Sponsorship Strategist

2021: 10 Reasons To Prioritize Corporate Sponsorship Revenue

If 2020 was your year to stabilize in the face of multiple crises, let 2021 be your year to reset your vision and take back control of your future. Among your top considerations is your revenue mix. Based on research my firm co-authored last year, many organizations focused on individual and institutional giving and may have put corporate sponsorship on the backburner, particularly with cancelled in-person events. Here are ten reasons why now is the time to ramp up your corporate sponsorship engines. Read more →

Don’t Fear a Sponsorship Apocalypse

If you follow news about corporate sponsorship, you might think we’re preparing for an apocalypse. Do a search and if there are stories about corporate sponsorship and certain areas of our culture — particularly municipalities, education, and parks, nature, and the environment — there will be handwringing, anxieties, and panic among the citizenry that the world is coming to an end. That world is black and white, on or off. No gray, no dimmer switch, no continuum. Fueling the anxieties are some reporters who imagine sponsorship in worst-case scenario terms. Take, for instance, a recent story in The Washington Post... Read more →

Baltimore sponsorship workshop for nonprofit leaders

I will collaborate again with the Baltimore Business Journal next Friday for a special workshop for nonprofit leaders, designed to enhance results with corporate sponsorship. Corporate Sponsorship Workshop We'll start the morning with Partnering with Corporations: Five Strategies to Increase Sponsorship Income during which attendees will learn to: Increase the value of sponsorship opportunities Improve the fee structure of sponsorship offerings Enhance the structure of opportunities to increase revenue and marketing exposure Explore sponsorship opportunities for programs and other initiatives, not just events Expand and nurture networks so building partnerships comes naturally. Roundtable Afterwards, for those who'd like to take... Read more →

The Banished 13: Corporate sponsorship practices we could do without in 2013

It's a new year and an excellent time to consider your sponsorship operation anew. Here are 13 practices by both corporations and sponsorship sellers that are a good place to start. Time to let these dated, ineffective behaviors or operations go. Suggestions for corporate sponsors. Online forms. The conundrum is that you receive tons of proposals that don't begin to meet your objectives. I get it. My company receives enough off-the-mark sponsorship proposals to make the extrapolation easy. But here's the thing: you're turning away good opportunities and the potential for meaningful relationships with organizations that won't waste their time.... Read more →

According to General Mills: how supporting causes has evolved

Enjoy this 4 minute interview with General Mills' SVP and Chief Marketing Officer Mark Addicks about the history, present strategy, and future direction of General Mills' support and sponsorship of nonprofits and causes. Key take-away: it all focuses on the customer. Read more →

One step to ensure the ROI of your sponsorship investment

Want to ensure that your sponsorship of an event or cause really delivers the ROI you intend? That requires one step. Be an active sponsor. Don't just send a check and a logo and sit back and wait for the results to tally. Instead make a deep organizational commitment and investment so that the check and logo you do send off are in service to the results you're trying to achieve. Let me show you what I mean. Today is the first day of one of the best sponsored events in Philadelphia –– the Philadelphia International Flower Show –– and... Read more →

A novel approach to engaging corporations in your city or cause

As you head out for the weekend, here's some inspiration on how you might engage corporations in your cause or in your community. Norte Beer of northern Argentina flips social conventions, cleans up towns, and makes girlfriends fall in love with their guys, out with the guys. Enjoy! Read more →

3 reasons why cause marketing ROI is low

Earlier this year, I issued a set of predictions for 2011 about causes and corporations, including one that stated that corporate sincerity would be questioned. On Friday, a research study reveals that only 37 percent of Americans have purchased a product tied to a cause, even though 96 percent of Americans note two or three causes important to them. Researchers cite Americans' "skepticism" that businesses are supporting causes that are aligned with their brands. Seventy-four percent of the individuals surveyed said there is a disconnect between the brand and the cause, while 67 percent believe that businesses are only supporting... Read more →

The Greatest Sponsorship Film I've Ever Seen: Morgan Spurlock's "POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold"

In 2004, shortly after seeing Morgan Spurlock's first film, Supersize Me, his cinematic experiment eating nothing but McDonald's three meals a day for 30 days, I headed off to New Orleans to the Essence Music Festival. I served as managing director for the daytime activities at the New Orleans Convention Center of the festival, the "Purpose" part of the "Party with a Purpose." McDonald's was a major sponsor (and still is) and that year focused its activation on promoting its new healthier menu options. According to news reports at the time, McDonald's new menu had nothing to do with the... Read more →

Sponsorship Realities: Gail Bower's Predictions for 2011

If you’ve been operating at a frenetic pace, trying to outsmart the economy, you may not have stopped to look around and notice what’s going on in the world around you, the sponsorship world, that is. This special report provides you with five observations I’ve made that absolutely will have an impact on organizations’ abilities to generate revenue through partnerships with the corporate sector. Consider this insider intelligence to help you plan your 2011 sponsorship strategy. Download Sponsorship Realities 2011 P.S. A day after I wrote the special report, I read this post. To me it's an indicator that my... Read more →