In the context of Haitian nonprofit organizations, social initiatives, and problem-solving efforts, mission fragmentation or resource dilution is a real problem in our community. Both refer to how multiple organizations working independently on the same issue inadvertently weaken the overall impact due to overlapping efforts, competition for funding, and inefficient resource allocation.
Haitian orgs need collective impact, structured collaboration to maximize effectiveness. It’s the one-tree-many-branches approach, which aligns well with systems thinking, where a centralized, coordinated strategy ensures that different efforts contribute to a unified goal rather than working in isolated silos.
(Resource dilution first struck me in Kansas City, MO many years ago, where too many Haitian churches stood like sentinels on every corner, their steeples clawing at the same sky, their congregations fractured along lines of denomination, doctrine, and history. It felt almost comical, the sheer density of them—so much so that I’d joke to out-of-town visitors that KC had 4,000 churches for a Haitian population of 2,000. But beneath the humor was something tragic: a splintering of purpose, a diffusion of energy, a testament to what happens when too many people try to build the same house but refuse to share a blueprint.)