Campaign for Equal Justice Increases Online Giving By 276 Percent Using Sage Fundraising Online with Sage Payment Services

Sage North America today announced Campaign for Equal Justice (CEJ) in Portland, Oregon, has experienced a 276 percent increase in online giving using Sage Fundraising Online, Sage's flexible fundraising and event registration connected service, with Sage Payment Services for donation processing from Sage Payment Solutions, Sage's payments division.

"Thanks to Sage Fundraising Online, we raised more money online in December 2010 than we did during our entire 2009-2010 campaign year," said Shari Nilsson, office manager at CEJ.

CEJ has been a Sage Fundraising 50 software customer for more than a decade. The organization added Sage Fundraising Online and Sage Payment Solutions to its Sage solutions suite seven months ago, in September 2010. The new add-ons have made CEJ's software investment even more valuable-and, in addition to the 276 percent increase in online giving, Nilsson estimates a 50 percent reduction in the time spent on data entry.

Moving Up from PayPal
"We previously used PayPal for processing online payments and, while it was working well, it wasn't ideal to have donors go outside of our website to make a contribution," said Nilsson. "Anytime you introduce a third-party into the transaction, there's a risk of data entry errors. Now, with direct donation capabilities on our website through Sage Fundraising Online, donors are able to receive direct e-mail receipts from CEJ to confirm their donation."

Integration was also an issue before. CEJ had been using its bank to process credit cards and ACH (Automatic Clearing House) transactions. Credit card numbers had to be entered into a terminal, or account information entered on the bank's website. Then, each gift was re-entered into Sage Fundraising 50. "We knew there had to be a more efficient way," said Nilsson.

Adding Sage Fundraising Online
Sage Fundraising Online allows organizations to create and embed donation, event registration, and personalized fundraising forms anywhere on the web to allow donors and participants to fundraise on their organization's behalf. The service integrates with several customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, including Sage Fundraising 50, so CEJ was able to leverage its existing system. After adopting Sage Payment Services, CEJ began processing its own credit card and ACH transactions.

Getting a Great Customer Experience
"We're very pleased with Sage's support services," said Nilsson. "From the online knowledgebase to the friendly live support, the Sage team is always available, prompt, and helpful. I'm especially happy with Sage Live Connect, which allows technicians to connect directly to my computer to help resolve issues immediately."

Nilsson said she would recommend Sage to other nonprofits, because Sage offers an integrated fundraising solution, with excellent support and service. "To me, 'extraordinary customer experience' means backing your product 100 percent, and providing complete support, from installation to problem solving. Sage goes the extra mile for its customers-something that's rare in this day and age."

Poised for the Future
Armed with portable donation and event registration tools that can be shared with anyone, anywhere on the Web, CEJ is ready for their most successful fundraising campaign ever.

"I can't wait to see how donors like the new experience, especially those with embedded forms on their firm's websites," said Nilsson. "In the short time since we started using Sage Fundraising Online, we've been very impressed with the options it provides us. And, we haven't even scratched the surface of its capabilities, yet."

CEJ's online donations continue to increase. From January to March 2011, online donations went up more than 300 percent. "We've also been using SFO for more online registrations, including our annual luncheon, and it has been very successful and popular with our donors," said Nilsson.