Catalyst

Hyödyllinen tekniikka ry

Catalyst

Catalyst empowers social and climate activist by equipping them with the appropriate digital infrsastructure for organising their movement.

Tampere, Finland

FIN

Nonprofit

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As climate breakdown accelerates and climate-skeptic forces gain traction, we face an urgent need to mobilise for a just transition. History shows that nonviolent movements can drive rapid social change when effectively organised. But today's climate campaigns face a critical barrier: momentum overload—the inability to convert growing interest into sustained action. They struggle to scale due to systemic issues: Inadequate digital tools—spreadsheets don’t scale, and the already existing CRM systems are inefficient. Response delays—conversion rates drop sharply if follow-up doesn’t happen within 48 hours. Poor delegation systems—further limits scalability and prevents from effectively integrating new volunteers. Lack of standardised processes—incapacity to safely delegate work and to analyse data and make enlightened strategic decisions. As a result, only 2.5% of supporters become active, meaning 97.5% are lost. At a time of climate emergency, this is an unacceptable failure. We also observed a sustainability crisis: burnout and knowledge loss lead to constant reinvention rather than momentum. Meanwhile, increasing repression of climate and social justice activists—especially in the U.S.—underscores the urgent need for secure, resilient systems. Catalyst tackles all these issues head-on with an activist management software designed by organisers, for organisers.

The project directly supports systemic change by enabling campaigns to move beyond basic mobilisation tactics and tackle the most pressing obstacles facing large-scale climate action today. By improving supporter-to-activist conversion, optimising volunteer workloads, and reducing organisational inefficiencies, Catalyst empowers groups that aim to stop fossil fuel projects, accelerate carbon-free solutions and reduce reliance on fossil fuels . Catalyst’s enhanced features will include data analytics for smarter decision-making, automated communications, improved usability for burnout prevention, and enhanced security with self-hosting implementation, ultimately enabling campaigns to operate more efficiently and increase their impact. By addressing the fundamental inefficiency of activist conversion, Catalyst creates a multiplier effect for social change movements. Each organisation using our platform can achieve significantly more with their existing resources: Short-term: Immediate efficiency gains and higher conversion rates; we predict a four-fold increase in campaign effectiveness by improving supporter-to-activist conversion rates from 2.5% to 10%, allowing for the mobilisation of thousands of new activists. Medium-term: With higher efficiency, organisations can grow their activist base and enhanced campaign capabilities. Long-term: As a result of these improvements, more successful campaigns can achieve tangible real climate policies

Catalyst is designed for any organisation or campaign that does recruitment and onboarding work for good. By allowing campaigns to design pathways that define recruits’ ideal entry into the campaign, contacts are presented with clearly predefined calls to action throughout their onboarding journey, increasing campaign growth rates. We only work with organisations that are committed to bring about social and climate justice, actively excluding groups that could use the tool to promote discrimination, hatred, or harm based on species, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or any other characteristic. Our objective over the next year is to grow our community by 50 Catalyst members, expanding beyond the climate justice movement, to support all minorities and gender equality around the globe. On top of the sofware, our members will truly be part of a community of experienced organisers. Catalyst offers exchange spaces and training sessions on varied topics, like engagement pathway designs, action designs, media framing, governance structure and fundraising strategies.