Wade on Birmingham

The only executive director of Catalyst ever

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The progressive young professional group known as Catalyst will progress without a leader.

cherie fields

Cherie Fields, executive director for the past 12 months, will step down Thursday. She plans to continue serving on the advisory board. Meanwhile, the organization plans to discontinue the position, with the executive board resuming leadership duties.

Under Fields’ watch, Catalyst’s biggest venture has been Sustain City Stages, a fund-raising effort to erase the downtown music festival’s $800,000 debt and establish a rainy day fund. She also led the group in establishing its six key pillars, including leadership development, political awareness and arts and culture.

The group also recently relaunched its Web site.

Fields has worked primarily as a public relations specialist, most notably with O2 Ideas and Lewis Communications. She has served with numerous nonprofit groups around town. And, the former TV host continues to appear onstage, most recently in Summerfest Musical Theatre’s production, “Back to the Dream.”

In an e-mail interview, Fields discussed her past with Catalyst and her future in Birmingham.

• What has been the greatest challenge in moving Catalyst forward? In moving Birmingham forward?

I consider challenges to be opportunities. The biggest opportunity for Catalyst is to continue to define its focus and to get citizens to contribute to, rather than comment on, what Catalyst should be doing.

• What is the progress on the Sustain City Stages campaign? Of the $750,000 raised to date, how much has Catalyst raised?

City Stages and Catalyst have worked diligently on the Sustain City Stages campaign and efforts have gone well. Through joint efforts, the groups have raised approximately $756,000 thus far.

From what I can tell, there are mixed feelings in the community about the Sustain City Stages campaign. City Stages has had financial difficulties. City Stages means more to some people than others. City Stages is not the end-all-be-all for Birmingham’s arts and culture scene.

However, I see City Stages as a competitive amenity. Find a metro region with 1 million citizens with no music festival, and I’ll show you a region with little vitality, social infrastructure or resident transplants. Certainly, if City Stages disappeared, someone else would take advantage of the opportunity to produce a festival.

I grew up in Birmingham, and I think what we have works well. It’s not perfect, and that’s why Catalyst has a seat on the City Stages board and why we are helping to hold them accountable as they are holding the community accountable to supporting them.

In the end, there are far worse things that a highly motivated group of citizens could be fighting to save. At least, Catalyst is actually doing something about an activity that thousands of people say they care about, just by virtue of their attendance.

I’d like to ask people, “What are you doing to sustain anything you care about in Birmingham?” If you can’t answer affirmatively, then be quiet.

• What problem does Birmingham and its citizens need to address next? Why?

We need inspired and inspiring leadership. I don’t know who, and I don’t know where he/she/they will come from. I just know that people are starved for it. Why? Because all leading-edge communities have it.

In my opinion, there is only one way to find this person. Each of us, including you, must do our part to lead wherever we are. No more sitting back. No more lamenting what current leaders are doing. I believe that the exercise of personal leadership by people like you and me will help reveal where the next generation of leadership will come from.

The great thing about this is that we already have a vehicle for any citizen to find their leadership voice, Catalyst.

• Tell me about your new company that you’re launching with your husband, Ed.

We will work with corporations, nonprofits and educational institutions in three areas: leadership development, community development and communications.

• Where do you see Catalyst heading in the next year? The next five years?

As long as Catalyst continues to engage critical issues, a possible fate is one in which membership increases exponentially, where community leaders recognize the organization as the premier pipeline for civic leadership, and where Catalyst becomes known for being fully informed, technologically advanced and well staffed.

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