Community

It is our policy to be an integral part of the communities in which we are based. We are committed to developing relationships with those communities, where appropriate, through voluntary activities and donations. Our businesses have fostered close relationships with many communities through local initiatives and numerous donations have been made to local, national and international charities and community foundations.

In total this year we donated over £10.5M to various charities in donations and gifts in kind.

Each of our operating companies continue to work within the community in ways that are meaningful to them and their people. Some examples of this work are given below.

Sage Healthcare, St Petersburg, Florida

Employee committee brings HOPE to local children

Each year the St Petersburg employee HOPE committee focuses their attention on local organisations, schools and employees and their families who are in need and would not receive significant donations from other larger charitable organisations. Woodlawn Elementary School was identified as a school ‘in-need’ as was known to many of the employees as it is close to the offices.

After an employee appeal the team was able to send a full truck load of supplies to the school including school equipment, stationery and a washer and dryer to launder the uniforms of the children. The committee received a flood of thank you notes from children at the school which now fill a bulletin board in the office.

Softline, South Africa

Softline Pastel works with schools to increase IT literacy in young people

In South Africa there is a skills shortage in IT and this is exacerbated by challenges such as lack of funding in schools to buy equipment, lack of IT education in the curriculum. In industry, there is a lack of qualified accountants and book-keepers with the skills to aid small and growing businesses with the necessary support to grow their businesses. So this becomes an economic as well as an education issue.

The aim of the Softline Pastel project is to help enlarge the talent pool by equipping youngsters with computing and accounting skills relevant in modern industry and thus help build the South African economy in a very practical way.

The Pastel Certified School Programme is designed to enhance and encourage the teaching of accounting to young people, equipping them with vital skills for adult life and helping them to find jobs when they leave school. During 2007 Softline Pastel supplied 5,000 secondary schools throughout South Africa with free educational accounting software and educator training.

Sage Spain, Madrid and Barcelona

Employees in Sage Spain identified a cause to create a public library in Paraguay which would provide children and adults access to books for education and self development who otherwise would not have access to such resources. They selected this as their charity to support during ‘Sage Day 2007’.

Employees were encouraged to bring in suitable materials and at the end of the project they were able to donate over 700 books to help create the new library and the company matched each book with a 1 Euro donation. Along with cash donations the library received an additional Euro 900 with the books to help it become established and it is now providing much needed reading and educational material.