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 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 Tuesday, 19th July 2011 by chris wignall

Two weeks ago I spent a few hours in a garbage dump outside the city of Sosua in the Dominican Republic helping illegal Haitian immigrants scavenge for recyclables, and food. I was there leading a group of young people who have been recipients of the Catalyst Award. Having been chosen for their demonstrated commitment to [...]

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Posted on Friday, 3rd June 2011 by chris wignall

It does no good to fill your aquarium with cute castles and sunken ships if you don’t feed your fish. A number of recent interactions have reminded me that many of our charities are being slowly starved by donors who are well-intentioned but ill-informed. As major donors we tend to give to specific projects, often [...]

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Posted on Monday, 30th May 2011 by chris wignall

I want to be good at what I do. Professionally this means I’ve spent a great deal of time exploring the fields of philanthropy and nonprofit leadership in an effort to understand best (and worst) practices. Being a good donor involves a lot more than the grants we issue, it relates more deeply to matters [...]

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Posted on Tuesday, 1st February 2011 by chris wignall

Tone matters. Whether it’s a conversation with my wife, meeting with my boss, correcting my kids, or making a presentation to an audience; the way I communicate is often much more influential than what I’m trying to say. This afternoon I listened in on an exciting webinar presented by Network for Good. It was promoted [...]

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Posted on Thursday, 23rd December 2010 by chris wignall

Ever had a gym membership? More to the point, have you ever made decent use a gym membership? My friends who have worked as personal trainers have let me in on what many of us have long suspected, gyms are quite happy to have large numbers of people who pay for their monthly memberships but [...]

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Posted on Thursday, 18th November 2010 by chris wignall

For the last couple decades there has been a growing excitement in development fields about the promise of microfinance as a key tool in reducing the impacts of extreme poverty in a sustainable manner. As the industry has grown from the pioneering work of Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank and the outstanding results [...]

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