Guide to Lining Up Sponsors for an Event

Educate yourself on event sponsorship

Sponsorship is often a career in itself. Many corporations require you to write grant requests in order to be considered as an event they will sponsor. If you don’t have one person that can focus solely on sponsorship, then your best bet is to study the basics of pulling in sponsors for your event.

I recommend: Wiley provides a comprehensive outline of managing event sponsorship in their event management series book, Event Sponsorship. Download an excerpt at www.wiley.com. Take a webinar to enhance your skills of Creating Effective Sponsorship Proposals or Determining the Fair Market Value of Sponsorship Packages at www.sponsorship.com.

Find sponsors

Wooing a sponsor is much like sales. You need quantified leads in order not to waste time cold-calling. Sponsorship leads are most likely the community members you deal with on a daily basis. Banks, hospitals, your local newspaper and real estate companies set aside large parts of their marketing budget for sponsorships. They are looking for events that will get their name out in the public eye in a positive light. The value of your sponsorship proposal should include details of what media exposure they will receive and what public service the event provides.

I recommend: Learn how to write sponsorship proposal letters, set sponsorship levels and cultivate sponsor relationships at idealist.org. Find large corporate sponsors from the National Directory of Corporate Giving.  The book costs almost $200, but may be worth it if you want to save time searching for grants and corporations that regularly sponsor events. For a small monthly fee, you can list your sponsorship opportunity on Sponsor Anything. The website offers listings that will help you attract sponsors you might not have thought of approaching.

Provide incentives

Yes, the companies who sponsor your event are in essence buying the right to get their name out to everyone who attends your event and the publicity that surrounds the event. But these two benefits aren’t the only things that you should provide to companies who sign up as sponsors. Your job is to make them happy so that they continue to sponsor your event and perhaps take on a larger sponsorship package for your next event. The best way to please the sponsors is to provide extras that are no cost to you, but a value to them. Based on the tier of sponsorships, you should add perks such as a set number of free tickets for their employees to the event, VIP access to special parts of the event, such as a VIP refreshment tent, and other opportunities for the sponsor to get their name out, such as sponsoring a certain give-away.

I recommend: Find out the keys for creating a successful sponsorship plan including how to recognize sponsors equitably at www.acsm.org. Learn more about what to offer sponsors such as naming rights, VIP passes and recognition at the event by downloading a sponsorship toolkit from the University of Buffalo [Word doc].