Catchafire, a new way to look at pro-bono

Pro bono is from the latin phrase, for the public good.  Generally used by professionals who give their services away for free.  Lawyers are the first thing that probably comes to mind.  I believe it is recommended by the American Bar Association that lawyers contribute a certain amount of their time for free over the course of each year.  What an amazing world it would be if every professional gave away 50 hours a year of their time for the public good.

This week is National Volunteer Week.  I am thrilled to be part of Catchafire's Powerful Woman Campaign in support of National Volunteer week. I much prefer the word pro bono over volunteer.  To me, pro bono means that you are taking your professional skills be it writing code, marketing guru, architect or logo designer and giving your services to an organization that could never afford to hire someone as well versed in your particular skill as you are. 

The hardest part is how do you find an organization that would want your services.  There is now an answer for that Catchafire.  Catchafire, a company that I am involved with and have written about before, has created a data base of non-profit organizations looking to fill certain short-term projects with professionals.  We have also created a data base of qualified professionals to match the needs of the non-profits and we need more.  A social good organization that charges a fee to the non-profits for the service of matching the right professionals with their project.  By charging a fee we are making the non-profits put skin in the game. In essence forcing them to really use the pro bono work and manage it properly to insure the success on both ends. 

Currently we are doing this in NYC only but there is no doubt that we plan on rolling this out across the country and eventually the globe.  If everyone could give back their knowledge and skill sets for so many hours a year to make an impact in the non-profit world that is trying to do public good...wow, think about what we could be accomplished.  The world would definitely be our oyster. 

Click on Catchafire today and sign-up.  Think about Catchafires tag line....give what you are good at and be part of National Volunteer Week by doing a little pro bono work.