SAS® helps boost fundraising for vital research

SAS® helps boost fundraising for vital research

Leader in business analytics shares software solutions as part of Data for Good movement.

Predictive Analytics solutions and volunteered Data Science skills will contribute to improving outcomes for children with cancer.

As the leader in analytics, SAS is proud to be part of the Data for Good movement and has long applied its software solutions and the skills of its people to address humanitarian issues such as poverty, health, human rights and education.

In Australia, SAS can point to a number of Data for Good initiatives and the latest of these is its support for The Kids’ Cancer Project, an Australian charity founded 25 years ago to advance research into childhood cancer.

Speaking of the organisation’s work, CEO Owen Finegan, a former Wallabies flanker said, “The Kids’ Cancer Project is committed to improving the outcomes for children and adolescents with cancer, by facilitating access to cutting edge clinical trials, and promoting other quality research.”

Such trials and research obviously call for large-scale funding, and SAS support will be focused on helping the charity to improve the efficiency of its donor management processes.

Over the years, the team, who have headquarters in Sydney’s Inner-West, has built up a database of about 1.3 million donors, of which some 300,000 were inactive when SAS volunteered to become involved.

Implementing its data cleansing, mining, and analysis software, SAS has mapped out a program to re-activate dormant donors and enlist new ones, increase the ratio of regular to occasional donors, overcome duplicated records, and minimise list churn. All of which will aid cost reduction.

In announcing the partnership, David Bowie, Vice President of SAS Australia and New Zealand said, “The goal is to help The Kids’ Cancer Project raise more funds, more economically by predicting when and how individual donors should best be approached for optimal results. And by making the overall activity of appeal mailings, call centre canvassing, raffle ticket sales, sponsorships and events highly cost effective.”

“Cost effectiveness is the key. After all, the less it costs this charity to actually raise money, the more it can contribute to vital research that will lead to the one hundred percent survival rate of children diagnosed with cancer.”

SAS also supports other local not-for-profits in the fields of health and wellbeing, including The Black Dog Institute.