‘These dogs may save one of these handlers’ lives’
‘We’re past due as an industry to grow up some’
October 19, 2026
APPLETON – Making a difference in the lives of neighbors they’ve never met – it’s the mission of Sean Tiernan, a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), and Adrianna Frelich, co-founders of Catalyzt, a Nonprofit Collective.
“Catalyzt started with a thought of, ‘How can we help nonprofits in a way that really fits within our skill sets?’” Frelich said. “Sean is a master within the fundraising and development world. I come from a marketing background, and we’re passionate about helping people and giving back.”
Tiernan and Frelich said they built Catalyzt as a consulting firm dedicated to helping nonprofits strengthen their fundraising, communications and partnerships, while also maximizing social impact.
They said by aligning marketing, development, grants and community engagement, their firm helps nonprofits elevate their brand, increase donor support and create lasting positive change in the communities they serve.
“We really wanted to create Catalyzt as a way to train nonprofits, to work with nonprofits, to facilitate relationships with their donors in a better way, tell their story in a better way, find out what their story is and what’s really resonating with donors,” Frelich said.
According to the duo, the firm delivers corporate-level strategic marketing with relationship-driven philanthropy to produce measurable results, offering their guidance to clients through campaigns, strategic collaborations and sustainable growth strategies.
“We want to help people, and that’s really the core of what we do,” Frelich said. “But we’re also really passionate about the nonprofit space.”
Prioritizing relationships above transactions
When it comes to strategic partnerships, Frelich and Tiernan said the firm facilitates relationship building between the nonprofit and corporations, foundations and community partners.
As they explained, by fostering collaborative partnerships, the firm builds opportunities to expand their reach, maximize resources and elevate their mission.
In the realm of marketing, Tiernan said the firm helps clients boost their internal efforts by offering part-time leadership, clear plans and help in running campaigns.
“We lend our expertise in branding and communication, as well as events and donor outreach, to ensure the nonprofit’s story is being told, is reaching its intended audience and optimally, returns measurable results,” Tiernan said. “We want to be intentional about our relationships with our nonprofits. We are not a ‘one-size-fits-all.’”
When having an initial meeting with a nonprofit in search of services, Tiernan said they spend that first conversation learning about what the nonprofit does and where they see their deficiencies or gaps.
It’s about the client first, he said.
“It’s not a sales pitch,” Tiernan said. “We always try to offer them… free advice, because even if it’s not the right time for them to become clients of ours, we still want them to leave us with some good ideas and feeling encouraged about their mission, knowing we are nonprofit people who are fully in their corner, whether they’re clients of ours or not. We’re not looking for transactions – we’re looking for relationships.”
Frelich agreed and said although Catalyzt might not be the right fit for a nonprofit at the time of their initial contact, they want to be a resource for the local nonprofit community.
“We want to make our nonprofit community stronger, and we want to help the businesses locally give better,” she said. “Are there ways we can help through our connections and our experience, and are there ways we can help do that?”
Driving success through the human connection
Although the business is relatively new, Tiernan and Frelich said they have seen success for clients in its first two years.
Tiernan said one of his clients has operated for six decades but never had a development plan.
He said he and the Catalyzt team stepped in and helped them build their community-based plan.
“This is an organization that is serving hundreds, if not thousands, of people a year, and the community is supporting them more than ever before because of the work Catalyzt is doing,” he said. “I am really proud of that.”
Frelich said one of her success stories involves a 30-year-old climate-regenerative agriculture nonprofit with a team based in Honduras.
She said with her help and guidance, the organization has begun telling their story from the human perspective, and it has paid emotional dividends seeing it come to life.
“Being able to teach them to take the stories of the lives they’re changing and share those stories – there isn’t a measurement behind that, but it has been a very cool experience to see the relationships within that team starting to blossom,” she said.
Frelich said she’s also enjoyed building a system she will eventually hand back over to the nonprofit.
“They eventually want to hire a full-time person, so my role for them right now is… building them a system and building them a plan, so when they have a full-time person [onboard], they can jump in and do it seamlessly,” she said.
The duo said their goals for clients include helping increase their nonprofit clients’ margins, decrease their overhead, tell their stories effectively and have better results with fundraising and marketing.
Tiernan said there are more than 3,000 nonprofits in Northeast Wisconsin, which also represents billions of dollars going back into the community.
He said while they will never be the company to handle a crisis at 2 a.m., their skills in marketing and development make them a valuable firm in Northeast Wisconsin.
“This is our home,” he said. “This is where we live and where our kids live. We want this area to succeed and be profitable.”
Building a collective for maximum impact
First working together when Tiernan led the development team for Rawhide Youth Services and Frelich ran the marketing department for Bernatello’s, the duo said they know firsthand what an impact corporations and businesses can have on the bottom line of a nonprofit when everyone works together.
That shared history, they said, is part of the impetus for their collective of nonprofits they’re building alongside their other services, called Catalyzt Connect.
The two said it pairs businesses that are looking to have an impact managing their financial donations and/or skill-based volunteer time, with nonprofits in need of funding and/or volunteers.
Using a food pantry as an example, Tiernan said they’d pair those clients who work to solve hunger needs in the community with businesses who want to do the same.
“We will help facilitate strong relationships between the nonprofit and businesses – relationships that have great impact that lasts long after the ink dries on a donation check,” he said. “As we work with nonprofits and bank the knowledge gained during those interviews, we simultaneously build the collective. We understand their mission and know what they need to become successful. We can find business partners for them to plug in.”
Creating a trusted hub for nonprofits
As the firm moves forward, Tiernan said he hopes Catalyzt becomes a centralized hub for problem-solving people.
“I would love to be the go-to organization for nonprofits,” he said. “[I want us to] build this army of qualified, heart-driven, mission-driven individuals, so when ‘nonprofit X’ in Madison calls and says, ‘Hey, we need a fundraiser, Catalyzt. We trust you. Who do you have on your bench that you can put in here?’ [We can fulfill that need].”
Until then, Frelich said they will continue trying to improve the lives of their neighbors.
“It’s one of the major factors in leaving our former positions and leveraging our skills and contacts to make a greater impact for our neighbors in need on a larger scale,” she said. “We want to improve the lives of people who we will literally never meet in our local community.”
Driving in downtown Appleton, Frelich said she often wonders what impact Catalyzt has made on the community.
“Have I done something that has touched someone’s life that I will literally never know?” she said. “[That’s] one of those moments for Sean and me that was a huge motivator for why we’re doing what we’re doing and why we stepped [into the nonprofit space].”
