10.4 Key Steps for Sponsorship

Sponsorship development has to do with actually making presentations to sponsors and hopefully establishing mutually beneficial partnerships with selected sponsors. This process may be subject to a number of distinct phases:

1. Identify Your Needs

Identify what your organisation does, what it needs to do, how the sponsorship would transform your organisation and where the money will go, what will the sponsors get.

2. Identification and Research of Potential Sponsors

Establish what sort of organisation you would like to have supporting you and as such which ones you will contact. Research their sponsorship policies and history and see where an alignment can be made.

3. Develop the Presentation

It is a good idea to make contact with the company to identify any particular traits that are individual to them before you prepare your presentation. This way you can modify it to suit the potential sponsor's needs. Once this is established, you can prepare your presentation to the company covering such things as: what your organisation wants to achieve, how it plans to achieve it, how does the sponsor fit into these plans, what support you are asking for, how the sponsor will benefit from association with you.

4. Making the Sales Presentation

Probably the most important part of gaining sponsorship is actually making the presentation to the potential sponsor. This is where you sell your NGB to the sponsor and convince them that they should invest in you. How this pans out will obviously depend on your initial conversation with the potential sponsor (e.g. will you go to their work place, will you meet them in a neutral venue, do you need to bring a laptop and/or a projector screen? Remember to always have a back-up plan. When making the presentation, always be friendly and professional, show passion for your work and have ready-made answers to questions you think they may ask.

5. Follow-up

After the meeting, follow-up with a call or email asking the status of their decision. Once an agreement has been made, it will usually be followed up by a contract or letter setting out the terms. Read this carefully to check all legal implications.

6. Deliver

It is important that you now deliver on your part of the agreement. It is good practice to keep your sponsor fully informed of all developments. If there is a problem, always let them know how you are going to fix it.

In summary, NGBs seeking to obtain sponsorship support must clearly describe what they are about and then show how they effectively reach their target audiences and thus can provide value to sponsors interested in connecting to the same target audiences.

Tips for the Sport Worried about its Sources of Revenue

• Never put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify your revenue streams as much as possible and do not be afraid to try new ideas.
• Sponsors are becoming choosier and demanding. Review the services you give to your sponsors and think of ways they can be improved.
• Try to retain some stake in the various competitions run by your sport. Licensing and sanctioning fees can be a valuable source of revenue.
• Guard the reputation of your brand jealously. Sponsors do not want to be associated with scandals.
• Look at activities not directly associated with the sport -- assisting charities, hospital visits and so on. Sponsors increasingly want to be associated with organisations that do 'good work'. This also provides sponsors with a wider audience and so your NGB will appear more attractive to them.