Sage Foundation offers $1m to UK nonprofits for enterprising ideas
Howard Lake | 27 February 2017 | News
Sage Foundation is offering $1 million (around £800,000) to fund enterprising ideas from UK charities and not-for-profit organisations that will help improve the lives of military veterans, young people or women and girls in the local community. In particular the Foundation is keen to fund small organisations that have ambitions to expand.
The Enterprise Fund is designed to support organisations in generating further income, creating new initiatives or enhancing existing and proven activity.
Two funding rounds
The fund will be split between two rounds. Applications for the first round are open until 5 April 2017, offering grants of between $5,000 and $35,000.
The second round will open later this year.
Small, ambitious organisations
Sage Foundation is especially keen to support organisations that are currently small but have ambitions to expand, grow and deliver sustainable change.
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Supporting ‘hard to fundraise needs’
It also aims to support “traditionally hard to fundraise needs” such as
- capital projects
- core running costs
- new innovations.
Sandra Campopiano, Sage’s Chief People Officer, explained:
“From support groups for domestic abuse survivors, through to coding youth clubs or back to work programmes for military veterans; non-profit organisations survive and thrive thanks to the dedication of staff and volunteers. But they also need funding to take action, which is why we have set up Sage Foundation’s Enterprise Fund, awarding grants up to $35,000 to support vital local projects.”
“I’ve seen small charities with really exceptional, original ideas on the brink of delivering real change. Too often all that is stopping them is access to funds to make an enterprising solution turn into reality. That’s what we are committed to supporting.”
Sage Foundation
Sage Foundation was set up by the cloud accounting software company. Its Enterprise Fund was originally announced at Sage Summit in Chicago in July 2016, part of a series of new initiatives to mobilise Sage colleagues, partners and customers around a common vision for change.
Sage Summit London will be held on 5-6 April 2017. There, Sage Foundation will introduce a further range of initiatives delivered by its global $1 Million Challenge project and the local charities that will benefit from this support.
Sage Foundation operates on the ‘2+2+2’ model. This means that Sage Foundation donates:
- 2% of employee time each year (5 volunteer days)
- 2% of free cash flow in grants
- two donated software licenses to eligible partners.
We have a $1m #enterprisefund to help charities & nonprofits. We'd love to hear from you! 🌍💡#charitynews https://t.co/QFF2Uarvht pic.twitter.com/eyIBnaOeht
— Sage Foundation (@sagefoundation) February 22, 2017
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.