Q&A with Catchafire CEO Rachael Chong and CTO Andrew Lin

Catchafire, a new skills-based volunteering platform that could transform how professionals engage with nonprofits, has just launched in public beta. The company was started by 28-year old Rachael Chong, who left investment banking to found the company. She recruited Andrew Lin, former VP of Technology at Hulu, to work with her as her Chief Technical Officer. For more background about the platform, see our piece here.

I had the chance to ask Rachael and Andrew a few questions about starting the company, leaving the corporate space, and their long term business potential:

Change.org: Both of you have made the jump from a purely commercial business to the social enterprise space. Was that something you knew you wanted to do, or did it just sort of happen?

RC - It was definitely something that I wanted to do. I went into investment banking after college with a purpose, to learn as much as I could and then get out of it to do something in the social good sector where I could apply business skills. I left investment banking faster than I imagined I would, which was accelerated by the fact that I had a hard time trying to find opportunities to give back in a meaningful way while I was a busy banker. My transition into the nonprofit sector was deliberate. I was very passionate about microfinance so to get into the space, I did what it took at the time, which was volunteer my skills full time for six months for a microfinance institution called FINCA International that is headquartered out of DC. My time at FINCA gave me the experience to later score a great job to help start up BRAC USA, the US affiliate of the bigger BRAC, the largest poverty alleviation organization in the world. At BRAC USA, we relied on skilled volunteers to help us build our business, which was a very effective strategy that helped us raises tens of millions of dollars in our first year. After witnessing firsthand how powerful skills-based volunteering could be for nonprofits, I was propelled to investigate why a scalable skills-based volunteer didn't already exist, and it was after this careful research that I started Catchafire to fill this huge need.

AL - While working at Hulu, I knew I wanted my next job to be working in towards some socially benevolent cause. When I left, I was primarily looking to help charitable organizations, preserve the environment, or improve education, and that's what I focused my search on when I arrived in New York.

Change.org: Andrew, have you noticed a big difference in what it takes to get a startup like Hulu moving versus something like Catchafire that has an explicit social as well as financial mission, or is it a similar process?

AL - Hulu and Catchafire are pretty hard to compare. Hulu started under much different circumstances - it was a joint venture created by two giants, NBC Universal and News Corporation, so it had many stakeholders, a lot of money, and huge expectations surrounding it. Catchafire in comparison is a small, scrappy startup - we're trying to create a new marketplace in an industry not traditionally known for lots of innovation. For me, I have the same high expectations and pressure to build a world-changing company, but the majority of that pressure is self-imposed as opposed to with Hulu where that pressure was also coming from external forces. Further, the impact that Catchafire can have on the world is entirely different from Hulu. Hulu is an entertainment company versus Catchafire which is a social good company. Our customers, like us, are looking to make the world a better place, and we don't want to disappoint them when so much can be gained if we succeed. From the technology side, I think getting things moving with Catchafire has been less complex than it was at Hulu - there are fewer moving parts and web technology has gotten a lot better in the last three years.

Change.org: For those who are interested in the viability of social enterprises as seed investment opportunity, how do you guys rate your prospects? Its clear that if you do well, you'll have a meaningful social impact, but do you think this can grow to be a big successful business as well?

RC - When I was an investment banker and was looking for a skills-based volunteer opportunity that I ultimately never found, I remember thinking, "This is crazy. Someone is going to build something that will allow me to easily volunteer my skills to a nonprofit that needs it." Catchafire is an idea that is an inevitability. If my team can't figure out how to successfully build a scalable skills-based volunteer solution, someone else will. In regards to whether we think Catchafire can grow to be a big, successful business -- most definitely. Choosing to be a for-profit social mission company was a deliberate decision. Nonprofits, like any other business, need professionals services in areas such as marketing, PR, technology and design; but traditionally they haven't been able to afford most of these services at market rates. In the few months that Catchafire Alpha has been live, we've seen nonprofits thrilled to find that they can now get professional services, such as a new database or new brand identity, through us at a price they can afford. Catchafire is unlocking the nonprofit sector's appetite to be more efficient and effective by leveraging skilled volunteers. When you think about the fact that nonprofits spending accounts for over 5% in US GDP, well that's a big market we have in front of us.

AL - I think there's a lot of potential to grow Catchafire into a meaningful revenue generating business. Even with our NYC-only Alpha site and very little marketing, there has been huge demand for volunteers from organizations, and they seem very willing to pay for access to our pool of talented volunteers. Nonprofit spending in 2007 was $1.7 trillion and the number of nonprofits in the US grew 30% from 1997 to 2007, making it one of the fastest growing sectors of our economy (Source); so we believe there is certainly room to create a successful and profitable business in this space.

Photo credit: Rachael Chong