Founded in 1906, the Los Angeles Firemen’s Relief Association (LAFRA) is a firefighter-led charitable organization committed to “firefighters helping firefighters.” Governed by a board of current and former firefighters, the nonprofit provides a broad range of essential benefits and services for active and retired members, as well as their families.
Elevation Solutions partnered with LAFRA to enhance its operations and technology use, and revamp the experience for its valued members. This involved re-platforming their entire custom built member management system, addressing key challenges with innovative solutions, like Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, and building a sustainable system and experience for the next generation of members.
UNDERSTANDING THE CORE CHALLENGES
LAFRA’s goal was to address limitations concerning technology and data management as well as member communication. With over 14,000 members, spouses, and families relying on its services, LAFRA operates with a lean team of about 25. This made any inefficiency in data management, communication workflows, or process facilitation highly impactful and often triggering a ripple effect across the organization.
Key challenges included:
- Technology Barriers – LAFRA’s operations were impacted by manual data review, duplicated data entry, and isolated internal communication.
- Data & Reporting Deficiencies – There was a need for reporting capabilities and training, an inability to segment data for targeted communication, and siloed internal processes that create roadblocks to accessing member information.
- Member Challenges – Members faced difficulties staying up-to-date with notices and communications and wanted increased visibility into their data through automated notifications.
- Process Bottlenecks – Critical process knowledge and ownership was often limited to a single individual, and process documentation was limited.
STRATEGIC SOLUTIONS & IMPLEMENTATION
To overcome these obstacles, LAFRA began a comprehensive overhaul focused on implementing a single, modern member system built on Salesforce. Together, we concentrated on three key areas:
Technology & Data – Creating a centralized, 360-degree view of member information and processes to support expanded reporting functionality including self-service, subscriptions, and data visualization through reports and dashboards. The solution also required enterprise-grade data security, field audit history, and robust data availability, backup, and compliance. Integrations with systems, digital forms, and marketing tools like Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot) and Mailchimp would establish a single source of truth. Select the video below to see the 360-degree view in action:
Enhanced Processes – Structuring Salesforce in a way that allowed LAFRA to document internal processes in a shared space, automate third-party data exchanges, and transition critical process knowledge and ownership to internal staff—ultimately reducing risk and minimizing data loss.
Billing & Benefits Automation – Focusing on the medical benefits program, Salesforce enabled automated assignments across thousands of coverage categories and facilitates millions of dollars in billing each month. This robust infrastructure seamlessly manages complex interactions between members, the City of Los Angeles, and LAFRA’s network of medical vendors, ensuring accuracy, efficiency, and scalability in every transaction.
PHASED APPROACH FOR TRANSFORMATION
Our roadmap and iterative approach for member-focused efforts with LAFRA ensures a smooth transition between functional rollouts. We started with core membership management and are setting the stage for fundraising and events as well as a self-service membership portal experience.
Core Membership Management & System Build Out: This involved establishing the integration infrastructure to support member recruitment, accounting management, various benefits enrollment and eligibility requirements (like medical, sick and injury, life and accident, assistance, advancements, DME equipment, estate planning, and more), member retirement, death of a member, communications and messaging, and grapevine (magazine) subscription management.
Future State:
- Fundraising & Events: For this Elevation Solutions will focus on implementing solutions for fundraising, event management, and mass marketing and communication tool integration.
- Enhanced Member Experience: This phase will involve rolling out a member experience portal, advanced case management, a self-serve knowledge base, enhanced payments management, and accounting integration.
ELEVATION SOLUTIONS, SALESFORCE & LAFRA IN ACTION: THE LOS ANGELES FIRES
While LAFRA was already using Salesforce to track donations and assistance for firefighters, the January 2025 Southern California wildfires created an urgent need for a new campaign to immediately track incoming funds and outgoing support for members and their families affected by the disaster. Elevation Solutions quickly set up opportunities and campaigns to capture fundraising efforts and generate detailed reports on funds received and assistance provided. This was supported by Salesforce NPSP’s Case Management, as well as Assistance and Payable records. With LAFRA’s accounting processes also fully integrated into Salesforce, the entire workflow from receiving donations to issuing checks for critical disaster support was managed seamlessly in one system.
LAFRA’s member-centric digital transformation, supported by Salesforce, marked a major step forward in aligning its operations with the evolving needs of its members and staff. By consolidating systems, streamlining processes, and enhancing member engagement tools, LAFRA is now better positioned to deliver fast, personalized, transparent and secure member services.
Want to speak with our team about Member Services or how Salesforce and Elevation Solutions can help your nonprofit support your mission? Connect with us using the form at the bottom of this page or email us at booking@elevation.solutions. We’d love to hear from you.
