Our Approach
Map provided by Sonoma Ecology Center
Catalyst provides the additional resources—beyond what funds day-to-day operations—that are essential for our local nonprofit sector to meet the growing needs of Sonoma Valley.
A Pooled Fund
Donations to Catalyst become part of a pooled fund held at Community Foundation Sonoma County. This pooled fund represents the generosity of our community of donors, combined into one shared resource that allows our team to invest nimbly and strategically—thinking long-term while funding new ways to meet urgent needs in Sonoma Valley.
What We Fund
The biggest challenges facing Sonoma Valley—including federal funding cuts, housing affordability, and food insecurity—generate crises that call for urgent responses and demand innovative efforts that create long-term solutions. Our approach spans both horizons.
Two Horizons
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Catalyst provides nonprofits with the additional funding and problem-solving support needed to respond to crises and urgent community needs. Our nimble grantmaking ensures support reaches the frontlines when and where it is needed most.
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The root causes of Sonoma Valley’s chronic challenges demand more than the existing efforts of individual nonprofits. Catalyst funds research and development that generates the data needed to identify gaps, test pilot programs, and drive innovation. Our team works closely with community leaders across all sectors, anticipates needs based on what is happening at the national level, and makes bold and strategic investments that result in foundational shifts necessary for long-term change.
If you are a grant seeker, here’s how to apply.
How We Fund
Creating immediate impacts while fostering innovative and long-term solutions takes a dynamic grant-making approach, which evolves to meet both today’s realities and tomorrow’s uncertainties.
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Reimagine Grants include all phases of innovation: research, experimentation, pilots, and partnership development with a focus on:
Efforts that involve critical cooperation and collaboration among key actors who must work together for a solution.
Efforts that involve leveraging government resources, or utilizing them better; public-private partnerships.
Ideas for new solutions that need to be tested, piloted and designed further (including building an organization’s capabilities to execute the new solution).
Research and convenings to define an emerging or chronic problem and seek solutions that no single organization can address alone.
Currently, this is our only open grant cycle.
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Through ongoing analysis and deep relationships across Sonoma Valley, Catalyst regularly identifies needs and launches Research and Development grants.
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We launch phases of grant criteria—based on current community needs—that organizations can apply for during those grant cycles.
Beyond Grantmaking
Catalyst goes further than funding—we strengthen our local nonprofits’ organizational capacity and even hire staff for special initiatives when needed. We build connections and understanding of community issues across sectors and generations.
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Our 2022 Food Security Study revealed that 1 in 5 people in Sonoma Valley lack consistent access to enough food for every person in a household.
Using the recommendations from the study, we, in partnership with the local food providers, have created a multi-year plan to expand access, increase choice and reduce waste, and improve the food security system by investing in coordination and collaboration.
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Catalyst helps nonprofit and community leaders plan for the future, govern effectively, and build the internal capacity needed to sustain their missions. Through succession planning, board development, and research-based benchmarking, we sponsor experts who can guide capacity building, either as part of a Catalyst initiative or embedded in the nonprofit organizations we support.
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Catalyst creates opportunities for donors and community members to build relationships and deepen their understanding of issues in ways that inspire creativity, action, and strengthen connections across sectors and generations.
→ JOIN OUR COMMUNITY OF DONORSThe Future Collective is an event series designed to help a new generation of community members determine how to better act on their commitment to the future of Sonoma Valley.
→ LEARN ABOUT THE FUTURE COLLECTIVE
The Star Awards honor “Star Volunteers” of nonprofits who serve Sonoma Valley.
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We are thought partners to all of our grantees. By holding the big picture, we help community leaders on the frontline make connections, share information, and align efforts for greater impact.
Our Decision-Making Process
Listen First
There is no substitute for the knowledge of those who understand problems the best. We believe that wise philanthropy begins with humility and deep listening and proceeds through diverse partnerships based on trust. Our community is beset by divides—of language, culture, income, understanding, and more—divides that our team bridges with work and relationships.
Solve for the Whole Community
Frontline knowledge, while essential, is insufficient in isolation. You can’t fill gaps you cannot see. Catalyst looks at the community as a whole, not just single issues, populations, or organizations. Communication, connection, and cooperation are increasingly essential to our approach.
Respond and Initiate
As a dynamic funder, Catalyst responds to obvious needs and initiates creative problem-solving. Frontline leaders are often consumed with the challenges of day-to-day operations of nonprofits and programs, which are hard challenges that deserve dedicated support. At the same time, they need additional resources to work together on new approaches to challenges no single organization can solve alone.
Stay flexible
In a time of rapid change and growing uncertainty, Catalyst approaches problem-solving with openness, trust, and nimbleness as essential companions to long-term commitment. Catalyst has learned to expect the unexpected. As a funder, we have created a model that allows us to move at the speed of need—administering funds and resources in ways that make it easier, rather than harder, for frontline leaders to do their jobs.
What We’ve Learned
Catalyst got its start by taking initiative during the COVID-19 pandemic, working with 125 donors to deploy more than $1.3 million in 44 grants—all aiming to provide the additional resources direct service providers needed to go above and beyond their day-to-day to reduce suffering and raise spirits in the midst of an emergency.
The pandemic taught our team to spot gaps, bring community leaders together, catalyze new solutions, and help nonprofits and government avoid duplication. In that time, we built an efficient fundraising and grantmaking system that moved resources out the door week after week—keeping people fed and housed, boosting vaccine uptake, supporting mental health, and helping small local businesses survive—while also laying the groundwork to address the deeper system failures the crisis brought to light. As a result, we were able to have a cumulative impact across the community that no individual donor could have had working alone—creating the foundation for our continuing mission.