Strengthening The Catalyst Collective: The impact of Skilled Volunteering

As a small but fast-growing organisation with big ambitions, The Catalyst Collective knew their social media presence needed sharpening – they just didn’t have the capacity to make it happen.

Through Link UP’s Skilled Volunteering Project, they were matched with volunteer designer Erica Huebra da Silva to develop a suite of social media templates and brand assets. What followed was a collaboration that transformed how the organisation shows up online.

The Organisation

The Catalyst Collective is a growing community focused on supporting and empowering young Black women. They know that mentoring can be a powerful intervention in the lives of young women. They recruit, train, match and support professional Black women with Black teenagers in year-long mentoring relationships – creating spaces where young Black women feel seen, supported and inspired to achieve their goals. In just five years, the team has matched over 360 young Black women with professional Black women mentors.. As a small, fast-growing team with big ambitions, they create meaningful opportunities for connection, mentorship and growth.

They gain many of their mentors through word of mouth and social media, so it’s vital that they tell their story clearly and compellingly. While they had a strong vision, they wanted to sharpen their social presence – but simply didn’t have the capacity to do so.

The Project

Through the Skilled Volunteering Project, we matched them with Erica, who brought expertise in brand development and design.

Erica created a suite of professional social media templates and brand guidelines to help the team show up clearly and consistently online. As the team shared:

“Having these templates will make it easier to create high-quality, on-brand content quickly. They’ve helped professionalise how we communicate, save us time, and keep our message consistent across platforms. We plan to use the guidelines and templates to keep an active, consistent presence on social media. As we create new content, we’ll keep the brand principles Erica developed front of mind, making sure everything we produce feels aligned and intentional. Erica also shared a brilliant suite of assets beyond the templates, including logos, graphics, stamps and gradient backgrounds. The templates gives us a strong visual foundation to build on. We’re excited to evolve the brand and create fresh templates that keep the look and feel consistent while meeting new needs.”

For Erica, the experience was just as meaningful:

“I worked closely with The Catalyst’s internal team to rethink and redesign their institutional communication and social media positioning. We developed accessible, easy-to-maintain templates aligned with the newly proposed identity, along with a comprehensive guide to help the team use these tools consistently and strategically. It was a process filled with exchange, learning and purpose, and I’m deeply grateful for the chance to put my design skills in service of such a meaningful cause. It was also very valuable to me because I could gain this experience. I met new people, made more contacts, and added a completely new project in English to my portfolio.”

The Impact

The project has strengthened The Catalyst Collective’s external communications across marketing, PR and social media, while helping them develop clearer objectives and a stronger connection to stakeholders.

“The templates will help us communicate with more clarity, consistency and care which means more young Black women and potential mentors will see themselves in our work and feel invited in. That visibility and resonance is powerful. It supports stronger engagement, deeper connection and ultimately, greater impact.”

They also give us stronger tools to share our story with prospective partners and supporters. That matters because when we communicate with clarity and conviction, people can see the power of our work and are more likely to back it. Strong storytelling helps us build trust, grow our community and open doors to deeper investment in what we do.”

Reflecting on the experience, the team shared:

“As a small, fast-growing team with big ambitions, we’d been wanting to sharpen our social presence for a while but just didn’t have the capacity. Through the Skilled Volunteering Project, we were matched with Erica who went above and beyond. She created templates and brand assets that have made it so much easier for us to show up clearly and consistently. We’re really thankful to Link UP and the Skilled Volunteer Project team for making it all so seamless. They connected us with a brilliant volunteer while offering a clear framework to help us navigate the project. We’d highly recommend the initiative to any social good organisation looking for thoughtful, skilled support.”

Making a Lasting Difference

This collaboration shows how targeted, skilled support can unlock capacity and confidence within small organisations. With the right tools in place, The Catalyst Collective can now communicate with clarity, consistency and impact – ensuring more young Black women and prospective mentors see themselves reflected in their mission and feel inspired to get involved.