Jewish National Fund Unifies Locations and Saves Money with Vonage

Since its inception in 1901, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) USA, has become a globally-recognized charity organization that is committed to building an economically sound and sustainable future for the people of Israel and beyond. To help achieve its primary goal of creating an enhanced quality of life for Israelis, JNF has planted more than 250 million trees, built over 250 reservoirs and dams, developed over 250,000 acres of land using innovative arid agriculture techniques, and created more than 2,000 parks in the country. JNF is equally dedicated to providing outreach and education regarding the founding and importance of Israel and Zionism. 

When Avi Dagan, JNF Executive Director of IT, assumed his position over a decade ago after being in the corporate world for many years, one of his goals was to bring “cutting edge technology” to the nonprofit realm of JNF. “We are dedicated to being at the forefront of technology. We are often approached by other organizations asking for recommendations based on our success, and we pride ourselves in being able to guide these nonprofits in the right direction,” said Dagan.

JNF employs over 300 people and has over 25 offices that cover different geographic regions in the United States. The organization’s headquarters is in Manhattan, and they have centers of excellence located in Rockville Centre NY, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boca Raton. JNF also has three satellite offices in Israel. It stands to reason that an organization as widely dispersed as JNF needed a single communications platform to help unify the maintenance and administration of the JNF phone system across all offices.

According to Dagan, “We had a clear vision and we needed to identify and implement a communications system that we felt confident would support us through the next 10 to 15 years.”

Future-proofing JNF with Vonage Business Communications 

When Dagan started his position at JNF, he was encouraged that the organization was already using a voice-over-IP system since, at the time, many non-profit organizations were slow to adopt new technology. Once he settled into his new role, he knew there were even more changes needed to move the organization forward. Dagan looked for a new platform to provide the kind of innovation he imagined.

“I wanted to see softphones; I wanted to see cloud-based administration; I wanted to see easy and seamless Salesforce integration,” recalled Dagan. “There were other companies that said they offered those things, but when we began testing ease-of-use, seamless integration, and the like, Vonage was the company that really delivered everything at the highest level.”

For JNF, Vonage Business Communications (VBC) was the obvious choice. By implementing Vonage Business Communications with World Office, JNF is now able to easily deploy communications applications and services—and facilitate business growth and expansion. 

JNF Saves Money by Unifying Locations on Vonage World Office 

It was important for Dagan to connect all of the JNF sites on one communications platform, and Vonage guided him through this process. By using just one communications platform, JNF can now more easily maintain and administer its system, use extension dialing, transfer calls effortlessly, and save money by removing international costs. 

With World Office, JNF is enjoying a cost-effective global call plan with one centralized bill. The organization is able to easily scale and expand to new offices and new locations. They can port existing international numbers without business disruptions and loss of productivity. 

“With World Office, we get great VBC service, plus three-digit dialing to all locations. We are removing international calling costs with three-digit dialing to Israel, plus the displacement of legacy on-prem telephone hardware and Israeli phone service resulted in further savings. With softphones and IP phones that are using the internet in Israel we’re all on one unified platform. There are no extra charges involved. It’s all included within our Vonage license.”

Easy Implementation and Excellent Support from Vonage

According to Dagan, the biggest difference between Vonage and other communications companies that he’s worked with in the past is that Vonage offers all the benefits of a large, global company, but is still able to provide focused, individualized customer service. 

“We get the attention that we need at a level you don't necessarily receive elsewhere,” said Dagan. “Vonage is a big company, but we feel as if they are part of us and committed to addressing our specific issues. We never feel that we are put to the side. We are treated the way an organization should be treated, with a high level of attention and support.”

Dagan explained that implementing Vonage Business Communications was a smooth process, considering that JNF had to adopt and adjust to a totally new communications system. “Of course, we had our obstacles that we needed to overcome, but due to our internal JNF resource Gary Buchwald, Director of Telecommunication, coupled with Vonage support, the process ended up going extremely well. Both sides learned a lot from the other, and that's the beauty of a partnership.”