Chief executive on cloud nine as National Council for the Blind in Ireland wins two awards
The National Council for the Blind in Ireland (NCBI) scooped two accolades. NCBI Belfast, which retails as ForSight, won a WOW! Factor award for best shop interior at the ceremony in June. The charity’s CEO, Chris White, also won a WOW! Factor award for most supportive chief executive for his work in showcasing the importance of charity retail.
Its Lombard Street store in Belfast has a boutique feel, with vintage finds at the heart of what consumers can purchase. This boutique approach is “hugely deliberate”, said Chris — no small amount of thought has gone into the look and feel of the shop.
He added: “ForSight and NCBI are really trying to raise funds for sight loss, but ultimately we are also trying to change the world.
“That demographic is changing about people who shop vintage, shop charity, shop pre-loved. Unless you set your shop up to attract those people, they won’t come because they’ll see it as fuddy-duddy and ‘Something that Mum would have done and not me’.”
Chris at the awards
Opinion has moved on from the idea of shopping pre-loved, with charity retailers having customers who are looking to shop only within the sector.
Chris said: “They’re really, really getting into that vintage vibe and understanding ‘The shirt I’m wearing today took 17,000 litres of water to make. I need to make sure that it has a longer life and is not landfilled without being worn to bits. And if I can’t wear it, somebody else can wear it’.”
Many shoppers dedicated to particular brands have their own community, but these tribes are just as often found in charity retail.
“I think charity shops are quite similar to credit unions in the sense that credit unions need borrowers, but they also need savers,” Chris said.
Store manager Amanda McClure (centre) with sales assistant Grace Wieghell and volunteer Gabriel Desouza Leao
“You’re being approved by loans by your volunteer committees, friends and family in your own community.
“Charity shops need donors and buyers. You’re really getting into that vibe of this is your own community and it’s actually giving extra life and it’s actually creating fun.
“I think with charity retail now, you’re looking at a whole range of values and impacts they bring.
“It’s not only generating funds for a vital charity, but it’s creating work, it’s keeping the high street vibrant, it’s having a presence and it’s giving routes back into employment.
ForSight’s window
“For people who may have fallen out of the workforce, it’s actually giving volunteer opportunities. It’s challenging loneliness and bringing wellbeing and mental health aspects of that. And then it’s also saving the planet and it’s doing it one garment at a time in your own local community, with your friends and family.
“We’re not Zara, who have a big team who go and buy stock, things to merchandise. Most of the stock that we’re merchandising with has been donated to us.
“The mannequins in Lombard Street in Belfast were donated by River Island, but we resprayed them. Kate and Paolo [who work in the store] resprayed them to make them look funky, contemporary and relevant.”
Inside ForSight’s Lombard Street store
The money secured by ForSight is ring-fenced for supporting sight loss sport and children’s charities.
“We support other sight loss children’s charities like Angel Eyes and then we actually support clinical research into sight loss,” Chris explained.
“We purchased a prenatal retinal scanner for the Royal Victoria Belfast Hospital that’s actually able to detect sight loss issues in the womb.
While his award for most supportive CEO was especially gratifying, he remains modest.
“I am personally very touched to have been singled out amongst such an impressive shortlist to receive the most supportive CEO award — it’s a great honour,” Chris said.
Inside ForSight’s Lombard Street store
“It’s not about the culture of the chief exec, it’s more about the enablement of some really talented people that already work, in ForSight and in NCBI, to do what they do and connect and actually, sometimes just not get in their way but just say, ‘What do I need to help you get to where you need to be?’
“It’s great to have won it because I think it recognises everything that’s been done in ForSight and NCBI.”
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