Sponsorship Strategist

Stop before you call

Have you ever instructed your staff member who has no sponsorship skills to go call some random company about sponsorship? You might be tossing your team into the sponsorship abyss. Read more →

17 Corporate Sponsorship Dos and Don'ts

Here are 17 hot tips to fire up your sponsorship development engine. 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 →

Up your game: improve your performance to succeed with sponsorship

High performing organizations and individuals have a competitive advantage over low performing ones. Considering the competition that your organization faces for sponsorship dollars — and not just from other nonprofits or associations — upping your game will make a difference between mediocre and meteoric results. Read more →

Sponsorship levels: Love 'em or leave 'em? Part 1

Research by IEG over the years shows us that about a decade ago, corporations that work with nonprofit organizations began asking for “benefits” in exchange for their “gifts.” This request effectively conflated philanthropy with the marketing medium known as corporate sponsorship and continues to confuse both nonprofit and corporate leaders. Nonprofit development officers, on whose shoulders it fell to figure out what their corporate funders were looking for, were stumped. Ultimately, what emerged were the generic “sponsorship levels” that many organizations put forth as corporate sponsorship — today’s Gold, Silver & Bronze packages. Calling Gold, Silver & Bronze levels "sponsorship"... 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 →

Control your sponsorship program

People often agonize about the presumably negative impact corporate sponsorship will have on nonprofit organizations or their municipalities or parks. A recent Huffington Post piece, The Eternal Non-Profit Dilemma: How Much Corporate Sponsorship?, summarizes a few of the concerns perfectly: Corporations will take over and the nonprofit will have no control; Sponsors' money may go away; and A corporation most in need of an image boost would sully the nonprofit's name and reputation. Stop the agonizing. Here's the good news. You have control over your sponsorship program, and you have control over these issues. Control You may think you have... Read more →

Celebrating jazz and sponsorship

More good sponsorship news today. (See my earlier post.) Are these signs that we might like sponsors more now, since the days of TARP and bailouts? The New York State Senate issued a resolution today, proclaiming June "Jazz Month" in honor of the 35th Anniversary of Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival, produced for the Saratoga Performing Arts Center by my dear friend and colleague Dan Melnick, president of Absolutely Live Entertainment, and their teams. The festival –– founded by George Wein of legendary Newport Jazz Festival and Newport Folk Festival fame, among a whole host of important music events –– has... 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 →