Posted on Friday, 30th May 2008 by chris wignall

I don’t think of myself as an early adopter of technology (I still have a cathode ray television), but recently I’ve been getting to know two software tools that seem to have a lot of productivity advantages:
Zloop is a web-based networking site that i heard about from Fred Smith at The Gathering. It allows remote [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 28th May 2008 by chris wignall

I like long conversations, but I hate wasting time. One of the great challenges for nonprofit leaders is to communicate the purpose and value of their organization quickly, clearly, and with strong appeal. It’s often called “the elevator speech”.
I just finished reading a book that has a bunch of simple, practical helps for effective communication [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 28th May 2008 by chris wignall

Among the many areas in which we are trying to learn as much as we can as fast as we can is the nature of the relationship between Catalyst and the various organizations we support. The common term foundations seem to use is “Partner”, which we have also adopted. The intent is that we develop [...]

Tags: Catalyst, Partners, Philanthropy
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Posted on Saturday, 24th May 2008 by chris wignall

Today our mentoring program is really underway. I had initial goal setting sessions with two of our participants.
Goal setting is really the heart of the individual mentoring sessions. It’s a pretty simple process, but extremely valuable. The value comes in setting not only annual goals, but monthly targets toward those goals; and meeting monthly to [...]

Tags: Leadership, Vision
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Posted on Friday, 16th May 2008 by chris wignall

A recurring theme in the last few months is the challenge and need for nonprofit and ministry organizations to find a decisive way to self-evaluate. By extension, Catalyst and other grantmakers need criteria to evaluate not only applications but also the outcomes of projects after they receive funding.
There are a few particular difficulties in this:
-Reluctance: [...]

Tags: Philanthropy
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Posted on Friday, 16th May 2008 by chris wignall

I just finished reading Kickstart: How Successful Canadians Got Started. It was written by three young recent university grads who weren’t exactly sure what to do with their lives. They decided to contact dozens of prominent Canadians in a wide variety of fields and ask them how they reached their status of significance. It’s a [...]

Tags: Resources
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Posted on Wednesday, 14th May 2008 by chris wignall

Randy Cain is the President and CEO of Pinty’s Delicious Foods, a prominent Canadian poultry company. Over lunch yesterday (yes it was chicken) we talked about his understanding of leadership as someone who has been involved in turnarounds in the corporate sector for several years.
One of the intriguing things he said was that when selecting [...]

Tags: Leadership
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Posted on Friday, 9th May 2008 by chris wignall

Lunch today with Darrell Winger, Community Development Pastor at The Meeting House; one of the fastest growing and most intriguing churches in Canada. I blogged about a previous with their Teaching Pastor recently. I wanted to understand more about the uncommon leadership culture they have developed.
Darrell (whose role makes him essentially the bishop of the [...]

Tags: Catalyst, Leadership
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Posted on Wednesday, 7th May 2008 by chris wignall

I used to be a lifeguard.
Last night I stood with my toes in the ocean after a long day of amazing learning. I’ve lost track of the number of conversations I’ve been a part of in the last 40 hours about the world of philanthropy I’ve just come into. The sheer immensity and variety of [...]

Tags: Catalyst
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Posted on Tuesday, 6th May 2008 by chris wignall

I recently told someone that if they want to understand the mind of Catalyst they should read our website; but if they want to understand our heart they should read this blog. This is where the less fully considered and critiqued ideas are expressed. It gives insight that the more refined text of the website [...]

Tags: Catalyst, Vision
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