Welcome to Sponsorship Strategist, Gail Bower's blog designed to support your efforts to conceptualize, develop, sell or buy, negotiate, execute, and evaluate your sponsorship program through a more strategic lens.
The corporate sponsorship industry has become increasingly sophisticated since my first forays in the mid-1980s with both buying and selling sponsorship opportunities. And though the tools and techniques have evolved, some things haven't changed at all: the sense of creativity, the power of the medium, and the effectiveness in engaging new and existing audiences.
As more nonprofit organizations, events, festivals, sports entities, and even individuals attempt to garner corporate sponsorship participation and dollars, the playing field broadens and competition grows.
How do you know if your opportunity is of value? How do you know if your approach is the strongest? How do you know that you're not leaving money on the table? How do you build a culture that supports corporate involvement?
If you're on the buying side of the table, how do you making buying decisions? How do you know that the opportunities on the table are worth your investment of both dollars and energy? How will you make the best of your resources to execute and follow through with impact? How do you galvanize internal and external support for your initiatives?
These questions linger through time.
My goal with Sponsorship Strategist is to explore the answers together. With you. I invite you to jump in, participate. Ask questions. Suggest answers. Challenge me. Challenge other readers. And in the process, become a sponsorship strategist.
A couple thoughts as we begin:
- I welcome your participation in the community I hope this blog will create.
- Feel free to post your comments; however, please note that I reserve the right to remove posts that are inappropriate or not in the spirit of this blog. For example, this site is not the place to pitch your sponsorship offering, no matter how fabulous it may be.
- Have fun and feel free to contact me with your suggestions, questions, or topic ideas.
Ready? Off we go.
