Posted on Tuesday, 23rd February 2010 by chris wignall

I am seeing and hearing a lot of charities talking and requesting funding to establish a social media plan and presence. I don’t claim to be an expert in the field but here are my current thoughts for what it’s worth.
The driving aspect of social media is media. At root these are just additional vehicles [...]

Posted in Great Stories, Leadership, Partners, Resources, Vision | Comments (3)

Posted on Friday, 19th February 2010 by chris wignall

Kiva.org is one of the best innovations in poverty work I can remember. Taking the impact of microfinance and tying it to the power of the internet for awareness and individual engagement is nothing short of brilliant.
Unfortunately, along with the massive exposure have come several misconceptions about how Kiva actually works.
On the Social Edge blog [...]

Posted in Catalyst, Great Stories, Partners, Philanthropy | Comments (2)

Posted on Saturday, 6th February 2010 by chris wignall

The Catalyst office will be closed from February 7-15th. Neither email nor phone messages will be accessed during this time. I look forward to following up with you when I return.

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Posted on Monday, 25th January 2010 by chris wignall

The news reports of the ongoing suffering in Haiti coupled with the tremendous response of people in Canada and many other nations continue to be the predominant story of another week. There is no question of the desperation, but how to respond is open to much consideration.
Catalyst has heard reports from several of our partners [...]

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Posted on Monday, 18th January 2010 by chris wignall

The tragic events in Haiti over the last week have captured our attention in a rare manner. Like Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, and the 9/11 attacks, the world is taking notice. In this case the suffering is all the more desperate because Haiti has such a history of instability.
We are being inundated [...]

Posted in Partners, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Posted on Wednesday, 13th January 2010 by chris wignall

When I began work in my role at Catalyst one of the things I was told about representing a donor was “You’ll never pay for lunch and no one will tell you the truth.”
My experience so far largely contradicts both of those points, but there have been some exceptions.
I’m usually quite happy to pick up [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 6th January 2010 by chris wignall

Social media has given us the possibility off raising awareness of needs, issues, and causes more rapidly than ever before, but also has made it easy to give token support that translates to neither dollars nor activity.
Navneet Alang raises concerns about both the superficiality of facebook causes and the expanded potential for narcissism when we [...]

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Posted on Tuesday, 5th January 2010 by chris wignall

As we enter our third year, Catalyst is becoming more committed than ever to encourage and support the dreams of our partners and the many other organizations, students, leaders, and friends that we interact with. We long to share in, hear, and tell amazing stories.
We are currently preparing for our annual strategic planning process. As [...]

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Posted on Tuesday, 29th December 2009 by chris wignall

Recently I was able to spend some time with a couple of our Catalyst Award winners from last spring. These are young leaders who graduated high school with a thoughtful, developing dream of how their life could be a benefit to others. They inspire me.
While talking about how we keep ourselves reminded of our dreams [...]

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Posted on Monday, 21st December 2009 by chris wignall

This is the time of year when the majority of charities are scrambling to get last minute donations from donors before the end of the calendar year. While most North Americans are trying to enjoy a little extra time off, many Executive Directors, Development Officers, and CEOs are spending hours trying to access and accomodate [...]

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