Community
Supporting our local communities
Our people have a long history of actively supporting a wide range of charities and community organisations that are most meaningful to them locally. Activities like fundraising, sponsorship and volunteering are very common in Sage offices around the globe. Some examples are shown below but these are just a sample of the work our people have undertaken to support their local communities during the course of the year.
Royal Recognition
Our commitment to our local communities starts at the very top. In recognition of his work in the community, Paul Walker, Sage Group Chief Executive, was awarded the position of North East Ambassador of the Year for Business in the Community by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales.
UK & Ireland
The team has a structured approach to volunteering and charity efforts and has completed over 817 hours of volunteer work in the local community on numerous projects to help charities and other community groups.
Sage UK also provided a call centre to help process donations for a national charity day ‘Comic Relief’. Over 860 hours were worked by Sage volunteers on the phones through the evening and into the night to help collect donations on behalf of the charity.
Other highlights include:
- Raised £32,730.50 in aid of Cancer Research UK as part of our Annual Sage Day
- Donated £26,751.50 through monthly dress down days and charitable collections
- We’ve donated £55,000 to great causes through our community foundation funds (see case study example)
- 210 hours of support delivered into local schools
- Delivered localised appeals across all UK sites for underprivileged children and families
- Supported a team of employees by brokering fundraising events & providing financial support to help support their trip to Nepal to help build a new school for local children
- Sage UK employee Stacey Rogers won North East Volunteer of the Year award
Mainland Europe & Asia
Each Sage business throughout Europe and Asia selects its own charities and community projects to support.
Examples of other activity across the region include:
- Donation in France to ‘SOS Village d’enfants of €40,000
- Collection for “Secours Populaire Francais” of clothes, essential items and donations of €6900
- In Poland, Sage supports the “Iskierka” foundation which helps children suffering from Cancer. Initiatives to raise money for the charity include an auction of art works by the children. A winter promotion of 5% discount on our products forwarded as a donation for “Iskierka” foundation worth about 10.000 PLN
- Sage in Germany has provided financial support to “Die Tafel”, an organisation that allocates foods to homeless people, in Frankfurt, Mönchengladbach, Leipzig and Stuttgart and to “Delhi House“, a centre for homeless people
North America
In North America we have expanded our community and charitable activity this year. Our Giving is Living charitable programme was extended to support a wider range of organisations. Through the programme, which encourages employees to donate to charities of their choosing, Sage provides a 50% match to donations. In 2009 over $175,000 was donated to charities through the programme.
Other volunteer activity included:
- For Sage Day the team decided to support community food banks by collecting food. All campuses participated, with food donations totalling more than 17,000lbs.
- Sage Healthcare employees doing voluntary work at community health centres throughout the country in August to support National Health Centre Week
- Sage X3 ERP Marketing Communications Manager Christine Span was named American Red Cross Southwestern Pennsylvania Chapter Volunteer of the Month for May, 2009!
- The St. Petersburg campus HOPE Committee raised more than $2500 to provide toys for 50 needy children through ASAP Homeless Services.
- The Richmond, B.C. Campus “Green Team” volunteers to collect and deliver recyclables from the campus, doing weekly drop-offs and using the resulting funds to support local charities.
- Employees from our Scottsdale campus raised funds to support the Phoenix Rescue Mission and the homeless and needy children they serve.
Rest of World
Following the bushfires that raged across Australia, our people in Sage Australia decided to work together to raise funds for those who had been affected.
The business hosted events across all locations to raise money to help those affected and all employees were encouraged to donate much needed blood to the Australian Blood bank to help burns victims. In total the 270 employees in Australia raised AUD9,000 which was matched by Sage resulting in an AUD18,000 donation to the Australian Red Cross.
In recognition of its work in the community, Pastel, part of our Softline business in South Africa was awarded the local and national Community Spirit award at the annual Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Awards. The BPO awards, aims to recognise the outstanding performance of contact centres in South Africa. Pastel Accounting was acknowledged for exceptional Community Spirit initiatives, such as Habitat for Humanity, the Thuthuka Accountancy Olympiad, the 702 Small Business Awards and Aids Day initiatives to name a few.
Other activities include:
- Sage Business Solutions in Australia has an alliance with three charities and each employee is given one day a year to do voluntary work for one of the charities
- Sage Micropay coordinates a Christmas Giving Tree programme to collect presents for underprivileged children. Last year 180 presents were donated to children’s charities.
- A total amount of R45000 was donated to CANSA following a charity shavathon in which Sage matched employee donations.
- At Softline VIP Payroll each department in VIP has selected a charity project to support. Employees are encouraged to be personally involved in the community and various projects have been running during FY09.
- On three different occasions this year Pastel employees collected clothes, non perishable food and gifts for disadvantaged communities.