in the area, and has evolved," Chantal noted about the expanded approach. The team created comprehensive tracking systems: "We had a plot map with the ratio of how much they're spending on food, and you see it going from 100% down to 50%, and you see the trend line and you realize that all these sub-programs, all these outputs, all of it is coming together and changing the life of that family."​

Hope Arising discovered they weren't measuring impact—they were measuring output. By systematically understanding what villagers actually needed (education for children to escape poverty), not what the organization assumed they needed (water infrastructure), Hope Arising transformed their entire approach.​

From Charity to Development

"I think it's exciting for donors. They want to see that it's not just a black hole where you keep giving and these poor people still have need," Chantal explained about the shift in how they communicate results. The new approach showed tangible life change: "But if you can say, now look, this group of families instead of spending 100% on food is only spending 50% and they're sending their kids to school every year now, and they have a savings, and they can go to the health center, then you're seeing, okay, this matters, this makes a big difference."​

She emphasized the fundamental transformation: "And that's what's unique. And that to me is what makes it a development project and not just a charity project." The organization wasn't just delivering resources—they were enabling families to break cycles of poverty.​

Measuring What Actually Matters

The organization now tracks school attendance data through local government partnerships, demonstrating direct correlation between their water programs and educational outcomes. They discovered that when water infrastructure deteriorated in previous years, school attendance declined dramatically. When water access was consistent, attendance remained high.​

Beyond education metrics, Hope Arising tracks comprehensive family economic indicators showing how multiple interventions work together to transform lives. Families that once spent all income on survival needs now allocate resources to education, healthcare, and savings—evidence of sustainable development rather than temporary aid.​

Culture of Flexibility and True Service

The Arbinger principles shaped Hope Arising's entire culture, enabling flexibility to respond to actual needs rather than predetermined program ideals. This culture shift allowed the team to discover and address interconnected challenges—contaminated collection buckets, water theft, traveling teacher retention—that their original output-focused approach would have missed entirely.​

The transformation prevented the organization from becoming what many nonprofits fear: well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective. By measuring impact rather than activity, Hope Arising ensures that their humanitarian efforts genuinely serve the people of Ethiopia, not just organizational assumptions about what help should look like.​

 Hope Arising proved that good intentions without impact measurement can undermine an entire mission. When delivering thousands of gallons of clean water to rural Ethiopian villages, the organization assumed success—until Arbinger tools revealed they weren't measuring whether villagers were actually receiving clean water or whether water addressed their real need. By asking villagers what they needed water for (so children could attend school instead of being sick), Hope Arising discovered they weren't in the water-delivery business—they were in the helping-kids-escape-poverty business. This revelation transformed their approach from infrastructure-focused charity to holistic family development, shifting metrics from gallons delivered to days children attend school and families' economic progress. The lesson: you can't assume output equals impact. When nonprofits measure activities instead of outcomes that matter to those they serve, even earnest efforts may fail to help. Measure what changes lives, not what makes your organization feel productive.