"One employee normally spends almost three months every winter gathering information on
leadership for the recognition program. Sage Fundraising 100—Rainbow Edition is designed to capture the data
automatically. This one feature saves us several weeks of work."
Gerry Taylor
Senior Vice President
Resource Development
United Way of Central Alabama, Inc.
United Way "Gets It Done" With Sage Nonprofit Solutions
The Birmingham area is a better place because of United Way of Central Alabama. Eighty partner agencies in a five-county area, from AIDS Alabama and the Literacy Council to the YWCA, all depend on United Way for support. Funds are raised primarily through payroll deductions pledged in the workplace. In addition to identifying and funding key needs in the community, United Way supports welfare-to-work initiatives, youth taskforces, and job training and placement services, seeking to remove barriers to employment for youths and adults.
But the 80-year old organization faced its own barriers to efficiency and growth in the form of an antiquated accounting system. "System stability and data recovery was always a major concern with the old system," says Doug Goodwin, IS Director. "It was written over 10 years ago. Worst of all, the software was no longer supported by the manufacturer."
Sage MIP Fund Accounting for Nonprofit Accounting
After researching several alternatives, United Way adopted Sage MIP Fund Accounting, a software solution delivering high-performance fund accounting for nonprofits of all sizes. The organization also selected Sage Fundraising 100—Rainbow Edition, a campaign development software specifically designed for United Ways and organizations with workplace giving.
United Way uses Sage MIP Fund Accounting to efficiently and accurately track, manage, and report on funds from multiple sources and across multiple budget periods. The new system handles virtually all accounting needs. The organization also relies on Sage MIP Fund Accounting when it performs contract accounting services for many of its member agencies, including accounts payable.
Rainbow of Possibilities
For fundraising and tracking donor information, United Way uses Sage Fundraising 100—Rainbow Edition, which integrates seamlessly with Sage MIP Fund Accounting. "Sage Fundraising 100—Rainbow Edition stores data on annual pledges, plus information on each of the agencies' board members and executives," says Gerry Taylor, senior vice president Resource Development. "The notes section is absolutely invaluable because comments represent important intelligence for the future. Knowing an individual's affiliations and memberships in clubs or boards helps us leverage personal relationships and preferences, which is what nonprofit development is all about."
Improvements in a single task illustrate the benefits anticipated from Sage Fundraising 100—Rainbow Edition throughout the entire organization. "One employee normally spends almost three months every winter gathering information on leadership donors for the recognition program," Taylor says. "Sage Fundraising 100—Rainbow Edition is designed to capture the data automatically. This one feature saves us several weeks of work."
"Sage Fundraising 100—Rainbow Edition has improved communications for the entire Resource Development team and made our solicitation process much more efficient," explains Taylor. "We run a multitude of reports on the system, some customized and some preprogrammed, and we are very pleased at how robust the various reporting options are. Extracting usable information is both fast and simple, in part because of the familiar Windows interface."
