Posted on Monday, 1st March 2010 by chris wignall

I haven’t made it public before now, but I recently accepted the role of Board Chair at Absolute.org. It’s an organization with phenomenal programs and a demonstrates desire to develop top level leadership and governance. It is my privilege to be entrusted with the responsibility of guiding our board and management team through this next [...]

Posted in Catalyst, Leadership, Partners, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Posted on Monday, 1st March 2010 by chris wignall

Mark Petersen offers these comments on the Stronger Together project:
Last night at midnight, the application window for ST2010 closed.   Here’s some stats:

We received 131 applications.
The total amount requested in the 131 applications was $3,619,268.
The average ask was $27,628.   Very high for a permitted range of $5,000 – $30,000.

Now let’s do the math.  The eight partners [...]

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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 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 [...]

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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 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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Posted on Saturday, 12th December 2009 by chris wignall

What a great idea!!
Playpumps International has come up with a way for African villages to access desperately needed clean water by rigging a pump with a children’s merry-go-round. As the children laugh and play together they provide life-giving water for their entire community. The perfect photo op is so many ways. It even gathered support [...]

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Posted on Saturday, 12th December 2009 by chris wignall

Kiva has initiated something not far short of a true paradigm shift in donor relations; everyone else would be wise to pay close attention.
By taking a model with some similarities to traditional child sponsorship (as World Vision and Compassion are well reputed for) and taking full advantage of the immediacy of the internet, Kiva has [...]

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Posted on Friday, 4th December 2009 by chris wignall

We have a hard time getting our minds around relative poverty and wealth. Here’s one helpful idea. Dutch economist Jan Pen imagined a parade in which all of humanity walks past in order of wealth, from least wealthy to most. The parade lasts one hour and people’s heights are also determined by their wealth. (I [...]

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Posted on Thursday, 3rd December 2009 by chris wignall

“What charities other than your own do you personally give to?”
Credit once again to Seth Godin:
if you work for a non-profit and you don’t give money to charity, what exactly are you doing in this job? I’ve met some incredibly generous people in the charitable world, but I can also report that a huge number [...]

Posted in Philanthropy | Comments (0)