Purpose-Driven Business: Project Maji’s Founder Playbook for Building Sustainable Systems That Last | Ep. 53
About this episode
Sunil Lalvani discusses the importance of sustainable systems in purpose-driven businesses through the lens of Project Maji's mission to provide clean water access in Africa.
Purpose-driven businesses don’t fail because the mission is wrong, they fail because the system can’t survive real life. In this episode of Productive Passions, Christy Tagye sits down with Sunil Lalvani, founder of Project Maji, a water social enterprise bringing sustainable clean water access to communities across Africa. Sunil shares how a single moment in Ghana, watching children drink from a muddy puddle, sparked a decade-long mission to solve the clean water crisis in a way that lasts. Instead of focusing on short-term fixes like hand pumps that often break and get abandoned, Project Maji built an operations-first model: solar-powered water kiosks designed for durability, monitoring, and long-term maintenance. You’ll hear what most people misunderstand about impact work, why installation is only step one, and how Project Maji scaled from serving 1,000 people to 480,000 people, while carrying the responsibility of keeping water flowing every day for the communities who now depend on it. This conversation is for founders, builders, and impact-driven leaders who want to create something meaningful without sacrificing sustainability, accountability, or scale. Today’s Takeaways…
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