Community and Charity
Our people have a long history of actively supporting a wide range of charities and community organisations that are most meaningful to them. Activities like fundraising, sponsorship and volunteering are very common in Sage offices around the globe.
These are entirely locally led with each business setting its own direction on community and charity activity. As a result the support we give is extremely diverse and manifests itself in numerous ways many of which cannot be valued in monetary terms. Some examples are given below.
Case study 1 - China
A massive earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 happened in the Si Chuan province of China on May 12 2008. The death toll quickly rose to 70,000 with another 18,000 people reported missing. Millions of people have been left homeless as a result of the disaster. In order to help those affected rebuild their lives Sage has contributed to various fundraising and support efforts. Sage China employees donated money and goods and more than half of them donated blood to help the injured. Sage donated 100,000RMB and employees a further 26,931 RMB to the Chinese Red Cross.
Case Study 2 – South Africa
The Pastel Schools Programme aims to introduce computerised accounting to every Grade 10, 11 and 12 learner in the country to better educate young people in financial management skills that can increase post-school job opportunities and later benefit industry and commerce as more financially skilled young people enter the workforce.
The programme requires an investment of R1million per year to support the 200 educators and 100 schools across the country. Pastel developed a computerised training programme which fits with the schooling curriculum and is approved by the South African Government.
Case Study 3 – United Kingdom
The people of Sage in Newcastle donated their time and energy this month by giving up an evening of their time to volunteer for Sport Relief, a UK wide initiative to raise money for charity through encouraging people to participate in sport.
Part of the North Park headquarters became a charity call centre for the evening of the 14th March and over 100 volunteers from Sage gave up their Friday evening to receive telephone donations from members of the public on behalf of Sport Relief.
Sport Relief took place during the whole weekend of the 14th – 16th March, starting with a live televised entertainment show on the Friday night and culminating in a series of charity runs across the country on the Sunday.
Other activities included:
- Volunteers from Sage in the UK helping to rebuild a school in Tanzania
- Sage employees in North America volunteering in local Health Centres as part of a week-long focus on community health in the US
- Rachel Coates from Sage UK won the national Business in The Community Volunteer Award
- In North America we are helping to develop young accountants by offering free accounting software to more than 3,500 schools reaching more than 300,000 students.
- Employees’ children spending a day in the office as part of an education and employee engagement programme in Portugal
- Clothing collection for underprivileged children in Portugal
- Payroll giving introduced in North America
- Thuthuka programme in South African schools to support the advancement of previously disadvantaged learners at school level. The focus is on accountancy, maths and science and 70 state schools took part this year.
- A new charitable volunteering scheme in North America which enables employees to take a paid day off to volunteer for a charity or community organisation.
- In Switzerland it is customary to give a gift on Dec 6th, St Nicholas’ Day. The Swiss Sage team sends its larger customers gift bags of chocolates, nuts and fruit which are made by a charitable initiative who provide work for people with disabilities.
In addition to these activities Sage donated £285,000 to charitable causes (2007: 220,000) in the year.