Ukrainian Red Cross

Digital Technology Enables Nations to Unite

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the world was united in its desire to support the Ukrainian government and its people, protect those fleeing from danger, and deliver large scale humanitarian aid. But without the right technology in place, the Ukrainian Red Cross was unable to facilitate the influx of support from outside Ukraine – quite literally missing out on thousands of donations.

The organisation quickly recognised the need for a secure technology platform to make it fast and easy for donors anywhere in the world to provide the financial support that Ukraine so desperately needs.

In just five weeks, Kyiv-based implementation partner VRP Consulting integrated Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack and Marketing Cloud with a new multi-lingual, multi-currency payment system donated by the Swiss Red Cross. Just nine months later, the organisation’s fundraising capabilities have been transformed, with 120,000 individual donors from around the world contributing more than $21 million, protecting millions of Ukrainians with food, water, first aid, transport, and shelter.

Enabling Fast, Easy, and Secure Donations

As the world stood still in horror at the events unfolding in Eastern Europe in February 2022, the Ukrainian Red Cross was already on the move. This much-loved organisation – that has supported vulnerable people for more than 100 years – responded immediately, launching a comprehensive range of relief services.

The organisation rescued and evacuated more than 300,000 people to safety, trained 85,000 in first aid, supported millions of internal refugees fleeing the frontline, and provided services and financial support to thousands more.

“Within days, governments, businesses, and individuals around the world wanted to provide financial support to the country,” explained Deputy Director General, Olena Stokoz. “But our existing donation system had been created in the Ukrainian language and could only accept funds from Ukrainians, in Ukrainian currency.”

Donations were not integrated with a CRM, meaning many processes were manual and email-based – resulting in team members spending 18 hours a day processing the huge increase of domestic donations and responding to donors in the beginning stages of the war.

The organisation quickly identified its need for an integrated digital technology platform which could process donations in multiple languages and currencies. It also needed to capture data in a central location, build relationships with donors, and match contributions to activities and outcomes – making use of extensive automation for a fast and user-friendly experience.

Integrated Solutions Build Relationships and Enable Informed Decisions

The Ukrainian Red Cross Society worked closely with Kyiv-based Salesforce partner, VRP Consulting, to deliver solutions to integrate fundraising, donation, and donor management activities.

In just five weeks, VRP integrated a new multi-lingual, multi-currency payment system donated by the Swiss Red Cross, with Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack and Marketing Cloud. The combination captures detailed data from every donor and automates simple tasks such as email donation receipts, which hugely reduces time spent on administrative processes.

Marketing Cloud provides the features and functionality to enable large scale, yet personalised, follow up communications and engagement campaigns with donors. For the first time, the Ukrainian Red Cross has been able to share with donors how their contributions have been used, further deepening relationships with donors. The organisation’s donor management team is also using Einstein artificial intelligence to ensure they are sending the right message, at the right time, to the right people – maximising the potential email open rate.

The solutions enable extensive reporting and management capabilities, equipping the organisation with detailed, real-time data of donations and fundraising income – something that used to take hours for a simple report. Now, the organisation can make informed decisions on where to target resources and which services are in most need.

A Proven Fundraising Platform with Limitless Scalability

The Ukrainian Red Cross has transformed its ability to securely manage and track the fundraising lifecycle within Salesforce. With access to new valuable data, the organisation can now deliver personalised communications, increasing transparency and engagement, and further nurturing donor relationships.

“Within the first few hours of the integrated system going live, 700 donations had been received, rising to 7,000 on day two and 10,000 on day three, with 95% coming from around the world,” explained Individual Giving Fundraiser, Dmytro Skliar. “More than 120,000 individual international donors are now engaged with the organisation, with more than $21 million donated within the first nine months to support vital relief efforts,” he added.

The simplicity and speed by which donations can now be made has provided essential short term funding, whilst further longer-term support is organised by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Leveraging Automation to Deliver a Superior Donor Experience

With automation, the team has seen huge efficiency gains – tasks that used to take hours are now completed in seconds. This frees up staff to focus on higher value tasks, informed by detailed reporting generated by Salesforce.

Einstein is also providing insights, that is helping deliver a 50% open rate for email campaigns, with 2% then going on to donate, generating an average of $100,000 to $200,000 per email.

Now, the organisation is taking the successful Salesforce formula for its individual donors and adapting it for corporate donors. And Salesforce is set to play a pivotal role in the organisation’s digital transformation journey, through an integration with its new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.

More about the Ukrainian Red Cross Society

The Ukrainian Red Cross Society is the largest NGO in Ukraine. Following the Russian invasion, it has provided assistance to more than nine million people, with 8,000 trained volunteers providing humanitarian aid, places of safety and shelter for displaced persons, transport, medical, and psychosocial services. To make a donation and support the work of the Ukrainian Red Cross, visit here.