Posted on Friday, 27th February 2009 by chris wignall

This is the 100th post on this blog. It’s taken just over a year to get here. Thanks for lurking, thinking, and especially to those who have commented. Take 14 seconds to watch this: Diet Coke and Mentos Our desire is that our credibility, influence, and investments bring a catalytic effect to the leadership of [...]

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Posted on Tuesday, 3rd February 2009 by chris wignall

This week I am preparing for our annual strategic planning retreat. It’s an important and quite enjoyable time where we review the past year and ready ourselves for what’s next. I’m sure it will be both energizing and exhausting. As part of our review I sent several of our contacts (organizations we funded, people we’ve [...]

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Posted on Tuesday, 20th January 2009 by chris wignall

People have asked whether Catalyst is a Christian foundation. I don’t really like the question. The founders are committed followers of Jesus and I am also; in that respect everything we do is in some way Christian. But we are somewhat reluctant to identify Catalyst with that adjective. The reasons are slightly complex, but basically [...]

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Posted on Thursday, 11th December 2008 by chris wignall

I’ve always been something of a jargon junkie. When I enter a new subculture I quickly seek to understand and adopt the particular language that marks one as a member. That has also been true in Philanthropy. The most difficult word to parse has been “Partner” as I blogged about months ago. In our society [...]

Tags: Catalyst, Partners, Philanthropy
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Posted on Friday, 21st November 2008 by chris wignall

Too often we get the impression that leadership is a topic or skill set that can be learned in isolation from other things. I know of more than one “leader” with outstanding credentials who are making significant, obvious, and damaging blunders with stunning frequency. As we’re nearing the end of our pilot project of the [...]

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Posted on Thursday, 23rd October 2008 by chris wignall

Last week I was pleased to be with the first cohort of nonprofit organizations participating in World Vision’s FreeFORM program for a jazz cafe in Niagara Falls. In addition to the always great entertainment from Mike Janzen, I had a chance to connect with several people I’ve met in the last several months through Catalyst. [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 8th October 2008 by chris wignall

This morning we began our first program of leadership development for high school students. We are with a class of 24 through the business department of Abbey Park High School in Oakville, ON. It was a good start as we explored the ways in which those things we did as children that we really enjoyed [...]

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Posted on Wednesday, 24th September 2008 by chris wignall

Years ago I interviewed for a job and during the process I was told the salary was based on the pay grid of school teachers in the region. That was quite appealing, but the actual salary offered was quite a bit less. It seems the salary grid was a basis only in terms of being [...]

Tags: Catalyst, Leadership, Philanthropy
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Posted on Wednesday, 10th September 2008 by chris wignall

The Catalyst office will be closed for a couple weeks while we celebrate the arrival of Amy Eden Wignall. We will be returning messages after September 23rd. For a couple more pics go to my personal blog

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Posted on Monday, 8th September 2008 by chris wignall

We are partway through the process of evaluating our applicants from this funding cycle. It has been a large learning experience. In a few weeks I will post some of what we’ve learned in the hope of becoming better at it next time around. One of the challenges at times in our discussions has been [...]

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