Desire Paths: What They Teach Us About Nonprofit Leadership

What Are Desire Paths?

Imagine you’re leaving a park, heading back to your car. There’s a paved walkway that winds around in a neat curve—but right next to it, a dirt trail cuts straight across the grass. Without thinking, you take the shortcut. It’s clear that countless others have done the same, carving out an unofficial path that gets them where they need to go more efficiently.

That well-worn trail is called a desire path—an unofficial route shaped by real human behavior. These paths emerge when people choose the most intuitive way to get where they’re going, rather than the one designed for them. City planners and landscape architects sometimes study desire paths and adjust their designs to match how people actually move, rather than how they think people should move.

Nonprofits face a similar challenge. We design programs, systems, and services based on our best assumptions—but what if the people we serve are telling us they prefer a different route? Are we paying attention?

Finding Desire Paths in Your Nonprofit

Desire paths show up in nonprofits in many ways:

• Service Navigation: Clients may bypass complex intake processes or seek direct assistance in ways we didn’t anticipate.

• Program Engagement: Participants may attend only certain parts of a program while skipping others, signaling what’s truly valuable to them.

• Communication Preferences: Donors, volunteers, or community members may engage with us through social media rather than email or formal newsletters.

• Volunteer Participation: People may naturally take on roles that aren’t officially defined but are vital to the organization's mission.

• Donation Trends: Donors may prefer giving in ways that aren’t part of your existing campaigns, such as peer-to-peer fundraising or unrestricted gifts.

If we ignore these organic patterns, we risk forcing people into structures that don’t serve them well.

A Real-World Desire Path: Listening to the Community Over Our Assumptions

At one point, our nonprofit attempted to create a job training program, believing that increasing access to employment would alleviate many of the felt needs in our neighborhood. Our intentions were good, but our assumptions may have been off. We assumed that unemployment was the primary issue facing our neighbors and that a job training program would be the best solution.

Yet, despite our efforts, very few residents from the community participated in the program. Those who did rarely stayed long enough to graduate. Interestingly, we noticed that individuals from outside the neighborhood were more likely to engage with the training, while those we initially sought to serve weren’t showing up in the way we expected.

At the same time, we periodically hosted partner organizations that provided food access through quarterly distributions. The response to those events was overwhelming—lines of neighbors, a clear and urgent demand for something we weren’t fully prioritizing.

Then, when we acquired a new facility, we initially planned to put a job training center there. It aligned with our strategic goals, our funding conversations, and what we thought would create the most impact. But before making a final decision, we did something crucial: we asked the community what they wanted.

The answer was clear. Overwhelmingly, residents said their biggest need wasn’t job training—it was grocery access. If we had been truly paying attention to how they were already engaging with our services, we might have seen this sooner. The desire path had been forming all along, but we were too focused on the road we had built.

Instead of pushing forward with our original plan, we listened. We partnered with another nonprofit to help build out a community grocery store in the space. And the results?

Our job training program had a multi-year projected goal of creating $1 million per year in economic impact by employing individuals. But in just the second year of operating the community market, we were able to provide $1.8 million in economic impact through grocery access—far exceeding our original job training metrics. Today, the market serves an average of 650 households each month.

Our job training plan wasn’t bad. Our program wasn’t without value. But the path we had designed wasn’t the right one for our neighbors. By being willing to observe, listen, and pivot, we formalized the path they were already walking—transforming it into a thriving neighborhood market.

How Nonprofit Leaders Should Respond

1. Observe First, Adjust Later
   Pay attention to how people actually interact with your programs. Where do they naturally go? What steps do they skip? What workarounds do they create? Data, feedback, and simple observation can reveal these desire paths.

2. Ask, Don’t Assume
   Instead of designing in isolation, involve your community in shaping services. Conduct surveys, host listening sessions, or simply have informal conversations with those you serve.

3. Remove Unnecessary Barriers
   If clients are finding workarounds, it might mean that your processes are too cumbersome. Simplify paperwork, streamline onboarding, and remove friction wherever possible.

4. Embrace Flexibility
   Rigid structures often fail real-world tests. Be willing to pivot when evidence shows that a different path is more effective. Adjust program delivery, expand access points, or rethink engagement strategies.

5. Make It Official
   Just as urban planners sometimes pave over well-trodden dirt paths, nonprofit leaders should formalize desire paths that better serve their communities.

• If a grassroots community support network emerges, turn it into an official program. For example, if neighbors naturally start organizing informal food-sharing initiatives, consider providing them with resources, structure, and funding to scale their impact.

• If people repeatedly bypass a complex application process to access services, redesign it to be more intuitive. If clients regularly reach out through direct messages on social media instead of filling out lengthy intake forms, simplify the process and integrate easier access points based on their preferences.

Conclusion: Lead By Listening

Desire paths remind us that the people we serve are co-creators of our work, not just recipients. When we let go of rigid assumptions and follow their lead, we create programs that are more relevant, effective, and impactful.

The best leaders don’t just build pathways—they watch where people walk and pave accordingly.

So, what desire paths exist in your nonprofit? And how will you respond?