Sponsorship Strategist

Corporate sponsorship and effective marketing for professional services firms

If professional services companies — law firms, accounting practices, marketing and ad agencies — are on your sponsorship prospect list, you’re going to have to use more persuasion to educate and acquire them. Recently, the presenters of a webinar aimed at professional services providers highlighted their research on the types of marketing tactics that these firms use. They also revealed which work and which don't. Read more →

What Wells Fargo support could be saying about your organization

Is your organization sponsored by or receiving funding from Wells Fargo? As the news about Wells Fargo employees sales tactics plays out and repercussions before the Senate Banking Committee and in the media unfold, you have a decision to make. Will you keep those dollars or return them? 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 →

The beauty of repeatable sponsorship success

Do you know what you've done well in your sponsorship success? Can you repeat it? Can you evaluate what went wrong? Don't let your operation have ephemeral success. 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 →

Two podcasts with Tony Martignetti

Late in 2014, Tony Martignetti, host of Nonprofit Radio and Fundraising Fundamentals for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, interviewed me for both shows. Read more →

For your calendar: lunch learning about sponsorship with Gail Bower on Friday

If you've got a wifi connection and access to a browser tomorrow at 1 p.m. EST, spend a half hour with me in a discussion with Tony Martignetti for his podcast Nonprofit Radio. We'll be talking about what it takes to get great results from your nonprofit corporate sponsorship operation. Have a few questions you'd like me to answer? Tweet them to him (@TonyMartignetti) today, and we'll hope to cover as many as possible. I hope you'll tune in! 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 →

Sponsorship levels: Love 'em or leave 'em? Part 2

This week, I'm focusing on Gold, Silver & Bronze sponsorship levels, providing the pros and cons of this approach. You can read the first part here, in which I ennumerate the first 5 of 10 cons. Today, let's take a look at the next five. Competition. Competition for sponsorship dollars is fierce, and you have some formidable opponents — sports teams, festivals, fairs, arts organizations, causes, municipalities, state parks and city transit stops. Even media organizations are producing their own events as a way of connecting with readers or viewers and selling sponsorship opportunities combined with their media inventory. If... 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 →