United Hatzalah of Israel

When Fundraising and Operations Cross Paths to Help Volunteers Save Lives

Born in 2006 out of a simple need to get to emergency scenes for fast medical first response, United Hatzalah strives to save as many lives as possible. Growing from humble beginnings of using a radio scanner in their local community, to the advanced life-saving technology it uses today didn’t happen overnight.

In 2011, the Jerusalem-based emergency medical services organization United Hatzalah partnered with Salesforce to equip its volunteers in the field with the real-time information during an emergencies to speed up response times.

Expanding from a one-man operation to 200+ employees today, the organisation uses the Salesforce to deliver successful projects and fundraising campaigns. Its donor management program integrates with its medical database, enabling United Hatzalah to communicate with donors about how their donation has been spent, resulting in deeper emotional connections with donors, and greater donations in the process. Today, United Hatzalah is the postcard story for how smart solutions can result in success for nonprofits.

A Platform to Enable, Accelerate, and Accompany Growth

As United Hatzalah grew, so did their tech – with their own smartphone app, fast-response ambucycle vehicle – its ambulance on two wheels – and state-of-the-art national dispatch centre all forming the backbone of their emergency response efforts.

To fuel and run this massive operation, organisations such as United Hatzalah rely on a steady stream of donations from generous donors and companies looking to make a positive impact on their community. To be successful in sourcing donations, fundraising teams need to speak the language of their target audiences, appeal to issues that resonate with them, and create lasting emotional connections that translate to sustainable funding.

It became apparent early on that in order to match fundraising to its growth rate and ambitions, United Hatzalah would need to do away with handling donor information and management on spreadsheets. The organisation knew it needed to make the move towards a robust platform that could easily handle its current fundraising and operational needs and provide the functionalities in line with its ambitions over the coming years and decades.

Solutions That Leverage Strengths and Build Connections

Building relationships with donors is key to successful fundraising. People become donors for different reasons, and some may have preferences on where their money goes. It’s crucial to connect fundraising to programs so that donors can witness the real world impact of their donations. There is real emotional value in knowing how many lives United Hatzalah’s ambucycle has saved – that you helped to finance.

That is why United Hatzalah needed a solution that integrated donor information with warehousing and operations. Salesforce’s Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) provided just that. It gave United Hatzalah’s fundraisers a unified view of their data across fundraising and programs, enabling them to manage their relationships on one platform.

NPSP keeps track of details related to each one of United Hatzalah’s 144,000 donors – from contacts and account information, to check scans, and notes from calls. It also maps out giving patterns and provides insights on how to connect with donors, as well as helping to find new donors.

The real-time reports and dashboards help drive better decision making and give control to fundraisers together with the ability to meet donors where they are, creating deeper engagement paths and journeys. The team can use this data to produce impact reports for program-specific donors to communicate how their funds are being used. For unrestricted donations, the data is used to create donor newsletters which have become vital to United Hatzalah’s fundraising success.

Fully Integrated and Ready to Grow Together

While the use of Salesforce was basic at first, it quickly became an integral part of the growth and operational strategy at United Hatzalah. From keeping its volunteers in the field informed in real time to speed up medical response time, engagement options and virtual training for volunteers, to thinking about the renovation of its headquarters in Jerusalem, Salesforce is part of every conversation for new projects – even their international expansion and launch of operations in the U.S, United Rescue.

The success of NPSP means United Hatzalah has also invested in other solutions such as Marketing Cloud Account Engagement to further enrich their fundraising and marketing operations, working towards a more personalised engagement experience. United Hatzalah is also part of the Salesforce Einstein pilot program, the technology that incorporates AI features and capabilities, enabling users to make data-driven decisions to maximize their impact, whilst saving huge amounts of time and funds.

United Hatzalah’s success, which equates to actual lives saved, highlights the critical role that a digital-first strategy can play when faced with new and unexpected challenges. During the outbreak of COVID-19, it was able to respond to the crisis and play a key role in the national vaccination and testing program, as well as providing COVID patient transport and elderly home visits – supporting thousands of Israel’s most vulnerable populations. More recently, in response to the war in Ukraine, United Hatzalah was the first medical aid organization on the ground in Moldova, providing tens of thousands of refugees with humanitarian aid and medical care across Ukraine.

This was possible thanks to operational excellence across their organization – from equipment management, to tracking of funding and donations, and reporting on the impact of their work – and it was all powered by Salesforce technology.

About United Hatzalah of Israel

United Hatzalah of Israel is the country’s largest fully volunteer EMS organization. Using their unique GPS technology and iconic ambucycles, the organisation’s 6,200 volunteers provide fast and free urgent medical first response throughout Israel.