Charitable fund seeking to pool small firms' donations

Pete Parker doesn't think there's much of a profit to be made from helping small businesses make a large splash with their donations to nonprofits.

But Parker, the managing partner of Reno-based NPcatalyst, thinks the Community Catalyst Charitable Fund launched by his for-profit firm within the last couple of weeks ultimately will pay off, both for nonprofits in northern Nevada as well as his company.

The fund seeks to help small companies generate more goodwill in the community by pooling their charitable donations into larger amounts that can make a big difference and get more public notice.

Here's how it works:

The Community Catalyst Charitable Fund works with companies with annual revenues of less than $500,000, the sorts of companies that often have a scatter-shot program of supporting whatever charities send someone around to collect small checks or donated items for a raffle.

The fund will pool small business contributions whether they're $100 or $5,000 and each participating company will get one vote on the use of the funds, no matter how large the contribution.

NPCatalyst LLC will help identify possible nonprofit recipients, and it will work with nonprofits to identify a specific use for the donation say, $8,476 to purchase books for the library at a youth program.

The firm will accompany donations by the Community Catalyst Charitable Fund with a strong drumbeat of publicity to make sure donor companies get the maximum value from their participation.

"Many businesses particularly small businesses don't leverage their community involvement," Parker says. "It's not strategic, and there's no rhyme or reason to it."

The process of selecting a program to receive donated funds will help business owners and managers learn more about the needs of the community and the nonprofit groups that meet those needs, Parker says.

He hopes the fund can generate $10,000 for contributions in the final quarter of this year, and $25,000 by the first quarter of 2012.

The nonprofit Community Foundation of Western Nevada will handle back-office functions such as receiving tax-deductible donations, investing the funds and writing checks to the nonprofits that selected to receive funds.

NPCatalyst LLC will charge participating companies $100 a quarter to participate.

"There's not a whole lot of money in this for me," says Parker.

But along with the good works that will be accomplished, he hopes the Community Catalyst Charitable Fund will open doors for his firm to provide further services to businesses and nonprofits.

The year-old company works with nonprofits to strengthen their boards, their operations and their fundraising. And it works with businesses and other private donors to develop effective strategies for charitable giving using, among other tools, an efficiency rating of local nonprofits that has been developed by Parker. (The first few ratings are found on the firm's Web site at www.npcatalyst.com/organization.)