Be the Capacity: How Catchafire Connects Skills to Nonprofit Needs

By Jennifer Flocco

Volunteering is so rewarding and so valuable to our community, and there are a surprising number of ways to get involved. One of my favorite organizations to volunteer with is Catchafire.

Catchafire is a nonprofit organization that hosts an online platform connecting skilled professional volunteers with nonprofit organizations that need their expertise. Basically, you’re a pro bono consultant. As a governance, operations and project management professional, I have seen first-hand how operational support can dramatically increase the impact of mission-driven work. If you’re the kind of person who loves strategic planning, or data analytics, or IT, imagine being able to offer those skills to a small nonprofit that needs that capability. They benefit exponentially, because they don’t have to spend money on that service and they grow their work off that end result. Whether it’s a great plan for the future, a better understanding of their own impact, or a new tool to help their staff, they don’t just gain in that one moment, they build on that new foundation. And in a time when people are asking more of nonprofits with fewer resources, that feels great!

Catchafire makes volunteering easy, too. They have an online platform where you build a profile around your skills and what you like working on and then “Tada,” they match you to nonprofits with similar needs. If you want to look beyond those recommendations, that’s no problem either. I can’t begin to describe all the options available, you have to go look for yourself, but they can be as varied as translating volunteer materials, providing leadership coaching, and helping develop a membership plan. And that’s just what I saw in one day.

The timings vary as well. I did one project that was a single 2-hour phone call to strategize ways to maintain an organization’s programming while resources were redirected to a capital project. Another of my favorite opportunities involved a series of calls over several weeks to develop an orientation program for new board members. Afterwards, they even took the time to let me know how it went after we worked together (they were very happy with it!).

If I sound excited about Catchafire, it's just because I've had such great experiences volunteering with them myself. If you have ever worked or volunteered with a nonprofit and thought “they do such great work, I only wish they had the capacity to do…” well YOU are that capacity with Catchafire.