Habitat for Humanity Winnipeg Exceeds 2011 Event Fundraising Goal by $60K With Help From Sage Fundraising Online

WINNIPEG, MB--(Marketwire - Sep 30, 2011) - Sage North America today announced that Habitat for Humanity Winnipeg (HFHW) recently used the friend-to-friend fundraising tools in Sage Fundraising Online to exceed its Cycle of Hope 2011 fundraising event goal by $60,000.

Habitat for Humanity Winnipeg is a local affiliate of an international, nonprofit-registered charity, committed to eliminating poverty housing and dedicated to making safe, decent, and affordable housing for purchase by low-income, working families. One of more than 40 Sage Connected Services available today, Sage Fundraising Online is a flexible fundraising and event registration connected service helping nonprofits and other organizations more effectively use the Internet to increase giving, participation, and overall support.

Cycling for Hope
Since 1993, HFHW has organized an annual special event called Cycle of Hope, during which riders journey 1,600 km and raise enough money to enable HFHW to build a new affordable home for a family in need.

Each rider is required to raise a minimum of $2,500 to participate, and is encouraged to tap into his own social network in order to reach that goal.

Implementing Sage Fundraising Online
"We chose to use Sage Fundraising Online during this year's Cycle of Hope to make it easier for participants to raise money, and are thrilled about raising $60,000 more than we had originally hoped," said Heather Scott, database and administration supervisor for HFHW.

Not only did HFHW use Sage Fundraising Online to create customized Cycle of Hope 2011 registration forms, it also used the service's features to enable event participants to create personalized fundraising pages to share within their own social networks.

Using Advocacy for Friend-to-Friend Fundraising
Sage Fundraising Online's Advocacy toolset allows HFHW to specify goals for individual fundraisers and allows supporters to use personalized fundraising pages on HFHW's website.

"The feedback we received confirmed the peer-to-peer fundraising tool made it easier for cyclists to reach out to more people they knew," explained Scott.

All Cycle of Hope 2011 participants have personal fundraising goals, and can upload their own images and write personal statements to share with friends and family. They also have real-time widgets for tracking incoming donations, and personalized pages which they can promote to their own networks. Fundraisers receive notifications whenever donations are received on their page, so they can follow up with personal thank you notes.

Using Sage Fundraising Online, Cycle of Hope supporters are also able to quickly and easily share links to HFHW's fundraising forms via email, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as embed special fundraising forms directly on their own personal blog or website.

Tapping New Sources of Support
Scott immediately noticed the difference Sage Fundraising Online made, as new sources of support materialized. "We received donations from all over Canada, the U.S., and Europe," she said. "In the past, I had only seen one donation come from overseas."

"The donors reached by Cycle of Hope participants may have no particular affinity for HFHW itself, or may not even live in the same country, but they have a great affinity to support their friends, so they contribute," added Scott.

Maintaining Control During Extreme Circumstances
Enabling supporters with online fundraising tools was critical to HFHW's Cycle of Hope 2011 success, especially when circumstances beyond the organization's control threatened to delay incoming funds.

"A major postal strike occurred in the middle of our campaign, but Sage Fundraising Online allowed our participants to keep raising money," said Scott. "Some supporters who would normally have mailed in cheques used the online system during the postal strike. I'm hoping they now see how effortless and quick it is to donate online, and will do so from now on."

Sage Fundraising Online is a flexible fundraising and event registration connected service that helps nonprofits and other organizations more effectively use the Internet to increase giving, participation, and overall support. Selected as a Top New Product for 2010 by Accounting Today magazine, Sage Fundraising Online either integrates or maps to a number of CRM products in the nonprofit software market, including Sage Fundraising 50 and Salesforce.com. Sage Fundraising Online is delivered as a Software as a Service (SaaS) and works with almost any website, software platform, or content publishing system, so organizations get the most out of their current technology. For more information, please visit http://www.sagefundraisingonline.com.

Sage has been serving nonprofit and governmental organizations throughout North America for more than 30 years. The company currently helps more than 32,000 unique not-for-profit organizations increase efficiency and more easily manage their operations through the use of technology. From fund accounting, donor and fundraising management, and fixed asset management, to online donation processing, human resources (HR), payroll, and health care, Sage offers a software product or service to meet the organization's need. For more information, call 800-811-0961 or visit www.sagenonprofit.com. Follow Sage Nonprofit Solutions on Twitter, www.twitter.com/SageNonprofit, and Facebook, www.facebook.com/sagenonprofitsolutions.

About Habitat for Humanity Winnipeg
Habitat for Humanity Winnipeg (HFHW) is a local affiliate of an international, nonprofit-registered charity, committed to eliminating poverty housing and dedicated to making safe, decent, and affordable housing for purchase by low-income, working families. For more information, please visit http://www.habitat.mb.ca/index.cfm, or contact 204-233-5160.

About Sage North America
Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and services. Sage North America employs 3,900 people and supports more than 3 million small and midsized business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs 13,600 people and supports more than 6 million customers worldwide. For more information, please visit the Web site at www.sagenorthamerica.com. Follow Sage North America on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/SageNorthAmerica, and Twitter, http://twitter.com/#!/sagenamerica.

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