Rachael Chong thought it was inevitable that someone would create a platform that matched professionals to skills-based volunteer opportunities.  As an investment banker, she realized there were better better ways for her to contribute than hammering nails or stuffing envelopes. But after six months of searching, she says couldn’t find an opportunity to volunteer her financial skills. It wasn’t until several years later, the need still unmet, that Rachael began to think about designing the solution herself.

By this point, she had mobilized a network of skills-based volunteers to aid in the launch of microfinance organization BRAC USA and begun her masters of public policy. She wrote a business plan for Catchafire during her last year in graduate school and won the social enterprise track of the Duke Start-up Challenge.

Rachael describes Catchafire–named for the Wailers’ major-label debut album–as an eHarmony for nonprofits and skilled volunteers. Nonprofits pay a registration fee and Catchafire helps them create a project template with a timeline, steps and required skills. Catchafire’s project menu allows nonprofits to easily identify and select projects that address common nonprofit needs. Each project template in this project menu has a description of the project, the deliverable, step-by-step project components, average time required, nonprofit requirements, volunteer requirements and the average cost of the project if the nonprofit had to pay for it at market rates.

Volunteers search projects by skill (social media, logo design, event planning, etc.) and time expectations (20-40 hours over 1-2 months with 5 meetings, for example) and can see the value of their contribution (a brand identify project saves a nonprofit $3,000-$5,000).  All projects have three criteria: they require less than 50 hours of volunteer time, entail one deliverable and are individual-based.

Although Catchafire’s model is easy to grasp, its execution takes some finesse. In our conversation, I asked Rachael how she enrolled her first nonprofit clients, how she recruits and retains volunteers, how she funded the company (lots of business competitions) and her advice for assembling a strong advisory board.

Catchafire launched its pilot program in New York City from August-December 2009, bringing together 10 nonprofits and 100 professionals. Nearly 20 projects were completed with 500 hours volunteered, saving nonprofits an estimated $75,000 in services.  Since then Catchafire released its alpha site and has made over 70 matches, recently kicking off 50 new projects at its skills-based volunteer event hosted at the same time as the National Conference on Volunteer and Service. Look for Catchafire’s Beta launch this Fall in New York City. Catchafire has plans to scale nationally soon after.

Like this interview?  You can thank Rachael on Twitter like this and follow her at @catchafire.

I spoke with upstart entrepreneurs about five ways they can incorporate cause into their business, regardless of its size. Although the methods range in their levels of commitment and implementation time, they all display action on the behalf of a cause.

1. BOGO: Buy-One-Give-One

   With a BOGO business (a company that donates an exact item match for every item sold) cause is at the core of the business model. BOGO businesses have dual objectives, to support and enhance their causes and to turn a profit (the latter, the distinguishing factor from a nonprofit).  Exemplary BOGO businesses are Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child, The BoGo Light by Sunnight Solar and TOMS Shoes.
   
   WHAT TOMS GIVES: Millions of pairs of shoes to children in need in South America and Africa.
   WHAT TOMS GETS: Recognition for pioneering the BOGO business model and a vocal following of die-hard fans.

2. Portion of Profits Donated

   The most common way companies engage in social responsibility. A company will pledge and donate a portion of proceeds to the community it serves.  In 1983, long before cause marketing was the term du jour, American Express ran a campaign to fund restoration of the Statue of Liberty. For every dollar spent on an Am Ex card, the company donated 1 cent toward restoration.

   WHAT THEY GAVE: $1.7 million toward Lady Liberty’s overhaul.
   WHAT THEY GOT: A 27% increase in card use and 47% growth in new card acquisitions.

3. Transparency and Call-to-Action

   Transparency is primarily effective when a company pledges to support a cause and publicly charts its progress. The one-two punch is the follow-up call-to-action, which motivates the customer to act on behalf of the same cause. Timberland cares about environmental stewardship and has for some time. But many customers to whom this might matter, were unaware. Only with the introduction of something called the Timberland Nutritional Label, however, did Timberland weld its cause to the consumer.  The Timberland Nutritional Label is affixed to the boxes of all 3 million pairs of footwear sold annually. It shows the buyer where the footwear was made, the amount of energy that went into making it and the amount of renewable energy Timberland uses.

   WHAT THEY GAVE: By calling itself out as a conscious company, Timberland held itself responsible in the public’s eye.
   WHAT THEY GOT: Sales grew 10% annually and stock prices doubled from 2006-2008.

4. Employee Volunteerism

   Paid time-off for employees to volunteer, either on a company-sponsored or individually chosen project. Imagine the culture of a corporation that truly values giving back, to the extent that it will trade temporary profit for employee satisfaction and loyalty and a tested public image of its commitment.
   
   WHAT THEY GAVE: One week of paid-time off and loss of productivity per employee.
   WHAT THEY GOT: Increased brand awareness and enthusiasm and employee satisfaction that translated to growth in sales.

5. Employee Incentives

   Inculcate your employees in your company’s mission not through processes, call scripts and company retreats, but through participation, collaboration and incentives. Burt’s Bees incentivizes employees and reinforces the company goal of environmental sustainability in several ways. Employees receive bonuses based in part on how well the company meets jointly established energy conservation goals, and plum parking spots are reserved for those that carpool or drive hybrids to work.

   WHAT THEY GAVE: Nothing really. No additional bonuses were given nor were extra parking spots created.
   WHAT THEY GOT: Employee buy-in, reduced energy costs, a strong culture of teamwork and conservation, brand authenticity as environmentally friendly.

I chose My Friend’s Place, a drop-in center for homeless youth in Hollywood, for my volunteer site. I was a consultant with the organization a year ago and it holds an indelible place in my heart. Now, working with My Friend’s Place through a different channel, I saw the tangible proof of what I advocate: the business partnership between RockCorps and Boost Mobile directly and palpably impacts this local nonprofit and the youth it serves.

I painted alongside 50 volunteers who drew murals, landscaped and organized the facility to the hum of a RockCorps DJ spinning outside. Afterwards, I caught up with RockCorps CEO Stephen Greene.

Heather Carmichael, Associate Executive Director for My Friend’s Place, talked about what the day meant for her organization.

I did a recent interview with Stephen and asked him how businesses can integrate cause in a fundamental way. Click to listen.

Download CauseCapitalism-RockCorps.mp3

You can’t win a ticket; you can’t buy a ticket; you earn a ticket to a concert that becomes a celebration of giving back.

Boost Mobile partnered with RockCorps to give teenagers (Boost’s target consumer) concert tickets in exchange for volunteering in their neighborhoods at large.

Since 2005, Boost Mobile RockCorps has combined music, community and volunteerism with dynamic results, matching more than 31,000 teens with local nonprofits in exchange for concert tickets. Wannabe concert-goers volunteer for four hours renovating schools and playgrounds, distributing food or helping with environmental initiatives.

The program has yielded roughly 124,000 hours of community service. I’m anxious to learn whether participants return to the volunteer project or organization after their initial four hours of work. Does this initiative have the power to create sustained action?