The SAS Commitment to Education

Since our founding in 1976, SAS has remained true to its academic roots by supporting educational causes. Our philanthropic mission comes from a belief that we, as corporate citizens, have an opportunity to positively impact the educational process. But it's more than a mission — education is our passion. We are proud of our company's contributions to improve education and are excited about future efforts that will continue that tradition.

Why We Support Education
Whether its donating software to Leeds University in the UK to bolster Leukemia research capabilities, encouraging employees to tutor at-risk teens or giving computers to an elementary school, SAS is committed to supporting education.

As a high tech company, SAS is dependent on a strong educational system for our long-term success. But it's simpler than that. It fits who we are as a company. SAS created the business intelligence industry, creating products that bring knowledge to our customers. More than 40,000 organizations — including businesses, universities and government agencies — rely on SAS technology to understand their customers, suppliers and own organizations.

How We Support Education
Our support is enhanced by our being active participants with the organizations we support. We don't write a check and pat ourselves on the back. SAS builds relationships with organizations whose missions align with ours. As with any business partnership, we expect nonprofits to meet expectations. They expect, and receive, the same.

Our Community Relations program is based on three components: financial donations, in-kind giving and employee volunteerism. This structure allows SAS to support deserving organizations in a variety of ways.

Through our generous financial donations, we offer funding to qualifying programs that help at-risk teens excel in the classroom and graduate from high school.

When a nonprofit needs computer equipment or software, they often call on SAS. We believe in the "reduce-reuse-recycle" philosophy and give hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware to community groups. In addition, SAS software grants in 2004 were valued at more than $8 million.

SAS employees donate their time through the Employee Volunteer Fund (EVF). The EVF offers a $500 contribution to school or nonprofit groups with the requirement that a SAS employee spend an average of eight hours a month over a year's time volunteering with that organization. By combining dollars and time, this program provides a double benefit to the community. Hundreds of employees participate, which translates to valuable volunteer support for SAS communities and thousands of dollars in financial contributions.

"Living" Commitments to Education
Through the creation of Cary Academy and the SAS inSchool research and development division in the mid-1990s, SAS served notice that we intend to lead the way toward the integration of education and technology. We've made an investment in education that has been acknowledged through numerous awards and the support of educators across the country.

Even after SAS left a university environment, the company maintained close ties with the educational community. Those ties grew stronger in 1996 when the company's founders looked back to the classroom and asked: "Can we apply our expertise to the production of technologies and services that enhance learning?"

The answer — an enthusiastic "Yes" — came only after deliberating with educators.

Thus, SAS inSchool was born with a singular mission: to research and develop educational technologies.

By building partnerships with teachers and administrators across the country, SAS inSchool focuses on three initiatives:

• Instructional Software — Curriculum Pathways provides teachers with a broad range of curriculum resources tied to national and state standards. Web-based, multimedia modules engage students in the topic and promote problem-solving and critical thinking skills.
• Educator Learning and Support — Professional development and ongoing support for teachers integrating technology into their lessons.
• Value-added Assessment and Research — Diagnostic information extracted from student achievement data to help teachers create individualized learning plans and principals evaluate instructional strategies.

SAS inSchool has garnered numerous technology awards, and more importantly gained the favor of teachers and students alike.

Another "concrete" example of SAS' commitment to the integration of technology into the learning process is Cary Academy, an independent secondary school in Cary, North Carolina, founded in 1996 by the company's cofounders, Jim Goodnight and John Sall and their wives, Ann Goodnight and Ginger Sall.

Their vision for the school was to create a learning environment for what education can be. Cary Academy serves as a model of how technology can impact the educational process positively and there's no better proof of its success than this: 100 percent of the students from the first four Cary Academy graduating classes were accepted to an institute of higher learning.

At SAS, we promise to give our customers the power to know. We take that promise very seriously, and our corporate commitment to education is another way we carry out our mission.