Creating the Right Impact

I’m sharing excerpts and stories from my book, Beyond a Bake Sale in this articles series. The book is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers.

When you are trying to go out and help a community, the biggest mistake that people often make is attempting to solve the wrong problem. Once you identify a cause, it almost seems natural to dive directly into the solution and taking action. However, especially with social problems, it is more important than ever to fully research and understand a problem.

Recently, a team at Carnegie Mellon decided to embark on a project to help the issue of premature births in Africa. Every day, hundreds of mothers and babies die from premature or unsuccessful deliveries, so of course, this was a worthy cause. They spent months fundraising, planning, and designing a low-cost incubator for premature babies. When the team finally arrived in the town, they realized they had completely missed the mark.

There were incubators piled in hospital rooms. What was the real problem? Getting the women medical care in time.

If the team had done more extensive research into the specific conditions of the people their product is targeted toward, they would have saved enormous amounts of time and money.

Before investing in your…