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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Posted on Tuesday, 13th September 2011 by chris wignall

For me one of the most difficult, and often frustrating, aspects of my role in funding and working with charities is dealing with inconsistency. Stated simply, I want to know what to expect.This is usually fairly straightforward in smaller organizations where the dominant influencers are just a couple people and there is general sameness in [...]

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Posted on Monday, 29th August 2011 by chris wignall

I really like the idea of Management By Wandering Around popularized by Tom Peters. Recently I think I’ve stumbled across a corollary to that theory where I consult with leaders by going out with them for a run or walk. My friend Sven Walther coined the term “runsulting” to describe it. Much more than merely [...]

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Posted on Monday, 22nd August 2011 by chris wignall

About ten minutes ago the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation released this statement: NDP Leader Jack Layton has died at age 61 after a long battle with cancer, CBC News has learned. Layton died at his home in Toronto early Monday, surrounded by family, according to a statement from his wife, Olivia Chow, and his children, Sarah [...]

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Posted on Tuesday, 16th August 2011 by chris wignall

Be warned, this may be more of a rant than a well balanced post. I’m frustrated by the number of leaders who are ending their marriages or in marriages that are deeply struggling. I’m not a sociologist or registered counsellor and I haven’t done a statistical analysis to determine if there’s really a trend to [...]

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Posted on Tuesday, 9th August 2011 by chris wignall

As I’ve been becoming more educated in the field of global relief and development I’ve started to form some reasonably strong opinions. The strongest is that I don’t know enough to support my strong opinions. I have become convinced by reading, site visits, and conversations with trusted, experienced professionals that effective long term improvement in [...]

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