How a 17-person nonprofit reclaimed 11 work weeks and put more time into serving families
“We're accountable to our funders, our partners, and the families we serve. That accountability starts with how we manage every dollar. Ramp makes it easy for our team to spend wisely, track in real time, and keep overhead low so more resources reach the families navigating infertility.”
CFO, Jewish Fertility Foundation
See insights on how 50,000+ customers spent on Ramp in 2025
Eleven years ago, Elana Frank sat beside a pool at an Atlanta JCC and started a conversation she couldn't let go of. She had done IVF in Israel, where treatment was covered as a matter of course. Back in the United States, she learned what families were paying for the same chance. That realization became the Jewish Fertility Foundation.
What started as a local effort in Atlanta has grown into a national organization with programming across more than ten locations. The conviction at the center of it hasn't changed: financial hardship should never be the reason a family's dream goes unrealized.
For an organization accountable to donors, grant-makers, and a fiduciary board, the stakes of a misallocated dollar are measured in families who don't get to try. Administrative overhead isn't just friction. It's a cost the mission pays directly.
A small team, a high bar, and no room for reconciliation week
"Before Ramp, month-end was genuinely one of the most draining weeks for our team," recalls Rachel Fruchtman, CFO. "We were chasing receipts over email, manually matching transactions, reconciling things that didn't add up."
Every hour that disappears into spreadsheets and inbox threads is an hour that belongs somewhere else. For a team of 17 managing grant disbursements, vendor relationships, event logistics, and donor reporting simultaneously, administrative work isn't just a distraction. It actively competes with the reason JFF exists.
Sarah Shah, Director of Development and Communications, put it plainly: "This type of work is a pull away from our mission. We are here to help families. Every hour spent on financial cleanup is an hour not spent on that."
JFF needed spend controls that protected donated dollars without forcing a 17-person team through unnecessary friction. They needed reporting that could hold up in front of a board, a major donor, or an auditor on short notice. And they needed it without adding headcount.
A disciplined build, starting with the basics
When JFF got started with Ramp, it wasn’t with any grand “finance transformation” mandate. They started with cards and a QuickBooks sync, got the fundamentals right, and then expanded only when the next constraint surfaced.
Less than a year in, they activated Bill Pay, bringing 89+ vendors onto the platform with approval workflows for every outgoing payment. Today, 11 custom automations govern expense submission, post-spend review, and bill approvals, running more than 23,000 times and enforcing policy automatically without anyone chasing a receipt or questioning a charge.
The value of that structure revealed itself at JFF's 10th anniversary staff retreat. When the entire team traveled to Atlanta, with travel, accommodations, meals, and expenses for a distributed group all running through the platform, reconciliation was handled before anyone was back at their desk. "I can only imagine the nightmare it would have been coming back from that retreat without Ramp," Sarah says.
Bill Pay has also changed how JFF handles one of its most operationally meaningful processes: paying the support group facilitators who run programming across its locations. Processing those payments through a consistent, professional system does more than reduce manual work. "When a facilitator is paid through a clear, documented process, it signals that this is a serious organization," Sarah says. "That matters for retention. People want to work with an organization that has its act together."
"Adding Bill Pay felt less like implementing a new tool and more like removing a process that never made sense. Vendor payments that used to live in email threads now have a clear approval chain and a record we can point to. Our board can see it. Our auditors can see it. And we didn't have to build that ourselves."
— Rachel Fruchtman, CFO at Jewish Fertility Foundation
For a 17-person nonprofit, running financial operations at this level isn't a luxury. It's what makes the organization fundable, auditable, and worthy of the trust that donors and grant-makers are placing in it.
11 work weeks back, plus a cleaner record for every stakeholder
For a nonprofit where donor trust is the operating condition, recovered time and money don't stay on the books. They become mission capacity.
According to Ramp's platform data, JFF reclaimed 454 hours in its first year — nearly 11 full work weeks pulled back from manual overhead. Almost all of it came from one change: the automated QuickBooks sync, which eliminated monthly close as a manual process. For a 17-person team, that kind of time recovery doesn't show up as a metric. It shows up in what the team is able to do with their days instead.
"The time has freed up our staff to focus on providing more support to people going through infertility: planning more support groups, more community meetups," says Sarah. Rachel adds: "And there's a mobility piece too. Staff can be out in the field, traveling, meeting with families and clinic partners, and handle what they need from their phones. The administrative overhead just doesn't hold them back the same way."
At JFF, more capacity means more Fertility Buddy matches, pairing families currently navigating treatment with veterans of the infertility journey who can offer guidance and real community. It means more events like JFF's in-person meetups, which bring together a community Sarah describes as "the worst club with the best members." And it means grants reviewed and disbursed faster: families waiting to begin treatment don't wait as long.
The money saved is equally direct. More than $45,000 saved in year one came from spend guardrails that keep purchases aligned to policy before they happen, plus cashback that turns the money JFF does spend into additional grant funding.
At a nonprofit where every dollar has a named destination, that money doesn't sit on a balance sheet. It becomes grants. It becomes families who can keep going.
Transparency that holds up in the room where decisions get made
JFF doesn't just need to manage its finances well. It has to prove it does. Every transaction is categorized and visible in real time. Every dollar is traceable from card swipe to QuickBooks entry to board report.
For an organization accountable to foundations with strict reporting requirements, major donors who conduct due diligence, and a fiduciary board with governance responsibilities, that kind of real-time, audit-ready record doesn't just reduce work. It earns the ongoing trust that funding depends on.
"We used to spend real time pulling together reporting before board meetings. Now it's just there. We walk into the room with everything already visible, and the meeting becomes about decisions instead of reconciling what happened last month. That shift is harder to quantify than the time savings, but it might matter more."
— Rachel Fruchtman, CFO at Jewish Fertility Foundation
Infrastructure that stays in the background, so the mission can stay in the foreground
JFF didn't need a large finance department. They needed infrastructure that functions like one: quietly, reliably, and with enough visibility that a 17-person team can move fast without losing control.
The foundation’s work touches families at some of the most demanding moments of their lives. The financial infrastructure running behind that community should be invisible to the people it serves. With Ramp, it is.
“When our team isn’t spending energy on financial cleanup, they’re spending it on families. That shows up in the calls we’re able to make, the events we can run, fertility buddy matches we can make, the grants we can get out the door faster. Ramp is part of how we make sure the overhead never becomes the story.”
— Elana Frank, CEO and Founder at Jewish Fertility Foundation
