Community Team Builders

"Peter is one of the most patient people I know. 

He has been on the path of eliminating poverty for many, many years, with mixed results but no less tenacity. 

He has this will propelling him to do good in the world, even though he has to wait for the world to catch up. 

Inclusivity and kindness are only two of numerous words I use to describe him. 

When Peter gets the break he and his cohort so rightly deserve...

...  watch out world... we won't be able to not participate. 

Instead, we will be pleasantly delighted and dismayed at what has always been possible." 

(Denise Hall, SME Business Value Analyst, Melbourne, Australia)

In 1970, I was commissioned by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs to go to Papua New Guinea as a Patrol Officer responsible for the total administration of a number of Government Patrol Posts in the East Sepik District being Maprik, Dreikikir, Yangoru and Angoram which included 2-3 month patrols into remote areas to conduct census/health checks, resolve land/other disputes, maintain law & order, and construct roads/bridges whilst also overseeing the operations of all the other Government Departments in my allotted region... and I was awarded the Police Overseas Service Medal (POSM) for my service.

From 1979-1998, I held senior management roles responsible for establishing Training and Mentorship programs for a number of organisations and, in mid-2000, whilst the GM of a major Melbourne based IT company, I met Simon Healy, a dynamic young man who shared my view that young girls living in poverty needed a "hand up" rather than a "hand out"... and we co-founded the SolvePoverty Project which, with the support of Denis Perry, the then CEO of the Opportunity International Organisation, saw Simon creating a unique program where he took young orphans off the rubbish dumps of Tondo, in Manilla, and trained them to become IT Programmers, Technicians and Web designers... for which he won a number of International awards... was inducted into the inaugural Miller Centre GSBI program in 2005... and has been responsible for helping to create thousands of self-help projects throughout the developing world of which  Syntactics and LetItHelp are primary examples.  

My role in 1998 was to find/create new ways to give the poor and needy a sustainable "hand up" so I went on a field trip to Bangladesh  where I witnessed first hand a village funding program created by Muhammad Yunus, a University Professor in Chittagong, who in 1976 recognised the fact that "credit is the last hope left to those faced with absolute poverty" and had begun lending his own money to village women to create small businesses that would help them to better provide for themselves, their families and the people in their village communities... and these women were all repaying their loans over time. This social business model led to the foundation of the Grameen Bank... and Dr. Yunus was awarded a Noble Peace prize for his work in 2006.

I was so inspired by this social business model that I actively promoted it in developing countries in Asia and the South Pacific from 1998 until 2014 when I decided to focus my efforts on finding a way to replicate... and hopefully improve it in our developed world... and went to the USA where I met Lou CasaBianca with whom I co-created the CareForces project... 

... and set about growing what is now a global Community Team Builders network of like-minded social/environmental entrepreneurs dedicated to transforming how we... and all future generations... will live, work and cooperate together.

We have a steadily growing network of socially responsible people worldwide who currently reach more than 60 million like-minded people worldwide who... 

·         Innovate - where others only administer;

·         Are original - where others only copy;

·         Develop - where others only maintain;

·         Focus on people - where others only focus on systems and structure;

·         Inspire trust - where others only rely on control;

·         Take a long-range perspective - where others only opt for a short range view;

·         Ask what and why - where others only ask how and when;

·         Have eyes on the Horizon - where others only have eyes only on the bottom line;

·         Originate - where others imitate;

·         Challenge the status quo - where others only accept the status quo;

·         Are their own people - where others are the classic good soldiers; and...

·         Do the right thing - where others only do things right.

We outsource all of our operations to a network of Social Business Enterprises whose…

·         social business objective is to overcome poverty... and not profit maximization;

·         investors get only their investment back... with no dividends;

·         profit stays with their company for expansion and improvement;

·         workforce gets a minimum market wage... with quality working conditions;

·         commitment is to ensure that our members are able to buy the best value products in the world; and...

·         commitment is to invest an agreed % of their profits in our Community Team Builders Project...