The Community Viewfinders Team

Community Viewfinders consists of a central team of principal consultants, and a number of locally-based associates, mostly from academia and the social business sector. In addition, the varied nature of the projects that we undertake means that we use a range of other local people suitable to the task at hand.

We do this for two good reasons: local people have relevant local knowledge and skills; but also to put something back into the communities we engage during the project, to build their own capacity for the future. Using local people has proved an essential part of managing a complex project like that in the Manor Park area of Newham, where we needed to engage with local groups in a dozen languages.

The central team bring a wealth of experience in working with local authorities and in the wider social sector. Each member of the team has particular interests and skills, which taken together provide the breadth and depth necessary for creative yet sound project management. For each project we undertake, one member of the central team will lead as project manager, closely supported by another member, ensuring continuity for the client.

The following are brief profiles of the four members of the central team:

Richard Adams has spent his working life in the founding and development of several successful charitable, community-owned, or co-operative enterprises that allow people to express constructive social and environmental values through their work, spending or saving.

After working in local government on industrial development he founded Tearcraft which became the marketing arm of the major UK relief and development charity, TEAR Fund. In 1979 he established Traidcraft, which became a plc in 1984, offering the first 'alternative' and socially orientated public share issue in the UK. Through its trading and charitable arms Traidcraft continues to work with small and medium sized enterprises throughout the developing world and has extensive retail and direct marketing interests in mail order and home selling schemes through which over £60 million of products with a social, ethical and environmental dimension have been sold.

After 10 years as Traidcraft's MD Richard wrote the first book about the concepts of alternative trade, Who Profits? (Lion, 1989), and then, with economist Paul Ekins, set up the business research charity New Consumer. He became its first director in January 1989. New Consumer was established to look at trends in consumerism and point ways towards more sustainable and equitable living. He has since co-authored Changing Corporate Values (Kogan Page). The Shareholder's Action Handbook (New Consumer), Britain's Best Employers (Kogan Page) and Good Business (SAUS Publications) were all books written by New Consumer and acclaimed as establishing measures for social and ethical evaluation and critique of the commercial world.

This research work and continuing major projects on transnational corporations and for the Economic and Social Research Council involved extensive contact with senior management in many of the commercial world's largest companies and establishing working relationships with numerous non-governmental agencies and inter-governmental organizations. In November 1994 he founded and became Managing Director of the Creative Consumer Co-operative, a national Industrial and Provident Society through which Out of this World, Britain's first chain of organic grocery stores with an explicit ethical, fair trade, social and environmental agenda, were launched.

Richard started the consultancy, Contraflow, in December 1997 concentrating on applied, innovative solutions in the field of social business, innovative ethical retailing and sustainable consumerism. Current projects involve 'affordable warmth' and domestic energy efficiency; community consultation; and recycling and waste management.

Richard was for some years a director of the UK Social Investment Forum; Chair of the Student Christian Movement and was a co-initiator and founding director of the £20m third world investment society, Shared Interest. He is an honorary Fellow of Glasgow University's Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting and has an honorary Doctorate in Civil Law from Newcastle University. He was made an OBE in the 2001 New Year's Honours list and since September 2001 has been a UK member of the Economic and Social Committee of the European Union in where he specialises in social and environmental business issues. He won the New Statesman Social Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2005 and in 2006 was listed by the Independent newspaper as one of the top 50 people in the UK who had had most impact in “making the world a better place” for his development of the concept of ethical shopping.

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Charlie Fisher - the team's IT and research specialist - has worked on numerous projects aimed at turning information into a socially useful asset. After spending a number of years in academe developing an interest in Artificial Intelligence, he co-authored the pioneering shopping guide "Shopping for a Better World" - Britain's first usable handbook for the socially concerned shopper. Following a spell working abroad as a journalist, he returned to Scotland to lecture on the applications of Information Systems. He later developed an interest in researching local Public Policy issues, including the application of Participatory Appraisal techniques in consultation with rural highland communities.

Charlie developed 'Worldy Wise' - an innovative multimedia approach to providing consumers with ready access to background information about their retail purchases. He has an ongoing role in the development of a computerised system for managing the membership and shareholding functions of consumer co-operatives.

For several years he worked for the IT consultancy of Northumbria Water Group - Imass - developing and overseeing the installation of Oracle-based Customer Services systems for various Scottish water companies. Moving into billing systems, he was seconded to IBM in Paris to work on the customer interface for the group Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux, who at the time were installing their billing system in various destinations around the globe.

At present he is an independent IT consultant working on diverse projects concerning internet applications, in addition to acting as consultant to the ongoing Warm Zones Fuel Poverty project.

Recent projects with Community Viewfinders include research into best practice amongst LSPs, developing rural Community Strategies in Northumberland, and in the same county, reviewing the progress and future potential of an agency established to revitalise the former coalfields of the southeast.

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Mark Patchett's strengths are in strategic planning, business planning, community development, marketing and fund-raising. His experience is derived from working across the country over the past eleven years on a range of consultancy projects for Voluntary groups, Local Authorities, TECs, Further Education Colleges and SRB partnerships. This work usually begins with research and consultation, either with residents or associated service agencies, leading to analysis and the subsequent development of a strategy or Business Plan.

Mark was the Chief Executive of a Community Development Trust in Manchester for three years, during which time he was also a voluntary director within a range of community businesses and on the Management Committee of a Housing Association. This work brought him recognition as a community based "Social Entrepreneur" within research carried out for Joseph Rowntree Trust.

Previously he spent six years in sales and marketing and has a degree in Management Sciences. Mark has initiated a range of charitable voluntary organisations all of which he chaired during their early years including a community project in West Newcastle, a retail venture in Stockport for community businesses, and a children's nursery project in Peru.

Mark is currently a Governor and chair of personnel at a large community school in Newham. He has recently been elected Chair of the East Ham Community Forum and also to the Newham local strategic partnership, designed to assist in representing the interests and spend priorities of some 30,000 residents to the public service agencies.

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Phil Wells' career has been devoted to changing structures in favour of marginalised people. He was for 20 years involved in the 'fair trade' movement, aimed at developing a trading system that responded to the needs of small businesses and disadvantaged producers in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Until recently he was the Executive Director of the Fairtrade Foundation, leading it through its first 9 years of rapid growth in staffing and achievement.

His work has involved him in developing partnerships with leading businesses and small co-operatives in the 'third world' as well as with voluntary sector organisations in the UK and Europe. He was the founder president of Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International, responsible for maintaining common standards and creative working relationships within the 18 national members.

Phil has wide experience of developing policy, standards, monitoring and evaluation systems based on participatory but highly structured and objective processes, an area on which he focuses. He also has expertise and wide-ranging practical experience in building and developing small teams and in training programmes in evaluation and social issues.

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