Catchafire
The Community Foundation partnered with the Fremont Area Community Foundation and several other local foundations to bring Catchafire.org to 22 local nonprofits in our community. Catchafire offers skills-based volunteering as a powerful resource for driving operational growth, which ultimately helps nonprofits achieve their missions. This program connects nonprofits with talented professionals looking to give back, allowing them to access expertise in areas such as marketing, web development, operations, strategy, and more. Here are a few success stories so far:
Kerri VanderHoff (CCD) – “For a small, grassroots nonprofit like Coalition for Community Development, access to the professional services through Catchafire offers a significant boost in capacity. We can develop our communications, fundraising capabilities, and more without adding substantial administrative costs to our bottom line. Recently, we connected with a volunteer professional to assist us in researching customer relationship management (CRM) systems that best meet our needs in volunteer and donor record keeping. We think we ended up with a great database choice that fits our budget and, most importantly, will help us better serve our community.”
Erin Peyer (ACWL-Nuveen) – “The ACWL-Nuveen is grateful to the Community Foundation for Muskegon County for providing access to Catchafire. So far, we have successfully completed two projects with two different skills-based volunteers. Our first project was to develop a marketing strategy with Shetil Rastogi out of Toronto, and our second was to perform a customer relationship management audit with Daron Rosenberg in Connecticut. We are now working on continuations of these projects with both Shetil and Daron. It has been a joy to work with these two volunteers – along with providing concrete deliverables, they are also sharing their knowledge and expertise with ACWL-Nuveen staff. We are looking forward to continuing our work with these two volunteers and to posting more projects on Catchafire!”
Lateasa Moore (Door of Hope CDC) – “I am still learning to utilize Catchafire. I have had the opportunity to speak with a few volunteers, and there were two that I was most fond of. Both were knowledgeable, warm, and inviting. One specifically encouraged me to break down strategic steps in a manner that I could understand and offered to connect with me again if I needed further assistance. I also received some emails with valuable resources from both volunteers. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the most out of the website, even when I’m not quite sure where to start. My plan is to watch videos for now instead of talking with so many people all at once. Catchafire has been valuable to consult with professionals that my newly started nonprofit can’t afford.”
We are grateful this resource is available to these local nonprofits and will keep you updated on their progress!