Catchafire Matches Professionals & Organizations for Virtual Pro B

[Waqas 48]

Professionals no longer need to live in New York City to use Catchafire, a volunteer matching service that helps users donate their skills for a cause.

Catchafire, a 2-year-old startup with a name inspired by a Bob Marley album, announced Wednesday that it has activated a “virtual pro bono” aspect of its website. While 90% of the projects listed on the site can already be completed digitally, the platform had restricted its volunteers to New York City up until this point.

Earlier this week, the skills its volunteers have donated surpassed $3 million in value.

The startup has carved out a niche among online volunteering sites by targeting professionals who want to take on meaningful pro bono projects. Volunteers fill out profiles that detail their interests and skills, and Catchafire makes personal recommendations for projects — usually about 30 to 80 hours worth of work that can be completed by one person in three months — that might be a good match.

All Catchafire projects will continue being based in New York even as the site extends volunteer opportunities nationally. This, explains community manager Ruti Wajnberg, is partly because the company hasn’t set up the infrastructure to develop the same type of relationships as it has with its organizations in New York City.

Eventually the startup does hope to expand project sites, as well as the classes and events that it provides in New York City, to elsewhere in the country.

“I can’t be specific about locations,” Wajnberg says, “but we are planning on extending the organizational side to other cities.”

Image courtesy of istockphoto, BirdofPrey

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