8 Ways to Secure A Fundraising Sponsor (Without Feeling Awkward)

Sometimes it can be hard to ask for money - even if you really believe in your cause. But approaching sponsors for a charitable event can be an exciting opportunity to work with brands and service providers and get the benefit of their expertise to bring your event to life and raise extra funds.

Many businesses want to help sponsor charitable causes - it helps boost their reputation, allows them to tap into a broader market, and often aligns with their core company values so that they can be good corporate citizens and give back to communities. Sponsoring your event might be the start of a beautiful friendship!

Read on for 8 steps to approaching and securing sponsors for your next fundraising event.

What is the value of your event?

Before you start looking for sponsorship, it is important to sit down and identify the value of your event.

• Know your ROI - don't go asking for millions of dollars if your ROI is only worth thousands.
• What can you execute - don't make promises you can't keep.
• Understand your competitors - why would a sponsor choose a competitor's event over your own? How can you improve?
• Are you ready to sell? - the ability to communicate and sell yourself and your event is a big part of acquiring sponsorship. Believing in your cause is one huge step towards having the confidence you need - genuine enthusiasm always shines through.
  
  

Steps to securing sponsorship

Ready to get started? Great! These are our top tips for developing a strategy to secure sponsors.

1. Know the kinds of people who will attend your event

A vital and often overlooked first step is clearly defining your attendee personas. Obviously, you won’t know everyone who is coming, but you do some high-level analysis to capture the kinds of people who are most likely to attend. Some useful questions are:

• Who are they? (gender, age)
• Where are they from?
• What do they do?
• What is their median income?
• What are their interests?

If you have data from previous events:

• What was the attendance for each demographic?
• How much money did each person spend at the event?

For large-scale events, you may have several principal attendee personas. By following this step, you can immediately start to narrow down your list of potential sponsors. You may even identify sponsorship opportunities that weren't immediately obvious.

Sponsors won't want all of this information, but they may require key demographics, including gender, age, location, and median income bracket. Having all of these details beforehand will allow you to answer confidently should it come up in a meeting.

2. Secure Media Partnerships

Another step often overlooked is securing your media partners before you approach other sponsors.

Nowadays, media partners will also include social media influencers, bloggers, Tik-Tokers, and anyone else with a substantial presence.

You should be able to find partners who are aligned with your cause and want to use their platform for good, and in return, you can offer them access to a new audience, or even a discount for the event.

Once you have these secured, you can go to your sponsors with a really solid value proposition and proof that the event will be good exposure for them and their brand.

Corporate Social Responsibility

When considering media partnerships, you also want to include your corporate social responsibility initiatives. Sponsors don't only look for ROI but many large corporations have clearly defined value statements that include dedicating a certain amount of resources towards corporate social responsibility. This allows them to give back to the community, which can in turn help with their image and reputation. 

For example, in 2021, Strawberry Fields in Australia promoted its partnership with Humanitix, and the fact that we are a ticketing platform that donates all its booking fees to educational charities meant that they had the opportunity to align themselves with a good cause - all from switching ticketing platforms!

3. Identify Your Sponsorship Opportunities

Identify sponsorship opportunities within your event and even draft generic sponsorship packages. Completing this step before creating a list of sponsors will help define what brands might align with your event.

4. Create a List of Sponsors

It's now time to start generating a list of sponsors and relevant contacts. Set up a spreadsheet and include the following:

• Company name
• Contact person or persons
• Email
• Contact number
• Also consider any key milestones or tasks (date emailed, replies, meeting booked, outcome)
  

By completing steps one to three, you can think outside of the box when creating your list of potential sponsors.

For example, if you're hosting a music festival, the obvious choice might be to pitch to liquor companies, right? But what if most of your attendees are over the age of 40, and they tend to bring their kids?

In this case, you might want to approach soft drink companies instead and limit liquor branding to the bar areas only.

Timing is Important

Most companies allocate budgets at the beginning of the financial year. Usually, by the end of the first quarter, most of that budget is just about spent.

You'll have a good chance of landing a product sponsorship any time of the year. But if you're looking for a significant financial investment, you must approach sponsors before they allocate their annual budget.

Find the Right Decision-Maker

Finding the right decision-maker is vital. In small organisations, this person is usually in the PR or marketing department. But often, companies outsource this responsibility to an agency.

Finding the right decision-maker might require some research and phone calls. If you can get a mate or colleague to make an introduction, you are even more likely to get a quick response. This is why networking is essential ;) [Link to blog on ice-breaker games for networking]

One way to fast-track finding a decision-maker might be to hire a PR consultant to help build your list and possibly offer introductions.

5. Write a Sponsorship Proposal

Your sponsorship proposal is to generate interest in your event and secure a meeting.

The information should be concise and easy to digest. A good rule of thumb is graphs and graphics work better than a wall of text.

Make sure to include the following:

• Intro to the event - including your unique selling point and other key information. Also, include how you're planning to make the next event bigger and better.
• Ticket sales & capacity - sponsors like to see past attendance, growth, and the event's potential to scale.
• Demographics - all that information you collected in step one. Brands want to know your demographics align with their target market.
• Analytics - your website traffic, social media followings, engagement stats, and other data points all add to a sponsor's ability to project an ROI.
• Media - apart from any media partnerships, what was past media coverage of your events? Don't include the entire articles or reviews, just a line or two with a link for reference if they want to read further.

The Important First Page

Keep in mind some sponsors see hundreds if not thousands of sponsorship proposals per year. Most decision-makers only have time to scan the first page. You have to stand out!

Use the first page to summarize the event with crucial points and metrics from each section. If you have one, include a quote from a prominent publication raving about your event.

The first page must grab their attention, so they're intrigued enough to read your proposal.

6. Connecting with Potential Sponsors

It's finally time to send out your proposals. You're likely going to be contacting busy people with a lot going on. For this reason, your initial connections should be brief and to the point.

Have an elevator-style pitch rehearsed so that you appear confident and knowledgeable when you speak about your event.

Touch Base with a Call

Something you might want to consider is touching base with the decision-maker before sending your proposal—no more than a week or two in advance (or they might forget who you are). This call should be a quick casual introduction of yourself, mention (not pitch) your event, and confirm their email address.

You might even want to consider sending an email shortly after your call thanking them for their time and letting them know this is your email. One sentence. That's it!

When it comes time to send your proposal, you're somewhat on their radar and not a complete stranger.

Drafting Your Event Sponsorship Email

In your sponsorship email, keep it short and to the point. Two to three lines max!

Your goal is to get them to read your proposal and set up a meeting.

In the email, you want to:

• Introduce yourself (reminding them that you spoke on the phone)
• Outline the event in a sentence or two - highlighting your USPs
• Ask them to have a look at your attached proposal.
• Request their availability to meet so you can discuss things further
  

By specifying that you would like to meet, you're creating a subtle call to action, increasing the likelihood you'll get a response.

Make sure to include your contact details in the email so they can get hold of you or pass on your information.

Following Up

If they haven't replied, give it at least a week before following up. The best follow-up is a phone call. That way, you can find out if they saw your email, and you might be able to set up a meeting over the phone.

Always follow up phone calls with an email to remind them about what you discussed and to record everything. There may be others on the email string who need to stay in the loop.

7.  Meeting with Sponsors

Unless they have asked you to prepare something, the first meeting is an introduction to see how you can align. Some questions that might be worth asking include:

• What are the company's goals for the year?
• Is there a specific product or service they want to promote?
• Is there an event or activation that impressed them lately?
• How do they measure a successful event or activation?
• What do they want to avoid? (Very important - for example, a wellness brand might not want to align with an event that sells alcohol).

Make sure you bring a copy of your initial proposal (one for each person in the meeting) and perhaps include details like:

• Event layout
• Proposed schedule/line up

Don't overload them with information but have every detail of your event on hand. If someone asks a question, you want to answer then and there.

8. Crafting a Sponsorship Package

Now you have all the information, it's time to craft a sponsorship package tailored to your sponsor's brand.

If you're seeking a significant cash investment, spend some money on a graphic designer to generate artist representations. With Humanitix, you can even customise your ticket stub in Canva to include the sponsor's logo.

These details enable the sponsor to see your vision and the possibilities for their brand.

Most importantly, you need to show how your event can achieve your sponsor's goals. And why they should invest in you.

What now?

Humanitix can help you list your next event, we're also 40% more cost-effective for fundraisers and non-for-profits. In as little as two minutes you can make your event live, delight your guests, and change lives through supporting education projects. A ticketing platform that is good for you, and good for others! Be sure to mention us to your sponsors.