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The Organization
For more than 120 years, Jewish Federation Bay Area has helped strengthen Jewish life throughout Northern California and beyond. Today, the organization stewards approximately $2.5 billion in charitable assets across more than 1,500 funds, distributing roughly $200 million annually through donor-advised funds (DAFs), supporting foundations, agency funds and endowment funds.
As one of the nation’s largest Jewish community foundations, the Federation helps donors turn charitable intent into lasting impact while supporting organizations across the Jewish and broader communities.
Justin Stevens, Managing Director of Data and Business Operations, oversees much of the technology behind that experience, including the Federation’s fund portal.
"Our most prized technology is our fund portal. We want philanthropy to be fast, easy and engaging – something people can do from wherever they are."
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The Challenge
Donor-advised funds have become one of the fastest-growing ways for individuals and families to give, but donor expectations are changing. Fund holders increasingly expect digital experiences that are intuitive and rich with information, but also personalized to their unique interests. Jewish Federation Bay Area wanted to continue differentiating itself through trusted philanthropic expertise, making it easier for donors to discover organizations and make confident giving decisions.
Like many community foundations, Jewish Federation Bay Area relied on established nonprofit data providers to support grantee vetting and reporting. While those platforms offered access to nonprofit profiles and tax filings, they weren't designed to deliver the connected, customizable intelligence the Federation wanted for both its staff and DAF holders.
"We had connectivity to Candid, but found their Salesforce connectivity lacking. The data was often unclean or misrepresented, and we had no way to categorize organizations in ways that reflected how we think about philanthropy."
Staff often found themselves piecing together information from multiple sources, manually validating nonprofit data and supplementing records with additional research. The result was a process that required significant effort while still falling short of the donor experience the Federation wanted to provide.
Rather than simply replacing one data provider with another, the Federation was looking for a platform that could transform that data into meaningful intelligence, ultimately creating a richer, more informed experience for its donors.
The Solution
Jewish Federation Bay Area selected Impala to strengthen three core areas of its philanthropy platform: grantee due diligence, ecosystem intelligence and the DAF experience.
Impala streamlined internal grantee vetting by bringing together nonprofit profiles, financial information and organizational data into a single workflow, reducing the need to search across multiple systems.
The platform also gave the Federation a clearer understanding of its broader philanthropic ecosystem. Rather than relying on generic nonprofit categories, Impala enabled the Federation to apply its existing taxonomy across the platform, organizing nonprofits according to its own philanthropic priorities. That made reporting more meaningful, improved ecosystem analysis and helped staff better understand where grants were creating impact.
Most importantly, Impala became part of the Federation’s fund portal. Fund holders can now access richer nonprofit information directly within the giving experience, helping them research organizations, understand the Federation’s existing relationships and make more informed grant recommendations.
Behind the scenes, Impala was integrated into the Federation’s existing technology ecosystem to deliver nonprofit intelligence wherever it is needed. Staff can access enriched nonprofit data and due diligence information directly within their Salesforce workflows, while DAF holders see the same trusted information through the Federation’s fund portal. When deeper research is needed, both staff and donors can seamlessly link into Impala’s full platform, creating a connected experience without disrupting existing workflows.
"We leverage Impala's data directly in our portal so our fund holders can do much of their own research. This helps them better understand the organization and make their own determinations as to the value of the work, ultimately leading to more informed funding decisions."
The Federation is already working with Impala on the next phase of its donor experience. By integrating Impala's AI capabilities into its fund portal, the organization plans to help fund holders discover nonprofits aligned with their interests while making it easier to explore new causes and giving opportunities.
"If someone is interested in climate change, for example, we'd like to recommend additional organizations working in that space. It's similar to how Amazon recommends products, but applied to philanthropy."
"Community foundations have always provided trusted philanthropic guidance. Today's donors expect that same expertise delivered through modern technology. Our goal is to help organizations like Jewish Federation Bay Area combine deep community knowledge with data and AI to create a more informed, personalized giving experience."
The Results
Since implementing Impala, Jewish Federation Bay Area has seen measurable operational improvements while laying the foundation for a more personalized donor experience.
One of the earliest benefits came through streamlining grantee due diligence and donor research. By consolidating nonprofit intelligence into a single workflow and making richer information directly available through its fund portal, the Federation reduced manual research, improved operational efficiency and avoided the need to hire additional temporary staff to support these processes.
Within its first year of using Impala, the Federation achieved its goal of doubling the return on its investment in the platform, demonstrating measurable value through operational efficiencies while laying the foundation for a more informed donor experience.
Beyond the operational efficiencies and strong ROI, Impala has given the Federation new visibility into its own philanthropic impact. In early discussions, Impala leveraged its data to highlight that Jewish Federation Bay Area was the largest funder of Jewish philanthropy in California – an insight the organization had never previously been able to quantify.
"It was exciting to see how quickly the team was able to share that information with us, and it was validating to better understand our place within the broader philanthropic landscape."
The platform has also opened new possibilities for how the Federation supports donors - beyond simply processing grant recommendations, it is helping people discover organizations, explore causes and make increasingly informed philanthropic decisions.
What's Ahead
Looking ahead, Jewish Federation Bay Area plans to continue expanding how it uses Impala to support both staff and donors. In addition to further streamlining grantee due diligence, the organization hopes to develop personalized giving guides that help fund holders explore causes aligned with their philanthropic interests and strengthen long-term engagement with the Federation.
For Stevens, however, the greatest impact has been broader than technology.
"We'd love to create giving guides based on what someone already cares about. If someone is passionate about animal welfare, for example, we could introduce them to additional organizations making an impact in that area.
It was humbling to see how much philanthropy is happening across the country. Impala helped us see that we're all working toward the same goal – to help and to heal. Even if someone doesn't give through us, we can still help connect them with organizations making a difference."
