I realize times may still be tough, but that does not mean you or your organization can abandon accepted business practices when selling sponsorship.
Here are several examples of what not to do:
- Spam selling. Sending a mass email to a list of strangers is not only spam but also highly ineffective. Ditto for mass mailing. I've written about this before and others have posted the article on their sites: Fender Music Foundation, Sponsorpitch.com. This approach is exactly the opposite of what to do.
- Yelling at a corporate representative. A representative from a retail-driven corporation told me about an experience with a customer, who also sought sponsorship. The customer yelled at her, telling her that she'd just spent $600 at the retail establishment, and therefore this corporation ought to sponsor this customer's organization. Uh, no.
- Just invoice. Yesterday I met a businessperson who told me that she'd received not one but two solicitations from nonprofits that essentially skipped over the selling process entirely by including an invoice. "What did they think? That we're stupid and would just pay it?" she said. A former nonprofit leader herself, this woman hoped this was not the start of a trend, dismayed at the sense of "entitlement" and eschewing of "please and thank yous."
- Bidding. During the last year, as the impact of the recession worsened conditions for many municipal and state governments, reports appeared that quoted civic leaders' intention to put new sponsorship opportunities up for bid. Would that it were so easy.
Developing sponsorship opportunities that work, that are effective, that generate results requires collaboration, partnership, trusting relationships, and lots of ingenuity. (A note to corporate leaders: requiring nonprofits to fill out online forms also falls under the "what not to do" category. I realize you've created this electronic submission process to insulate yourselves from a deluge of off-target requests. But know that you may be weeding out some good opportunities who just don't have time to waste on a generic form.) Resist the urge to follow one of these other approaches.
