This document provides guidance on securing corporate sponsorships for nonprofits. It discusses challenges such as busy prospects, the importance of value propositions and alignment over requests, and targeting sponsorship buyers rather than CSR departments. Effective sponsorship proposals are brief, focus on the sponsor's interests, and provide competitive differentiators. Fulfilling sponsor benefits and activations is also key to keeping sponsors engaged.

1. Why is it so Hard to Sell?
Nonprofit Edition

2. 1. Insights from Nonprofit Industry Survey
2. Understand what Sponsorship is and isn’t
3. How to Work with Busy Prospects
4. Sponsors are Flooded with Proposals,
yours must be on Target
5. Skilled Selling makes a Huge Difference
6. A Campaign is the Best way to Sell
Sponsorship
Recipe for Successful
Sponsorship Acquisition

3. North American
Sponsorship
Continues to Grow
• Why is it growing?
• How can you take
advantage of that?

4. Do you have
difficulty securing
meetings and
conversations with
corporate contacts in
marketing and other
departments outside
of corporate
philanthropy? For the full survey:
http://www.sponsorship.com/Resources/IEG-s-Nonprofit-
Sponsorship-Survey.aspx
IEG’s Nonprofit Sponsorship Survey

5. Definitions: Sponsorship or Philanthropy?
• Corporate funding for a nonprofit with no expectation of a commercial return.
• These funds can come out of either corporate giving programs or corporate
foundations.
Philanthropy:
Defined by IEG in 1982 as a commercial relationship between a company and a
property in which the company pays a fee in return for access to the exploitable
commercial potential associated with the property.
The payment is unrestricted and the amount is based on the value of the rights and
benefits included in the sponsorship rather than on the budget or need of the rights
holder.
Sponsorship:

6. Recognizing that more than one of the following statements could
be applicable, please select the one that best describes your
organization’s approach to sponsorship.

7. What Challenges do you face in growing
sponsorship revenue?

8. Sponsorship is not
Philanthropy
• It’s not a donation
• CSR or Foundation staff is
not your target
• Don’t put sponsorship
assets into CSR proposals
• It may not be tax
deductible
• No place for the “feel
good” pitch

9. Selling is a Skill
• Who is your default sales staff?
• Sending out emails isn’t selling
• Knowing your prospect’s pain
• Listening
• Internal or external sales?
• Not the place to look for positive
reinforcement

10. Everyone that Matters is
Busy
• Jill Konrath – Selling to Big Companies
• Are you busy, they are too
• No one has time to be sold to
• Value Propositions
• The 8 second rule
• The goal of the first sentence

11. The Sponsorship
Proposal
• TMI
• Avoid Hyperbole
• It’s all about them – Not
you!
• Don’t you dare put a price in
there!
• Alignment first
• Data in the appendix
• Your audience is not the
people you help, It’s the
people who care about you
help

12. Principles and
Mindset for
Successful
Sponsorship
Sales
• You are competing against
everyone in the sponsorship
space, not just other Nonprofit
organizations
• You have advantages, do you
know what they are?
• They are your point of
differentiation

13. Who are Sponsorship
Buyers?
• Brand Managers
• Business Development Executives
• Marketing Executives
• Product Placement Marketers
• Sales Executives
• Sponsorship Executives
• Communications and PR Executives

14. Hurdles are Opportunities!
• Air Cover really helps
• Educating and Selling 2x the work
• Are you a salesperson? Be honest with yourself
• Too much time vs. Not enough time

15. Example: Bank
needs more
accounts
• Charity helps people with financial literacy
– pitch is in 10 years the folks we serve will
be customers
• Bank is measured every quarter. People in
10 years don’t help
• Charity’s fund raising committee is made
up of VP and CEOs, may have referrals or
business to direct
• People who care about your cause via
newsletter, event or social are more likely
to choose a bank that cares about the
issues that are important to them
• Example borrowed from Chris Bayliss at
The Sponsorship Collective

16. Making the ask
• Value propositions
• Present the
Problem, especially
new information
• Sell the solution
• Call to Action
• Competing in a
Clickbait World

17. Clickbait headlines typically aim to exploit the "curiosity gap", providing just enough
information to make readers curious, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity
without clicking through to the linked content.~ Wikipedia

18. The most common
big mistakes
• Not allowing enough time
• Build it “and they will come”
• Confusing activity with
progress
• Believing what the prospect
says
• “Send me something”
• “No Budget”
• Not speaking with the
decision maker
• Not moving on
• Pricing based on cost not
value

19. • Background
• The Lunch Itself
• The Lesson
Charlie’s Lunch:

20. Best
Practice:
Infographic
• (Doesn’t look
much like a
grant proposal)

21. Best
Practice:
Infographic

22. Best Practice: Just the Facts (on request only)

23. If you can Only do a Few
Things
• Media kit. Get real about data especially social
• Know your value to your prospect
• Make sales and marketing a priority
• Don’t wait until it is too late
• Avoid hyperbole

24. Keeping Sponsors
• Fulfillment reports
• Activation
• Get feedback
• Get ahead of problems
• Bad activation impacts you

25. If we still have time!
• They have alternatives
• Borrowing the halo
• Don’t send cold proposals
• Giving up too soon
• If you saw it on line or in the paper it
is too late
• Customization
• What are you good at?
• Consider the cost of activation
• Examples, references, competitor info,
results

26. Larry Weil
TheSponsorshipGuy.com
larry@thesponsorshipguy.com
www.linkedin.com/in/thesponsorshipguy