The backbone of a Sponsorship Proposal

Let’s say your sports organization is planning to have a major competition, and you’re in the marketing commission, assigned with the specific tasks of finding suitable sponsors for your event. It seems like a piece of cake – find potential sponsors; call them up; give a sales pitch; and you’re done. Problem is… each company you called asked you for a sponsorship proposal. You sit there, brainstorming on a plan but have no idea how it should look like.

The good thing about this is that you’re not alone. I bet that the majority of administrators assigned to recruit sponsors on a voluntary basis never really thought of the process involved in getting sponsors. The reason for this is that sponsorship in sports has evolved from being a philantropical gesture to a big (and serious) business.

You can decide to outsource the development of a sponsorship proposal to a professional, or in cases that your sports organization doesn’t have such resources, make your own sponsorship plan. There is no perfect framework, but the blueprint below targets the two main targets that every sponsorship proposal should aim at – avoiding rejection and securing a meeting with potential sponsors.

What your sponsorship proposal should have…

Before writing your proposal plan, key points such as the overall budget, the type and number of sponsors should be established. These points are important considerations since they will be part of your ‘physical pitch’ in order to lure your potential sponsors

Executive Summary

The executive summary should be located at the beginning of the sponsorship proposal. This will provide your target sponsor a brief but informative description about the event your organization will be holding. The opportunities, benefits and gains should be included as well as the deadline for the sponsor’s decision and their investment. Keep this summary simple and easy to understand.

Introduction

Like every introduction, provide the necessary information your sponsor/s would want to know. This includes details about your organization and the upcoming sports event. Basically provide a background that will let the sponsor know the nature of the organization; the reason for holding a major event; any relevant and important that help in creating a positive response from sponsor prospects.

Description Sports event

In the introduction, though the event is mentioned, it is not broken down detail by detail. It is rather in this section of your sponsorship proposal that you give a comprehensive insight to every detail the upcoming sports event has. Such points may include the day, date and time; the venue of the event; the number of athletes/ teams, what should be achieved in the event and the reason behind each.

Any information about similar and/or past events that the organization has had can be included. This provides the sponsor prospects to see the pattern of how the events went and if it would be ideal for them to support it.

Sponsorship Financial Investment

Simply put, this area of the proposal is a break down of what you want your sponsor to support. This is your organization’s request for the sponsor’s resources which may be their service, cash, prizes, product/s, promotions/advertising, or expertise. It is vital to include a price in this part.

Taking account of the actual and realistic costs will give the sponsor the idea that your organization is ready to make such a commitment. Also make sure that the benefits you propose to offer the sponsor prospect/s corresponds to the amount or level of support your organization is asking from them.

Sponsorship Financial Investment

In some cases you are not only looking for financial support, but for value-in-kind sponsorship. Instead of money, the sponsor could sponsor you with t-shirts, rental cars, beverages, computers to use for free. It is important to be very creative, as this VIK sponsorship could be of great value!

Sponsor Gains/Benefits

This part of the sponsorship plan should be an outline of all benefits and opportunities that the sponsors will gain from supporting the event. Benefits specified should involve tangible and intangible gains.

Quantifying the benefits is also encouraged to give the sponsors a bracket of measurement that they can refer to when considering their decision. Remember to always be flexible and ask the potential sponsor whether they have their any other ideas of getting exposure with the event.

Sponsor Decision Deadline

A deadline of about two weeks lets the sponsor prospect see that your organization is willing to wait a span of time that is reasonable for sponsor consideration. At the same time, it is also a message that sends out a time constraint so that the prospects can give it the proper attention.

This area should be clearly stated so that a timeline can be established. Also so that other scheduled activities, such as setting up a meeting and further presentation, can be followed through on time.

Appendice/Reference

As with every proposal, this part should be a page of reference or sources that were used in stating facts and statistics that support the proposal. This area also includes relevant tables, charts, budget lists, background sources and the like that should help in the enhancement of the sponsorship proposal.

The topic of finding sponsors is one that needs more articles to dedicate. I will conclude with some tips, that I will elaborate on in future articles:

1. Always over perform
2. Don’t be afraid to refuse a sponsor
3. Be professional
4. Protect your sponsors
5. Involve your athletes
6. ……leave your tip in the comments below………

1. ……leave your tip in the comments below………

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