ICRF (Israel Cancer Research Fund)

THE CUSTOMER

Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) supports the best researchers and scientists to improve cancer diagnosis, treatments, and cures for the past 40 years. ICRF is the largest nongovernmental source of cancer research funding in Israel.

In 2021, ICRF funded 71 cancer research projects. One of those projects became instrumental in the development of breakthrough FDA-approved drugs. Moreover, this project includes the first two Israeli Nobel Prize Laureates in Chemistry.

ICRF’s international headquarters is in New York City. Their internal team consists of 20 people located across the globe (the US, Canada, and Israel).

THE CHALLENGE

ICRF migrated from Outlook to Google Workspace. This prompted Lior Lapid, Chief Executive Officer of ICRF, to look for an easy solution to continue sharing and synchronizing contact lists (labels).

The takeaway was to do it the exact way they used to share contacts with Outlook:

• Mainly within the entire organization with the core staff (team of approx. 20 people across NY, Chicago, Toronto, and Tel Aviv); and
• With researchers and scientists outside of the organization.

Unfortunately, Google only has the Contact Delegation feature. This is too limited for sharing contacts the way ICRF needs. ICRF wanted an address book with no limit of contacts. Plus, there should be numerous collaborators as well. More importantly, everything should be directly accessed from their mobile phone, email, or their Google Contacts manager.

Using a costly CRM was not a valid option. Most CRM functions are for sales and marketing. ICRF need not pay for those.  In the field of cancer research, each penny counts.

THE SOLUTION

Lior Lapid found Shared Contacts for Gmail on Google Workspace Marketplace. He immediately installed it. Afterward, he was able to share contacts with his colleagues and with Google groups composed of ICRF’s staff.

The relief was immediate. Prior to installing our app, they considered moving back to Outlook just to be able to share their contacts with their staff across multiple countries. Before finding Shared Contacts for Gmail, they also thought of sharing an email or a shared document with a password in order to share their contacts. However, this solution was absolutely not secured and not satisfying.

WHAT DID THEY SAY

“The app answers all of our queries perfectly. Studies show that on average, researchers spend between 30 – 40% of their time on relentless tasks that do not even concern the research. Scientists that we support, should not have to waste their time on such matters. Your app helps us save time and focus on what matters, and therefore it directly contributes to saving lives “