I know what you’re thinking! Is this the same Chris Baylis who has told me over and over and over again not to use sponsorship proposals? Yes! But before I tell you when it’s a good idea to use a sponsorship proposal, I want you to promise to do the following: Download my sponsorship proposal template Read my post called “The Definitive Guide to the Sponsorship Proposal” Read my post called “The Five Stages of Sponsorship”
I’ve heard it – heck, I’ve said it! Event sponsorship is boring! There are only so many things you can sponsor, so many ideas, so many ways to reorder an event sponsorship proposal. Today’s post is focused on some of the cool event marketing and sponsorship activation ideas that I’ve seen recently.
This post flows nicely from last week’s post about the differences between Individual Giving and the Sponsorship sales process. In that post I argue that the two worlds are different, very different, but that the best fundraisers have the transferable skills needed to make it work. This week I caught up with Maeve Strathy (yes THAT Maeve Strathy!). Maeve is one of those fundraisers who makes both types of fundraising work. I am firmly in the camp of “cause marketing specialist who makes it work in the world of individual giving” and Maeve is in the “other” camp- and does both well. I suspect there are far more full service fundraisers called upon to do cause marketing and sponsorship than the other way around and so I am very excited to be teaming up with Maeve on this post.
This post is meant as a primer for major gift fundraisers who find themselves involved in sponsorship and asking themselves how to get sponsors. That said, I think this will also be useful to the full service fundraising professional as well as the Executive Director who is occasionally asked to join in sponsorship meetings or who has been asked to build a sponsorship proposal.
Welcome to part two of my series all about sponsorship and events. By now you have realized that this series is not about how to close sponsorship leading up to an event, for that you will want to head to my series focused on cause marketing essentials. For an even quicker overview, have a look at my infographic on the sponsorship journey.
I was inspired to write this series focused on fundraising event sponsorship after working on an incredibly successful gala last week. It was my organization’s fourteenth annual event and saw double-digit sponsorship revenue growth for the second year in a row.
The sponsorship process can seem complicated and intimidating and so I’ve created this infographic to help simplify things. Check it out and click on on each step of the Sponsorship Journey for some tips related to that topic.