Kinda Like Grade 9
I was just reminded that today marks the beginning of the 15th year for Catalyst. Like many anniversaries this prompts thoughts of both how long and how short that time has been.
In our earliest years what we called Catalyst Foundation was primarily a grantmaking entity and my role was to identify charities that had strong alignment with our founders’ values and administer the process of applications, approvals, and reports. Even then though, there was a theme of leadership woven through all our work. As much as we were learning from fellow donors and gracious charity leaders about doing philanthropy well, we also initiated a number of leadership projects and events including the first years of The Catalyst Award for graduating high school students which quickly became a centre of our annual work.
Over time the emphasis shifted from administering grants to providing various forms of leadership consulting. We hosted Gather events where charity leaders could learn from experts and each other, tied our funding to leadership development, and created our own tools highlighted by The REACTION Dashboard book. Eventually Catalyst grew a reputation among charity leaders for our contributions that weren’t financial.
Recent years have seen continued growth in our capacity to deliver leadership services and in the number of requests for that kind of help from charity leaders across Canada and beyond. We’ve embraced “Healthy Leaders, Healthy Organizations” as not only our slogan, but a framework for how we help charities. With a strong utility belt of workshops and programs and having been trusted for more than a decade to provide insight and encouragement, we acknowledged in 2021 that it was time for a slight but significant rebrand from Catalyst Foundation to Lead With Catalyst.
If Catalyst was a person it would be at just the right age to begin high school. That transition is one of excitement and uncertainty as some familiar things are left behind and new ones embraced. In a similar way, some things are changing for Catalyst.
We are committing to leadership consulting as our purpose and to a business model that charges a fair fee for service. Our founders, Shirley and Doug Alexander, will continue to play a guiding role and their philanthropy will often support those charities that enlist Catalyst leadership services; but Chris Wignall will be operating Catalyst as a sole proprietorship.
For 2022 Chris is focusing his work on a smaller core group of charities who are contracting on an annual basis to significantly advance their development of leaders and strategic priorities. There will be limited capacity for delivering leadership sessions to other charities and coaching other leaders. The opportunity to go much deeper with fewer clients is exciting, and brings with it a need and opportunity for lots of learning.
You can easily keep up with Lead With Catalyst through our monthly Catalyst Content newsletter and Chris is always eager to hear from you if Catalyst can help you and your organization.