Our Story
Born from Shared Experience
Over many years, three nonprofit leaders kept encountering the same challenges — and finally decided to do something about it.
Von Welch, Bryan Hane and Caroline Dowd-Higgins have spent years serving on and leading nonprofit boards. Across all of their experiences, common challenges kept surfacing:
The Expertise Gap
Nonprofits regularly need specialized services — legal, HR, IT, executive consulting — often with short or little notice. Finding and affording these services is a constant struggle.
The Leadership Gap
As organizations grow, executive directors and CEOs need mentoring, support, and development. But resources for nonprofit leadership growth are scarce and rarely tailored.
The Volunteer Gap
Finding board members with the right skills is slow, challenging, and not always successful. Many professionals want to help but aren't ready to commit to a full board or committee seat.
A vision started forming: a matchmaking organization that connects volunteers willing to help for short periods of time with nonprofits needing help — quickly, flexibly, and without the barriers of traditional board service.
That vision became Elevate.