New Capacity Building Support Program Catches Fire!

Within the first three months of Archstone Foundation’s new collaboration with Catchafire, 16 “early adopter” nonprofit organizations have already completed 51 pre-scoped capacity building projects, representing 563 donated skills-based volunteer hours and $112,551 dollars saved.

Talk about catching fire!

The Foundation launched the collaboration in April 2021 following a careful review of nonprofit needs in response to the overwhelming need for capacity building support we had seen in response to our recent Requests for Proposals (RFPs) targeting capacity building efforts. Catchafire is a social enterprise and nonprofit that matches professionals who want to donate their time with nonprofits who need their skills.

As interest in skills-based volunteering surged at the start of the pandemic, the Catchafire team and its community of volunteers and grantmaking partners, like Archstone Foundation, rose to the moment, nearly doubling the 2019 impact by delivering $45 million in critical services to nonprofits across the U.S. as they responded, pivoted, and adapted to changing needs. You can learn more about Catchafire’s impact on their website.

Joining with our partners at Annenberg Foundation and Weingart Foundation to provide capacity building support through the Southern California Capacity Building Collaborative (SoCal Collaborative), Archstone Foundation is supporting nonprofits with limited budgets by providing them with Catchafire’s skill-based volunteers to complete pre-scoped capacity building projects.

The SoCal Collaborative includes over 750 organizations, with Archstone Foundation supporting 100 organizations in the field of aging to receive Catchafire support. Although other foundations have generally invited only grantees to participate in the Catchafire platform, Archstone Foundation decided to invite participation from current and past grantees, as well as applicants to our Capacity Building RFPs.

Diving In

Within the first three months of having access to the Catchafire platform, 61 out of the 100 invited nonprofit organizations registered with Catchafire, and 16 organizations matched on 51 specific capacity building projects provided by the social enterprise. These 16 organizations were willing to dive right in with a capacity building project. Plus, of these 16 organizations, nine organizations are “power users” — meaning they have already completed three or more projects on the platform.

Invited nonprofits still have three-quarters of a year remaining to register and utilize the non-profit support provided by Catchafire. Available project support includes: organizational strategy; board development; marketing strategy; website consultation; social media; program evaluation; Customer Relationship Management (CRM) support; technology support; and more.

Setting goals around how many organizations will register and use the resource is part art and part science, based on prior experience with nonprofits using the Catchafire platform. Our hope is that within the first year of the collaboration with Catchafire, a minimum of 25% of invited organizations will match with a capacity building project provided by Catchafire, with each matched organization completing an average of three projects.

If each organization that uses Catchafire matches and completes an average of three projects, that would translate to an average short-term dollars saved per organization of $15,000.

Local Nonprofit Kickstarts Capacity Building with Catchafire

Anchu Biswas and Sheetal Ayyathan at Saahas for Cause quickly registered on the Catchafire platform and began by posting several capacity building projects.

Based in Cerritos, California, the mission of Saahas for Cause is to educate, empower, and enable the South Asian immigrant community in Southern California to improve their quality of life. For one of their first projects with Catchafire, they were seeking assistance with an email marketing set-up project. The purpose of the project was to set up a system to help the organization reach out to clients, community members, and other stakeholders about their services. By sending flyers and information about upcoming events, creating a new newsletter, and sharing resources, the organization will be able to serve many more community members in need.

Anchu Biswas, Community Outreach Manager at Saahas for Cause said, “It was wonderful working with [our skills-based volunteer]. He provided valuable insights on the current email marketing practices and helped see the strategies from a different perspective. [Their skills-based volunteer] provided detailed notes of suggestions and practical suggestions well suited for a small non-profit like ours.” Saahas for Cause has already completed six projects and calls with Catchafire, and has posted another four, saving the organization an estimated $15,205 in skills-based consulting services.

How You Can Participate

If your organization has already been invited to participate in the Catchafire cohort, we encourage you to register and get started with a capacity building project. If you are registered, but are not sure how to get started, we invite you to begin by scheduling a one-on-one call with a Catchafire non-profit advisor. The non-profit advisors can help by listening to your organization’s capacity building needs and walk you through examples for pre-scoped projects listed on the platform to help you get started. Reach out to their team to schedule your one-on-one consultation by emailing help@catchafire.org.

If your organization is interested in participating in the Catchafire cohort and is a past Archstone grantee or applicant, and have not yet been invited to participate, please email Laura Rath with your name and contact information as we will keep an interest list to help inform us about planning for a possible second year of the program.

To learn more about how nonprofits are using the Catchafire resource to build their capacity and improve the health and well-being of older Californians and their caregivers, please check back on our website, as future Point of View blogs will feature additional organizations and projects.

Special thanks to Payal Sawhney, Raji Satish, Anchu Biswas, and Sheetal Ayyathan at Saahas for Cause and Dana Kopenhefer & Sonia Aviv at Catchafire for their contributions to this post.