all social impact is built on sh!t

Each year I openly publish an impact report on myself.

And as this is my 20th year in business, it's gotten me thinking not just about the legacies of the impacts we create, but also what the foundations for these changes we're making are.

As some will know, I decided to mark the official anniversary of my business not with fanfare, speeches, or grand gestures like sending everyone cake, but a simple flush of my office toilet - to mark it being twinned with a school latrine block in Uganda. In doing so, I'm trying to help recognise the dignity of that generation, and help them to remain in education. And through this, my hope is that they'll be subsequently able to create more impact for their families and communities that they would otherwise, if they weren't able to remain in school for reasons of hygiene and sanitation.

So essentially, I'm creating impact by starting with sh!t.

Which has made me wonder - just as there's Maslow's hierarchy of needs (i.e. you can't sustainably progress to building esteem until you feel safe, both physically and emotionally), is there a comparable hierarchy of impact that we can/should create?

Lots of initiatives to help transform lives and communities seem to be designed in the assumption that the people they're designed for will be able to relatively easily engage with them (the biggest barriers usually identified being child-care, and transport) - but what if we more explicitly mapped out how people can engage and move through the stages of creating impact?

In the UK there are actually very few legal rights and protections for people to have access to a toilet, unless it's in their own home or direct place work - so when we're trying to create impact for communities, how far how we considered their needs to 'take a dump', and how far that may be stopping them from being able to become part of something that will make things better in the future? 

p.s. - you can get the latest full impact report here: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dybBV3fIqIPz9k14hs3YxBOIFZ_EKspT/view?usp=sharing