Posted on Tuesday, 1st May 2012 by chris wignall

The majority of the time we are very pleased with how our grants work and the organizations with which we work. Occasionally things get messy. When we find ourselves frustrated or it becomes obvious that there are real problems happening I find it helpful to have a basic approach that ensures that I accomplish what [...]

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Posted on Thursday, 29th March 2012 by chris wignall

We would all agree that it is unethical to keep to separate sets of financial reports, targeted to get better receptions from certain people. We know that presenting ourselves as one thing on a first date that is really not true is a recipe for eventual trouble. And yet, in many situations the resolution of [...]

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Posted on Friday, 16th March 2012 by chris wignall

Last December I retweeted CBC host Jian Ghomeshi: Lots of other people retweeted it, which makes sense because it represents what has become common understanding in the development field. There are lots of reports supporting the idea that aid given to women results in benefits to their family and community, while aid given to men [...]

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Posted on Tuesday, 21st February 2012 by chris wignall

Recently I got an email from a young leader I’ve known for many years. The short sentences and urgent tone of the message were unmistakable. He’d just been told that his employer no longer wanted him around. My heart went out to him. I know how much he’s done to prepare for this kind of [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 15th February 2012 by chris wignall

In the last week I’ve read two interesting articles from Outside magazine on prominent American charity figures who have brought both great positives (in terms of raising both profile and funds), and significant negatives (critical press and serious questions about the real impact of the organization) to their causes. While the stories on Greg Mortensen [...]

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Posted on Friday, 16th December 2011 by chris wignall

In conversations with a few charities this week there has been a repeated theme of how to engage and appreciate donors. It’s been encouraging that the ones I met with have moved beyond simply seeing their supporters as cash machines they can get funds out of if they push the right buttons. Still, there does [...]

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Posted on Tuesday, 6th December 2011 by chris wignall

It’s that time of year when it seems nearly every charity in Canada is filling my mailbox with their year end appeals. Many of my nonprofit friends are under serious stress as they have to bring in a critical portion of their budgets in these next few weeks. In many cases, there is a real [...]

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Posted on Friday, 2nd December 2011 by chris wignall

My job at Catalyst focuses on working with charity leaders to help them improve their organizations by raising the bar for leadership. Part of that means that I need to be able to figure out fairly quickly what I think about the leaders I work with. My assessment of their competence, character, and fit for [...]

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Posted on Friday, 23rd September 2011 by chris wignall

Hope is the greatest weapon of all. So reads the tagline for the new movie Machine Gun Preacher starring Gerard Butler in the title role portraying the compelling Sam Childers, a former violent criminal who became a missionary in Sudan running an orphanage, and has claimed to have engaged in a paramilitary campaign to rescue [...]

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Posted on Thursday, 15th September 2011 by chris wignall

Earlier this week the Toronto Star reported that former US President George W. Bush would be speaking at an invitation only breakfast for donors to Tyndale University, one of Canada’s most prominent Christian post-secondary schools and probably North America’s most diverse. Not surprisingly, this generated some strong responses. Yesterday Tyndale announced that the event has [...]

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