Sage Previews New ePhilanthropy Offering, Plans Next-Generation Technical Enhancements for Millennium, and Launches Hosted Sage Fundraising 50 Options for Nonprofit Organizations

NEW ORLEANS, LA--(Marketwire - March 30, 2009) - Sage North America today announced several fundraising technology developments designed to further help nonprofit organizations support their missions. The company will soon offer a new ePhilanthropy tool; has a renewed focus on adding next-generation technical capabilities to its Millennium fundraising platform; and has launched fully managed hosting services for its Sage Fundraising 50 software. Sage is demonstrating all of these technologies on the trade show floor at the Association of Fundraising Professionals' (AFP) 2009 International Conference on Fundraising, being held through Wednesday at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

ePhilanthropy: Going Where Donors Are

Sage will soon introduce a low-cost "viral fundraising" tool that will allow nonprofit organizations to cost-effectively increase their donations using the Internet. Employing the concept of contextual giving, the new ePhilanthropy offering is designed to help organizations quickly create donation forms that can be placed within any Web page, as well as link their e-mails to the campaign-specific content page on their site. The embedded forms allow donors to fully complete the transaction within the content that inspired the gift, so organizations can secure higher conversion rates and larger gift sizes.

"Using this technology, organizations can easily align passions with causes, and have others spread the word for them while they control their messages," said Krista Endsley, senior vice president and general manager for Nonprofit Solutions at Sage North America. "The new tool enables nonprofits to take full advantage of existing Web pages and social networks already frequented by their constituents, so those same constituents can become fundraisers in their own right. It also helps organizations launch or improve their event-based fundraisers, since they can build, deploy, and share their own custom forms anywhere, with all registrant data and fees accessible to them immediately."

The tool requires no technical or programming skills on the part of the nonprofit, so an organization can have their campaign up and running in minutes.

Strategic Fundraising Technology Platform

Sage has renewed its focus on adding next-generation technical capabilities to its Millennium fundraising platform. With an easy-to-navigate, unique Web-based design that can be set up as an Internet or intranet application, Millennium fundraising software is already helping nonprofit organizations more easily manage campaigns and events, track donors, and create reports.

The company plans to add functionality to ensure the product delivers a full-featured "front-end" donor experience, including online giving, event and membership registration, e-mail marketing, as well as the most powerful "back-end" fundraising management functionality, such as constituent and gift tracking, event and membership management, business intelligence (BI), and reporting.

"After extensive due diligence, we concluded that the right investments could easily accelerate Millennium to the next level of fundraising software," said Endsley. "Millennium's back-end sophistication and powerful customization features provide the ideal platform to expand and enable our future fundraising strategy. The product already offers sophisticated business intelligence tools, superior prospect management workflow and major gift tracking, and a continued focus on accessible data."

Sage will host a cocktail reception at AFP's International Conference this evening to celebrate the Millennium product.

Hosted Fundraising Technology Options

Sage has launched fully managed hosting services for its Sage Fundraising 50 software to help nonprofit organizations lower their total cost of ownership (TCO), while increasing flexibility and accessibility. With no need to deploy or maintain a server, hosted Sage Fundraising 50 can minimize an organization's information technology (IT) costs and resources. In addition to being easy-to-use and affordable, the software helps organizations increase productivity, strengthen and support the efforts of their fundraising staff, and more easily analyze and communicate their results to both their organization's leadership and constituents.

"Hosted solutions can provide the flexibility and accountability that today's nonprofit organizations need to work at peak performance," said Holly Ross, executive director for NTEN, the membership organization of nonprofit professionals who put technology to use for their causes. "At a time when our sector is called upon to do ever more with ever less, having anytime-anywhere access to important management platforms, especially for fundraising and accounting, can help nonprofits increase the ease and efficiency with which they meet their missions."

Sage Fundraising 50 will continue to be available as a licensed software product, but users will now have more choice about how they deploy their fundraising system.

Steadfast Commitment to Nonprofits

For more than 30 years, Sage North America has been helping nonprofit organizations further their missions and better serve constituents through the use of technology. Currently, the company helps more than 7,000 organizations -- including the American Lung Association, the American Red Cross, Easter Seals, Goodwill Industries, the Salvation Army and the United Way -- manage their accounting and fundraising processes.

Nonprofit and government organizations wanting additional information about any of these technology solutions can visit www.sagenonprofit.com or call 800-811-0961.

About Sage North America

Sage North America is part of The Sage Group plc, a leading global supplier of business management software and services. At Sage, we live and breathe business every day. We are passionate about helping our customers achieve their ambitions. Our range of business software and services is continually evolving as we innovate to answer our customers' needs. Our solutions support accounting, operations, customer relationship management, human resources, time tracking, merchant services and the specialized needs of the construction, distribution, healthcare, manufacturing, nonprofit and real estate industries. Sage North America employs approximately 4,800 people and supports 2.9 million small and medium-size business customers. The Sage Group plc, formed in 1981, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and now employs more than 14,500 people and supports more than 5.8 million customers worldwide. For more information, please visit the web site at www.sagenorthamerica.com or call 866-308-2378.

© 2009 Sage Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Sage, Sage Software, Sage logos and the Sage product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc. or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact Information: Press Contact: Cynthia Sutton Sage North America 703 793 2700 ext. 3032 cynthia.sutton@sage.com