What Are Sponsors Looking For?
Vanessa and Antoinette break down what sponsors actually want: brand visibility through logos and social media, a way to shape how people see their products, and access to recruiting and volunteer opportunities. They show where to embed sponsor presence at events, from stages to gift bags, and stress pitching the sponsor benefit, not just the nonprofit's need.
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Hey, hey, is this the first time we met this year?
Uh, I don't think so. I think we met last week.
Okay, time goes by so fast, you just never know nowadays.
That's true.
Oh my goodness. And so now it says we're at the beginning of the year, and also any time of the year, it's always a good time to talk about sponsors. So today we're going to be talking about what sponsors are looking for, because sometimes we're on the nonprofits, it's like what we're looking for. But today we're really going to figure out What are sponsors looking for in order to choose your organization to give funding to, to sponsor? And so one of the things that we, we forget— oh, I'm sorry— one thing that we forget to do when we're talking, we're all tied to this sponsorship, is we forget that sponsors really are looking for an event, right?
And I think one of the things that you helped to make clear to me as we've been going through this process is Um, sponsors are also looking for a way to get something for themselves. So, uh, what we have are a list of a few things, um, that we think are key things that you need to be considering as you're looking for sponsors. And I'm going to start with the very first one that is just the most obvious is sponsors are looking for visibility. They want to know how you will showcase their logo, their website, their name on, um, somewhere prominently in your event. So if you're having a um, a table somewhere, maybe your tablecloth is a combination of your company name and the sponsor's company name. If you're handing out flyers, it would have the sponsor's information very prominently on the flyers. There are gift bags, there's a website The sponsor is looking for all the opportunities and all the ways in which you will give them visibility to your, your, you know, clients. So they have this extra market of people that they're now in front of.
And so that's really, that's really why it's so important, especially if you're a new nonprofit or you're an older nonprofit. Is to have constituents, have people who know you, have people who are following you, who know about your organization. So what does your Facebook look like? What is your social media? What is your LinkedIn? You know, are you on YouTube? Do you do TikTok? Are you— and they— because they want to know how many people do you have. So if you don't have these social media platforms, what does your website look like? You want to make sure you're getting your social media platform because you're going to help the sponsor be visible before during and after your event. So it's really important because they're looking for visibility. They can go and take their money and they could pay the news media, or they can take it and they can go to, you know, Super Bowl, right? Everybody's supposed to get sponsored, wants to be on the Super Bowl, and they spend millions and millions of dollars to get a tiny little ad and make that one impression. And some of their ads are funny and we remember them, but you want to make sure that you're giving them really visible opportunity because that's what they want to know. How do I sell my product? We're— so visibility is definitely huge when it comes to what sponsors are looking for in your event. Yeah. And then there's another thing that they're looking for is to, um, shape consumers' attitudes. So how can your event help shape the consumer's attitude about their product? Sometimes we'll have a product that we've either had good news about it or bad news about it, and people are saying, oh man, you know, such and such 'Um, restaurant, they serve really bad food.' And you're like— we're like, 'No, we serve really good food. We just haven't had a lot of people here.' So you want to— they may say, 'Well, you know what, you're having an event, you're going to have 1,000 people there. Let us come and let us be one of your vendors and let us pass out our food. We'll sponsor and let us pass our food, let people taste it.' So let's change their attitude about who we are. Or they might have had some bad press about something that they've done. Your organization may work with kids and they're like, 'No, we like kids, you know, we really like kids.' And so they may sponsor your event, so it'll really help shape consumers' attitudes about who they are, be it good or bad, you know. So they're looking for that because aligning with nonprofits, and people love nonprofits, like, oh, nonprofits are really doing good, so aligning with us as a nonprofit, it helps to shape consumers' attitudes about their particular products.
Another thing that you might not consider is that sponsors are also looking for ways to recruit employees. And retain employees. I'm going to let Vanessa speak to this one because I thought she did a great job. So, so speak to that one, Vanessa. That was great.
Okay. And especially when you talk about retain— recruiting employees right now, we know it's a bad time for people who are doing their own businesses or not going back to work. So you have an event and you may offer an opportunity for a sponsor to maybe have a booth there and have a job fair during your event. So they can recruit employees at your event because you're gonna have a lot of people coming in now and they might not know about the company, the company is hiring. So you make an opportunity to recruit them. And then also to retain employees. A lot of employees, they wanna do good and they may be grumbling about their employees or their employer and they're sick of doing the same thing over. Well, you can have their, they can have their employees come out and volunteer at your event, sit at a booth, help out. And so that helps to retain 'em because they're being more engaged. And they'd like— they're looking at the organization maybe in a little different eye and be like, okay, this organization is doing good, you know, I really want to be able to be here to help in this area. So it could be a really good opportunity to recruit and retain employees.
Yeah, I thought that that was a really good one, and, um, glad that you had it on your list. I do want to make sure that we emphasize at this juncture to those who may just be coming in and listening, we are talking about having an event. So you must be scheduling or planning an event to be considering sponsorship. So events, um, usually are— require like lots of pieces, you know. Um, there are some people who are in the Nonprofit Founders Club who are talking about having symposiums. And so therefore they'll have like a stage where they'll be teaching and entertainment and those sorts of things. And then they're also talking about like maybe having a room, like a, a meditation room or a quiet room or something like that. Those are all areas where sponsors can have an opportunity to promote their business, uh, pretty similar to what we've been talking about. They could— visibility, quite visible to say stage sponsored by XYZ company, pretty visible to say, you know, or, uh, also, um employee retaining, um, not— yeah, retaining and, um, possible recruiting. The meditation booth, right outside of it there's a table where the client can set up, the sponsor can set up and have their table set there, just kind of gathering names of the people who've taken advantage of the meditation room, not so much for recruitment, or maybe even just a little tick just to keep track of how many people took advantage of this. But also, again, like you said, maybe creatively there's a way to say, hey, as you're going into the meditation, if you've been thinking about changing careers, you know, consider us.
That's right, that's right. That's right. There's so many different— there's like 10 different reasons why sponsors are looking to participate, to sponsor your event. And it's not about you, it's about them. And so we have to remember it's a win-win situation for both of you.
Okay.
When you're putting your event on, think about your sponsor. Okay. Think about getting your sponsorship. Sometimes we say, oh, I need to have a sponsor, sponsor. You have these really tiny events, but you have to make sure it's like, what's appealing for them? And it's with everybody. It's like, what's in it for me? So they want to know what's in it for me. So we have 10— there's 10 different areas. So we don't have enough time right now because we try to keep our segments down to just 10 minutes, little, little bite-sized pieces. But if you want to know more about what it is that sponsors are looking for and get more deep in detail, we're going to leave a link. I don't know where you get this from, if you're on Facebook, YouTube, or wherever you're seeing this at, there's going to be a link. You can click that link to learn more. And we're also teaching it all about sponsorship and events in the Nonprofit Founders Club this over the next 90 days. So it's like, okay, how do you create an event and get sponsors to sponsor your event? But you have to make sure your event is appealing. So it's a lot of work. And so we're, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna change this world. All of us nonprofits together, we are going to make a difference. So we appreciate you looking at our video, talking with us this morning. And if you want some more information on what sponsors are looking for so you can really tailor an event for them. So this week we're talking about what they're looking for. Next week we're going to be talking about the benefits— what's the benefits that they can receive. And Antoinette touched on a little bit of it today, but I'm not going to tell you guys till next week what more of those benefits are. Awesome. So thank you all, have a wonderful week, and we will look forward to seeing you next week on All About Nonprofits.
Yeah.
