Fondazione per l’infanzia Ronald McDonald Italia helps more children with Salesforce

More than 70,000 seriously ill children in Italy have to move to another town or city every year to receive the best possible hospital care. Given their difficult situation, it is even more important for these young patients to have their family close by to support them. Families that find themselves going through such a traumatic experience can get considerable support from Fondazione per l’infanzia Ronald McDonald Italia, which is the Italian arm of the international nonprofit organisation Ronald McDonald House Charities, founded and largely financed, by the iconic restaurant chain. 

Each year, the Fondazione helps 2,700 children and their families in three different ways. It offers them accommodation in its Ronald McDonald Houses, which are located near the major pediatric hospitals (in Brescia and Florence, as well as Palidoro and Bellosguardo in Rome). Secondly, the Fondazione invites them to use its Family Rooms, which provide a welcoming sanctuary within the pediatric wards of 2 of Italy’s major hospitals – Bologna and Alessandria. Thirdly, it ensures the children have access to the “Hospitality à la Carte” program, where volunteers visit the children and share a range of items, like games, books and snacks, to make them feel more comfortable during their time in the hospital.

“The phenomenon of moving cities for health reasons is rising sharply. This is due to the Italian healthcare system’s continued progression toward a structure based on centres of excellence that specialise in the treatment of specific diseases,” said Marianna Pucciarelli, Individual Giving Manager for Fondazione per l’infanzia Ronald McDonald Italia. “To be in a position to help an ever-increasing number of children and families, we need to grow too. To do this, we need to make the most of every contact opportunity to increase the contributions we receive from individual donors. Salesforce is helping us with this initiative, and the results are already clear to see: In 2018, donations doubled compared to the previous year.”

Digital transformation — a must even in the non-profit sector

Obviously, McDonald’s restaurants is the primary source of contact opportunities. The mega Company contributes to the collection of donations by creating awareness among their customers – up to one million a day – of the issues involved, especially on International Children’s Day and highlights the Italian tax incentives for charitable giving. To capitalise on these opportunities, however, the Fondazione had to improve the efficiency of all its activities.

Not only did they need to create a single centralised location for all donor and volunteer information, but they also had to introduce a more efficient way of collecting online donations. “In the future, collecting funds online will become increasingly important for organisations in the non-profit sector,” Pucciarelli said. The Fondazione also had to optimise the management of its operations across the Ronald McDonald Houses and in hospitals. The only way to achieve these goals was through digital transformation. 

An agreement born of collaboration between volunteers

Salesforce and Fondazione per l’infanzia Ronald McDonald Italia first came into contact in 2018 as a result of the voluntary work of Salesforce employees, who were performing maintenance work on the Ronald McDonald Houses. During their work, these volunteers shared with the Fondazione the work that Salesforce.org is doing with nonprofit organisations all over the world and the entitlement of nonprofits to ten free licenses and further product discounts.

What followed was an assessment project based on the same qualitative standards used by the multinational restaurant chain. At the end of this assessment, the Fondazione decided to partner with Salesforce.org and adopt the Salesforce platform.

“Salesforce is even better than many established solutions in the Italian nonprofit sector,” said Pucciarelli. “It is perfect for collecting donations online, but we were also convinced by how easy it is to use, its future-proof expandability, the favorable financial terms offered to nonprofit organisations, and the efficient technical support service provided by volunteers. The Salesforce volunteers are our guardian angels. I see them as part of our team.”

Efficient donation collection and resource use

In the past, due to the way the organisation is spread across the country, the Fondazione did not have a centralised archiving system. Information was saved in various different ways, but mainly in traditional forms such as Excel spreadsheets or on paper. Amongst other things, this made it difficult to share important information. The organisation had a CRM system but it was too difficult for volunteers to use since their primary focus is on taking care of the children. 

Now, Fondazione per l’infanzia Ronald McDonald Italia uses the Salesforce CRM platform (Sales Cloud and Service Cloud) to manage all of its donor, volunteer and host family data in a centralised location. For insurance purposes, volunteer management also tracks their work inside the Ronald McDonald Houses (their arrival and departure times, etc.). All the volunteers working for the Fondazione now use Chatter to communicate and collaborate with one another.

The Salesforce CRM solution was integrated with the new Fondazione website to facilitate online fund collection and volunteer applications. In addition, the organisation has created a journey with Pardot that — via email automation — aims to convert visitors to the site into donors, and to encourage its occasional donors to become regular donors.

Ready for new projects to increase levels of support

The digital transformation made possible by Salesforce is still in progress, but Pucciarelli can already provide an initial report on their Trailblazers experience in the nonprofit world.

“Apart from doubling donations,” Pucciarelli said, “we are seeing an increase in efficiency across all of our operations. We are a small organisation, so it is essential that our employees can save time. The Salesforce solution can grow with us, and we can continue to use it in the future, for example, to allocate rooms in the Ronald McDonald Houses. Thanks to Salesforce, we now have the resources and the efficiency required to focus our energy on our plans for growth, such as building a new Ronald McDonald House and widening our Hospitality à la Carte program.”

“I am certain that digital transformation is essential for increasing the impact of nonprofit organisations. Salesforce is helping me to put my belief into practice,” Pucciarelli said.