With this partnership, these three funders have now joined the One Texas collaborative—a statewide program aimed at giving nonprofits in Texas access to Catchafire’s on-demand support. Other grantmakers in the collaborative include St. David’s Foundation, the Meadows Foundation, and Social Venture Partners San Antonio.
“The Dallas Foundation is committed to building the resources and muscle of our nonprofit community, ” said Matthew Randazzo, president & CEO of The Dallas Foundation. “Alongside our funding partners at Communities Foundation of Texas and LH Philanthropies, we are pleased to offer this resource focused on nonprofit capacity building and sustainability, particularly as the community continues to deal with the pandemic and the continued increase in services as a result.”
As part of One Texas, nonprofits get access to Catchafire’s innovative virtual platform and programming to leverage a network of more than 100,000 skilled volunteers who will help pro bono with needs such as website development, online marketing, strategic planning, professional development, and other areas of critical work in fundraising, program delivery, human resources, marketing & communications, finance, and technology & operations.
Nonprofits post their immediate needs by choosing from over 140 projects, already outlined with steps and deliverables. Talented professionals apply to complete these tasks, and the organizations select a volunteer to do the work. Through these engagements, nonprofits get critical needs filled, and volunteers become deeply connected to the nonprofits’ missions. Over time, these connections can establish long-term relationships where pro bono professionals become repeat volunteers, advocates, donors, and potential board members.
Now more than ever, nonprofits leverage virtual support services like Catchafire to help with emergency response, recovery, and resiliency efforts. In Texas alone, nonprofits with access to Catchafire completed 357 virtual pro bono projects on the platform in 2020. These projects have focused on fulfilling time-sensitive needs like transitioning to remote work; developing HR policies to keep staff safe and healthy; planning and organizing virtual fundraisers; better understanding the needs of beneficiaries; transitioning programs to a virtual environment; and receiving support from the CARES Act, among other programmatic, fundraising and operational needs. In the process, they’ve leveraged 5,300 hours of volunteers’ time, saving more than $1,000,000 combined.
While our Texas community may be struggling since the onset of COVID-19, Catchafire is now a resource that will help strengthen nonprofits in the region so we are prepared for the long road of recovery ahead.
If you are a nonprofit and are interested in benefiting from Catchafire’s services through this program, please contact catchafire@cftexas.org. We’d like to offer Catchafire to organizations who can benefit from it, but limited slots are available so contact us soon.
To learn more about One Texas or to learn how to participate as a grantmaker, please reach out to Betsy Enriquez, Vice President of Partnerships at Catchafire at betsy@catchafire.org.
About Catchafire
Catchafire is a full service, on-demand solution designed to address the wide-ranging and complex needs of nonprofits by connecting them with talented pro bono professionals. Through Catchafire’s innovative web-based platform and network of more than 10 million professionals, nonprofits have access to people with expert skills who can help them with operational needs such as developing a website, building a strategic plan, designing a brochure, professional development, and other areas of critical work. Catchafire’s scalable and cost-effective model makes it possible for grantmakers to provide a full suite of capacity building services to any nonprofit that the foundation seeks to serve. Catchafire and its foundation partners are not only helping nonprofits improve their capacity, sustainability, and effectiveness, but also leveling the playing field by making capacity building available to any nonprofit or changemaker.
