When fundraising for nonprofits, how do you get corporate sponsorships? I’ll talk you through this nonprofit fundraising strategy step by step. #Nonprofit #Fundraising #Nonprofits
There are many fundraising ideas out there for nonprofits, but corporate sponsorships for your nonprofit fundraising event or program is one way to build a relationship that may support your nonprofit organization year after year, if you do it right.
That said, getting a corporate sponsorship is not always easy! I talk you through the process of finding and obtaining corporate sponsorships for your nonprofit step by step in this video based on years of trial and error and the best advice out there from other nonprofit experts.
Hope this helps!
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// MORE ABOUT ME
Hi! I’m Amber, a nonprofit founder, Executive Director, and public speaker on social impact, changemaking, nonprofits, leadership, and more. Want me to come speak at your business, college, school, or event or interested in consulting for your nonprofit? Reach out: https://ambermsmith.com/
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Corporate sponsorships are one of many
ways that nonprofit organizations can raise money, but why does it seem like
some nonprofits manage to get corporate funding and sponsorships where it's such
a struggle for others? In this video I'm going to talk through some of the basic
strategies that nonprofits use to successfully get corporate sponsorships.
Welcome back! My name is Amber Melanie Smith, and I make these videos here on
YouTube to help aspiring changemakers with tips and strategies to hel
p you
change the world and live a life of impact and purpose. So I've been running
the nonprofit organization that I started a while ago for some time now,
and I can tell you that figuring out how to get corporate funding and corporate
sponsorships was something that took me a while. Once I finally figured it out
though, a lot of strategy started to make sense. I learned that getting corporate sponsorships is a lot like any other
kind of fundraising - it's all about relationships, it's all about
figuring
out how you can solve the sponsors problem as well as meet your own needs,
and it's all about being clear about what you are asking for. In fact it's a
lot like sales in that way. So without further ado, here are the steps that
nonprofits can go through to get corporate sponsorships. Step one: lay the
groundwork you want to be building a foundation to fuel your asks for
sponsorships by building lots of relationships so you can try
cold-calling a company to see if they'd be willing to s
ponsor your charitable
effort but it's a lot harder fundraising across the board gets easier the more
well-known you become in the community the more relationships you build and the
bigger your network and that makes sense because people are more likely to invest
their dollars and give you donations if they know who you are trust you and that
you have a good reputation so you want to start by building your relationships
and your reputation by getting out there in the community raising awareness
about
who you are and what cause you represent you can do this in a variety of ways
from public speaking to attending networking events you can write articles
guest blogs on other popular websites you can share your cause with the media
and hope that they pick up on and do a news story
about you you can attend other charitable that's going on in your
community the people who are there already care about some causes in the
community so they might be likely to care about yours too if you can get t
o
know them generally it's all about becoming a
known entity and getting a good reputation step 2 is to research your
corporate sponsorship prospects it's very unlikely that a random company is
going to sponsor your cause you have to figure out which companies are most
likely to believe in what you're doing and align well with your cause and your
brand there are a couple of ways of figuring out if a particular company
would be a good fit for your cause you can go on their website look at their
c
orporate social responsibility pages and they often will list the causes they
care about right there from environment or poverty or whatever it may be they'll
list them on their site you can also check out the websites and events
fundraising events other types of events of other charities who are working a
similar space as you so let's say you are working on a hunger related issue
check out what other hunger related nonprofits are doing with their
corporate sponsors who those sponsors are those
companies are already proven
to be aligned with that cause in this case hunger so they might be potential
sponsors for your cause to ultimately just keep remembering that a company
sponsorships have to align with their own brand and their own business goals
so be thinking to yourself what mission does my nonprofit have that aligns with
specific companies if you are a farming or hunger related nonprofit maybe a
company that deals in agricultural products would be a good fit for you if
you are a n
on-profit that deals in helping animals maybe a pet supply
company could be a good fit for you because then they're gonna be able to
put their name on the cause that aligns with what they're already doing to
attract customers as well the third step is to understand how each individual
company funds their charitable giving and sponsorships
what motivates them in other words what's a goal that the company has that
your cause can help them meet so that it's a mutually beneficial partnership a
compa
ny motivated by getting some good public relations for example might be
interested in partnering with a cause that aligns with their brand but also
that has a really big audience since they're trying to get their name out
there a company who is interested in getting their employees out there in the
community building relationships might be interested in a partnership or
sponsorship in which they can also volunteer with your organization so
there are lots of different things to consider in terms
of what the company is
looking for when they are doing their charitable giving and how your cause can
help them meet that need so step four once you think you've identified a
couple of potential corporate sponsors you really want to figure out who the
correct person is within each of those companies to talk to about a sponsorship
the first thing I would do is take a look at my list of potential corporate
sponsorship targets and think to myself do I know anybody who works at any of
these companie
s or do I have any personal connections there because a
personal connection can go a long way to getting your foot in the door if you
have a personal connection there great you can ask that person who the
correct person in the company would be to talk to about their charitable giving
their social responsibility and their sponsorship efforts consider that every
company does this a little bit differently one company might have their
Human Resources person in charge of their charitable giving anoth
er company
might have the CEO in charge of their philanthropy and charitable giving and
yet another company might have a whole committee of employees they've nominated
to take in applications for sponsorships and make a decision every company is
different so if you ask the wrong person you might not get a response and it
might be a dead end for you so figuring out who the correct person to ask is
really important if you're not sure where to start and you don't have a
personal connection at a com
pany one strategy you might consider is
contacting an administrator there and just asking them very simply hey I'm
and learning more about your company's charitable sponsorship efforts where can
I find more information about that who is the correct contact for questions
then that person will hopefully respond to you and you will have a lead there
that you can start the conversation with about partnering and sponsoring in the
future step 5 now before you actually ask for a
sponsorship you've got
to decide on what you are asking for in your sponsorship
you're going to have better odds of securing a sponsorship if you make your
sponsorship ask very specific you want to create a brief ideally visual
one-pager or brochure that outlines what you are looking for from the company in
terms of sponsorship now this document needs to include a little bit about your
cause of course your website it needs to include what you're asking for that
could be either a specific dollar amount or an in-kind as
k which means something
that's not monetary but something of value to you like media exposure or an
item you want to include what the benefits are for the sponsor and then
how those dollars will help you further your cause when you're thinking through
what kinds of benefits to offer a sponsor you just have to be a little bit
careful because there's something called the unrelated business income that means
that if you are generating funds for your nonprofit in a way that has nothing
to do with yo
ur mission as a non-profit the IRS can actually penalize you by
charging you taxes because in their perspective you strayed from your
mission of your nonprofit and you're just generating income in some random
way so you need to be treated more like a business in that case now what this
has to do with sponsorships is that there are certain rules you have to
follow in sponsorships to avoid getting penalized through this unrelated
business income tax just be sure to look up what those rules are bef
ore you
proceed with offering a potential sponsor some of those perks I can tell
you right now certain kinds of advertisements violate this IRS policy
you are unable to for example include coop
that offers 50% off for the company that is sponsoring your cause because that
from the IRS his perspective is like you are becoming a marketing arm of the
private company and that is unrelated business to your mission so just be sure
you review those rules and make sure you are on the up-and-up there are
plenty of
ways you can acknowledge your sponsor however that are totally fine things
that are pretty common include logos on websites logos on t-shirts social media
shoutouts and acknowledgments doing a video together in which the sponsor has
an opportunity to share what the company does or have a speaking opportunity at
your event again this is where you want to think through what problem you're
solving for the company and making sure that the benefits can help them meet
their goals then they'
re gonna be more likely to want to partner with you once
you have that document together you want to go ahead and make your ask you want
to talk to the contact you found at the company you want to introduce yourself
and let them know what you're hoping for and invite them to have a discussion
with you you want to always end your email or your correspondence with a
question that prompts them to respond something like would you have an
opportunity to chat with me about this or what other informati
on would be
valuable for you in considering partnering with our costs step 6 is to
follow up a lot of companies get a ton of requests for charitable donations or
sponsorships throughout the year and they can get quite busy with these
requests so don't be shy about following up on a request that you previously made
politely follow up ask if they have any additional questions or if there's any
other information that they need that would be helpful for them and then if
there are any updates or if a
ny decisions have been made about
partnering with your cause of course if they do have questions answer them
thoroughly and transparently step 7 and this is a hard one you've got to learn
from rejections also keep in mind you're gonna hear no a lot just keep on moving
it's okay you're gonna get that yes at some point and that's what's gonna carry
you forward so if someone tells you no they will not sponsor your cause the
is actually a great opportunity to learn and grow and make your next sponso
rship
request whether it's to that company or some other company more successful if
they say no it's really important that you respond politely that you thank them
for their time and that you ask them if they'd be willing to share any feedback
with you about their decision you would be really surprised what you can learn
from this exercise maybe for example they told you that they actually did
like your cause but your timing wasn't very good because they make all of their
budgeting decisions in
one month of the year and it's not that month this gives
you a lot of information this means that you can go back to them when it is that
month and try again or maybe they liked what you were trying to do but felt that
you were a little bit too new or unproven as a nonprofit that means that
maybe after a couple of years of getting some more experience under your belt and
showing some more impacts you might be able to go back and try to re-establish
that relationship or maybe someone at their com
pany had a bad experience with
your nonprofit it sucks to hear this but it's really important to know that it
happens that you can try to get to the root of it and fix it sometimes you
might also learn that they're just not a good fit for what you're trying to do
that's okay that means that you don't have to spend time pursuing that
relationship any further and they don't have to pursue a relationship with you
any further and you can part ways and it'll be fine and you can go off and
spend your
time finding a better fit for your work step eight if you get a
sponsorship follow through on the promises that you made through the
partnership acknowledge the company and the sponsor how you promised you would
in the very beginning this is going to build credibility and Trust and believe
me companies talk to each other if one company has a great experience
supporting your cause they're gonna tell their friends and other companies I've
had this happen to me so I know for sure that it's a thing
finally step 9 and this is really important for your future success say
thank you and keep building that relationship throughout the year many
businesses will return year after year to keep sponsoring your cause if you
maintain that trust and keep that relationship going you want to be
talking to that company throughout the year inviting them to other things that
you're doing sharing blog articles you've written
about your cause just generally keeping up communication so that the only time
that
they hear from you isn't when you need money so those are the basic steps
I would love to hear from you if you have tried to get corporate sponsorships
in the past what kind of success have you seen what strategies did you try to
be successful or if a company said no what kind of feedback did you get share
in the comments below let us know I've met an amazing amount of folks on this
channel and I just know that we will have a great conversation about it
before we wrap up one final thought and th
at is that if you are in Facebook
don't forget to check out my group change the world or bust where myself
and other change makers are having great conversations around making an impact
nonprofit social enterprise work and so much more once again my name is Amber
Melanie Smith thank you for checking out this video please like subscribe to ring
that Bell and I hope to see you again soon
Comments
My Nonprofit Founder to Full-Time Academy -- with online trainings to guide you through the steps to start a nonprofit (in the USA) and more -- is now LIVE! http://foundertofulltime.com/
1.Make contacts and relationships 2.Research what sponsers have supported before 3.Understand a potential sponser's goal 4.Choose a target that fit and find a person to contact 5.create a pitch, the ask 6.Follow Up after the ask 7.Learn and improve from rejections 8.Follow through on the promises made 9.Say Thank you and keep building relationships throught the year
Thank you for all the work you put into these videos!
Great advice! I have been telling people this for 25yr. I will send you work to others for up lift!
Wealth ( pun intended) of information! Thank you so much!!!
Thanks! This was a great video. Keep up the good work :)
I'm new to the non-profit administration sector and I didn't know where to start. Thank you for this information.
You are a very great teacher
Thanks Mrs smith for your videos i am founder and it was my first time to listen videos 🎉🎉❤
You're really appreciated dear Amber
Very good. Lots of thanks.
Very helpful and obviously advice based on experience. Thank you
Thank you soooooo much for this video
Thank you so much for this video. It was hard to find this kind of info especially relating to social initiatives. Amazing tips!!! 🌻
Thank you for this! I’m going to start this process this year 🎉
I love this. I'd love to learn some tips on delegating the fundraising to someone else with better skills for the job. For my organization for example, I am better served focusing on website designing, graphic designing, and more technical aspects, I'm not necessarily the best people person, I'm very autistic and I find social situations to be extremely challenging. Thanks for the great video!
I am watching your video to learn more.
Hi Amber, Hope you're well along with your love ones. We are in the building process of creating a Non-Profit organization and the vision is to bring awareness and consciousness about how we care for this planet. Mission statement is to "Heal" re-green the earth. your Video is the best... Thank you for your piece of knowledge to me. many thanks -Nash W Seattle WA USA
Thank you Amber for this helpful tutorial. I will review and try your methods of attempting a successfully corporate sponsorship. Living in Doors.... Thanks again Mrs. Smith.
Thanks again Amber.