Posted on Friday, 13th August 2010 by chris wignall

Lately I’ve been getting comments on this blog from people who are offering to help get our website to the top of Google and Yahoo searches using their brilliant SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy. That would be slightly intriguing if the purpose of our website was to be at the top of searches. Even a [...]

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Posted on Monday, 9th August 2010 by chris wignall

Andy Stanley from Northpoint Church in Georgia shares his reflection on a critical mistake he made for the first eight years of his leadership in a video from Catalyst Leadership (no relation:) ) You may have to scroll down the page to find Andy’s video and it is a little slow to load. I love [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 23rd June 2010 by chris wignall

MoneySense magazine recently published The Charity 100, a series of ratings of Canadian charities based on several factors with the intent “to be a tool for potential donors researching which charities to give money to”. In the nonprofit world this is the kind of thing that fires up the blogosphere and even earns a twitter [...]

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Posted on Tuesday, 15th June 2010 by chris wignall

This morning the results of the Stronger Together 2010 collaborative granting project were released (Complete list of grantees here.) Having invested a significant part of the past ten months in the process it is a satisfying thing to be able to notify the successful applicants (selected from a total field of 131) and anticipate the [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 9th June 2010 by chris wignall

Here we go again with another of my commentaries on how charities use blogs, facebook, twitter, youtube and the like. (Previous thoughts here, here, here, and here). The Stronger Together 2010 funding process revealed clearly that many Canadian charities are wondering what to do with this new media. And, unfortunately, in my opinion some of [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 2nd June 2010 by chris wignall

We are excited at the news that our partners at International Development Enterprises have just been named the first ever winners of the Nestle prize in Creating Shared Value for work they are doing with small scale farmers in Cambodia. By taking an innovative and market based approach to agricultural sustainability IDE has demonstrated that [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 24th February 2010 by chris wignall

Great insight today from Breakfast With Fred on our tendency to try to typecast leaders according to various models or systems. I’m just going to quote the whole thing it’s so good: Too many believe in limited leaderships styles.  It is easy to draw up a grid and put people neatly into boxes.  But, true [...]

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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 [...]

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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 Tuesday, 8th December 2009 by chris wignall

When I work with students in our high school leadership program one of the things we talk about at some length is the challenge of figuring out the context in which each of us can be at our best; and how to respond when reality doesn’t match our ideal. The thing that truly excellent mentors [...]

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