Meet Esther Sky, aged 92. Esther grew up in the small village of Stopnica, Poland and is a Holocaust survivor who survived Bergen-Belsen. During the Holocaust, Ether was forced to work in a chemical factory whose noxious fumes caused her severe health problems. Together with her friends, who helped hide Esther’s sickness from the Nazis, she survived the camp and was taken to a Swedish hospital to recover. Esther recuperated in the hospital after the war for a period of four years and there she eventually met her husband Ben.

Following Esther’s recovery, she and Ben moved to Canada where they had some distant relatives who would help the two rebuild their lives. Later in life, Esther and Ben moved to Los Angeles. When the two of them began accumulating some wealth they made an agreement that when they die they would like to donate a large portion of the money to worthy causes.

With Ben’s passing not so long ago, Esther decided it was time to make good on their pact. She wanted to donate over 1 million NIS to a worthy cause in Israel, but was unsure of how to proceed in America in order to be able to do so. She got in contact with an organization called IsraelGives and the rest is history.

Coinciding with Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, it was announced that Esther donated 1.3 million NIS ($373,000) to Baruch Padeh Medical Center – Poriya Hospital in the Galilee via the IsraelGives website.

“[I made the donation] in order to save lives, like my life was saved in a hospital after the war,” Esther told The Jerusalem Post.

The donation will go toward the expansion of a $7 million ambulatory care wing equipped with surgical suites, recovery units and offices, aimed at expanding the scope and number of surgical procedures performed at the hospital.

IsraelGives is the largest online donation website and platform that exists in Israel. The website facilitates donations from all over the world in a variety of currencies to any non-profit organization in Israel. With a list of over 31,000 non-profits to choose from, it is veritable buffet of worthy Israeli causes that a foreign or even Israeli donor can donate to. With it’s easy to use website and helpful staff, donating money has never been easier.

Tal  Wolgroch, the Business Development Manager of IsraelGives, told Breaking Israel News, “People are more inclined to donate to a worthy cause which is close to their heart in Israel, as they have the added bonus of helping Israel.”

Before IsraelGives was founded, donating money to organizations directly in Israel was not all easy. Between finding the particular cause or non-profit, getting the tax deductible refund and then actually making the payments, often donations involved a lot of hassle that deterred would-be-philanthropists from making their much needed donations.  

IsraelGives was created specifically to help facilitate and expedite the donation process, paving the way for anyone from around the world who wishes to donate to Israel, no matter what size the donation, to do so.

“We founded e-philanthropy in Israel,” Wolgroch said. “Online donations, online fundraising, connecting those with social networking and crowdfunding, all of that was brand new and undeveloped in Israel and we decided to do something about that.”

Noa Mandell, a project manager at the organization, explained the overall goal of IsraelGives. “We take the the best of the business world and the best of the social entrepreneur world and put them together and help enable the non-profit to do the work that they need to do, that they have expertise in, in order to make this country a better place to live.”

“One of the most important things when building or furthering a non-profit is the fundraising that allows for the programs to actually happen,” Mandell added. “When the non-profit is built properly and and the strategic outlook is built properly, then they can function as they should and create all of the amazing programs that they create.”

“Fundraising is one of the most important things to consider when building or furthering a non-profit. We help take some of that burden off of the founders or directors of non-proifts.”

IsraelGives lists all 31,000 plus non-profit organizations in Israel and allows the person donating to not only search through their extensive database but to make a secure donation directly from their website to any organization of their choice. In addition, IsraelGives provides a full tax deductible receipt to donors so that the organizations do not have to worry about it. However, IsraelGives helps out in many ways beyond just receiving and passing along the donation.

“We do social campaigns and create special forms for each non-profit that works with us. We also provide a safe and secure way to place credit card transactions, and offer advisors and counseling for the non-profits to help with their strategic short term, yearly as well as long term planning.  The non-profits that choose to work with us and use the tools that we make available for them are very happy with our help,” said Mandell.

IsraelGives is the largest website that facilitates donations in Israel, and the numbers stand to prove it. Founded in 2009 by Jonathan Bonder, who was among the originators of Israel’s largest food donation agency Leket Israel, launched IsraelGives with the idea of taking fundraising platforms online donations developed by Leket Israel to the next level.

“We’ve helped thousands for non-profits raise money online and via crowdfunding campaigns. We are even starting to help young girls and boys who raise money in order to donate it to Israel during their Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrations. We are a social enterprise and we are a for profit company that invests all of its profits in building technologies that help non-profits,” said Wolgroch.

“This whole field of crowdfunding and online donations has been taking off globally for the past ten years, and in Israel, until recently, did not exist. It is a completely new field,” he added.

Currently, anyone can donate via IsraelGives to any of the 31,000 plus non-profits in Israel. However, IsraelGives works very closely with 1,100 of them to help make their campaigns more successful. The organization has seen donations that come into Israel from abroad double each year, and that pattern is holding steady. To date, there have been 182,896 people who have donated to Israel via the website, the most generous donation of all was Esther’s.

According to the business news site The Marker’ “Over the past few years the internet has quickly become one of the most important tools for fundraising and philanthropy and primarily in the US. Over $25 billion have been donated online which is 8 percent of all philanthropic donations made in the US,” and IsraelGives is tapping into that.

“IsraelGives has changed the way that people in Israel think about, and donate to, charity. While most charitable organizations are thinking small, and that Israeli donors will only donate small amounts, IsraelGives is opening the door for big donations as well via the internet. They are reshaping how Israelis view donating,” The Marker stated.

Statistics provided by IsraelGives show that while there are more donors from Israel, in total, the foreign donors on average donate more money. The average donation from US donors to Israeli non-profits is 413 NIS ($118), while the average donation to US charities is only 293 NIS ($83). Israeli donors make an average donation  of 129 NIS ($37) and account for 68 percent of all donations handled by the site. While the number of Israeli donors is larger, the amount Israelis donate is smaller, totalling only 40 percent of all the money donated.

In 2012 IsraelGives  saw a 66 percent increase in the amount donated for a total of 12.5 million NIS as opposed to 7.5 million NIS collected in 2011. The donations keep increasing and now, thanks to Esther’s donation, 2014 looks to outshine all of the previous years.

Esther was made an example of in Bergen-Belsen as to what the inmates could expect if they misbehave. She was made to stand out in the cold, naked, for hours until icicles froze in her hair.

In Sweden she was saved by the care and commitment of a dedicated team at the hospital. When the time came to choose a charity to donate to, Esther remembered her time there, and chose a hospital to show her gratitude. She chose Poriya after having met a doctor from that hospital while in the US that left her with an life-changing impression.

“She contacted us, and wanted to make a donation specifically to a hospital. After working out the details with her we were proud to make it happen.” said Mandell.  IsraelGives processed the donation and Esther will be an example yet again, but this time, she will be an example of how to help change the world, one donation at a time.