Make a Bigger Impact with Corporate Sponsorships

IEG, a company who tracks corporate sponsorship data, projected at the start of 2017 that total sponsorship spending by businesses in North America would likely reach $23.2 billion by the end of the year. Nine percent of that number was estimated to go towards causes, roughly $2 billion.

Big or small, corporate sponsorships can effectively transform a nonprofit’s impact and potential to make a real difference. The first step in landing these sponsorships is educating businesses to what your nonprofit does and how their donation can help and, in most cases, a media kit can help you do just that. Here’s what you need to know about creating marketing materials with corporate sponsorships in mind.

Researching and Positioning Your Nonprofit

To connect with potential sponsors, you have to get into the mindset of a business-to-business deal—you want to position your nonprofit to sell sponsorships. But first, you’ll need to answer two questions about your cause:

1.     What’s your USP (unique selling proposition)? Why would a business want to choose you over other nonprofits?

2.     Do any of your values match with values in the potential sponsor’s business?

Once you have these two questions answered, you can take the information and weave it into your sponsorship marketing materials.

Selecting Your Materials

The next step is to plan what to include in your press or media kit. Remember, one size does not fit all, and you should tailor your content for each sponsorship and business you pursue.

Although certain content can be evergreen, like information about your nonprofit, stats for what you’ve accomplished and maybe testimonials from past corporate sponsors, the more personalized you can make your materials, the more effective.

Consider drafting personalized items to include in your media kit, such as a letter explaining why your nonprofit and the business would make a successful partnership, a list of your aligned values and information about the event or campaign they would be sponsoring.

Creating Your Nonprofit Media Kit

Think about what creative piece will catch the attention of your potential sponsorship. It could be in the form of a direct mail piece, an email or maybe even a video. When our agency partnered with the National Mobility Equipment Dealers Association to solicit corporate sponsorships for the organization’s National Mobility Awareness Month promotion, we combined traditional and nontraditional marketing elements with a custom video card.

If you’re stuck in a creative rut or you don’t have an in-house marketing team, consider hiring an advertising or marketing agency to help research, plan and create the powerful marketing materials you need to land great corporate sponsorships.