Catching Up with Catchafire and its Founding Member Class

Image via Catchafire blog 

Back in October, Generocity ran a story about how Catchafire, an online pro-bono community which helps match skills-based volunteers to nonprofits, had chosen 28 members for its founding class in Philadelphia. We wanted to catch up with Catchafire to find out how the nonprofits were fairing in finding volunteer matches.

“Working with the Philadelphia Founding Member class has been incredible,” said Catchafire’s Storytelling Officer Hayley Samuelson. “For example, Center for Literacy has been matched on an ‘Annual Report Writing (with a Philly volunteer), Press Kit and Business Plan Writing’ project, saving them over $24,000 and so much time.” Catchafire calculates how much each project saves nonprofits by consulting industry professionals to help it calculate the amount each project would cost if completed outside of Catchafire.

Catchafire assists these founding members in finding volunteers in a few ways. Catchafire posts all of the projects to LinkedIn (since it was a key partner in the launch of LinkedIn’s Volunteer Marketplace).

“Besides listing the projects, our dedicated nonprofit advisors help organizations assess their most pressing needs, create compelling project listings, help nonprofits manage their applicants, offer support throughout the entire project and we guarantee a high quality deliverable,” Samuelson said.

Several other of Catchafire’s founding members also have completed projects with the help from volunteers: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeastern PA, the Clean Air Council, and the Scribe Video Center, just to name a few.

Catchafire has had other ties to Philadelphia since its launch party as well. The Catchafire team presented at Leadership Philadelphia covering “The 4 Things Every Nonprofit Should Know About Leveraging Skills Based Volunteers.” Rachel Chong, CEO and founder of Catchafire, interviewed Mayor Michael Nutter in a series for the Stanford Social Innovation Review on  The Most Innovative Social Entrepreneurs Preventing Gun Violence.

“Since the official launch in November 2013, Catchafire’s community of Philadelphia-based organizations is expanding quickly. Most recently, City Year Philadelphia, Ronald McDonald House of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Outward Bound and The American Philosophical Society (founded by Benjamin Franklin) have joined our community,” Samuelson said. They’ve also started working with a few of the initiatives from the Mayor’s Office of Education, including Philly goes to College and Graduation Coach Campaign.

Currently, Catchafire has mostly grown in Philadelphia by word-of-mouth.

“For our existing community, word-of-mouth plays a crucial role in the growth our nonprofit and volunteer base in Pennsylvania.” Samuelson said. “We hope to continue delivering incredible talent and value to our partners so that, together, we can help tackle Philadelphia’s most pressing issues like education and food security.”