News
Posted by Kari on September 19th, 2009
Research from the Corporation of Community and National Service points out that since 2001, volunteering rates have fallen 27%, costing the nonprofit sector roughly 77 billion dollars, and the equivalent in time of nearly 3 million full-time jobs. The National Conference on Citizenship coined the phrase “civic recession” to describe these times of falling volunteer rates.
Full Circle Fund Alumna Catalina Ruiz-Healey worried about these statistics, and was inspired by President Obama’s call to service. So, she created an app for it. Her company released Catalista, an application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch devices in mid September. Catalina, who was involved with both our Technology and Education Circles, has a personal history of involvement with technology and innovation, and even holds a provisional patent.
“We believe that it will be easier for people to discover and connect with ways to help in their communities through a smartphone, rather than a desktop,” Catalina explained, “The Facebook integration makes it fun to encourage our friends to get offline and together lend a hand in the recovery of our neighborhoods and local nonprofits”
The Catalista app helps individuals find real-time, local opportunities on their mobile phones — so no matter where people are, they can always be connected to volunteering opportunities happening that day, weekend, or month near them. Full Circle Fund’s engaged philanthropy model emphasizes building relationships with nonprofits through long term projects in the Bay Area. But, it’s just as important for potential volunteers with limited time, or who find themselves with extra time while traveling, to be able to easily access opportunities quickly and to share their experiences with their network.
With features like the ability to friends on Facebook to volunteer, keep track of their impact, and rate their volunteering experience once they’ve done their good deed, Catalista is a neat tool to help volunteers find and choose from over 200,000 opportunities from across the United States.
Posted in Alumni, members, technology
