Downtown FUNDRAISING Minute: Yearlong sponsorship packages

One of the major joys I get from providing training for downtown organizations is learning that a volunteer or manager took a nugget of information I provided and changed some aspect of their fundraising methodology or apparatus.

Last year I did a series of half day training workshops for Main Street New Jersey communities on all aspects of downtown fundraising.  The end work product of these consultations was a specific work plan for at least one thing the community could do to improve some aspect of their revenue generation process.

In Boonton New Jersey, Karen Korinda, the local Main Street manager seemed to think that their sponsorship program could be improved if all of their many sponsorship opportunities could be combined into one year-long sponsorship solicitation.  At their training, I had shown an example of this idea from MainStreet Libertyville IL that Carolyn Dellutri had developed when she was the Executive Director of this 1997 Great American Main Street Award winning community in 2002.

MainStreet Libertyville, in Libertyville IL

Libertyville decided to create this year-long package because sponsors were asking, far in advance, to know what activities were planned by the organization. The main benefit of creating such a package for sponsors was allowing them to stretch their marketing budgets throughout the year and pick events in advance to meet their own marketing objectives. This once a year solicitation process was a great improvement over the former method of approaching sponsors one event at a time (and sometimes twice in the same month!) for the heavy summer event season.

The Libertyville example is very useful because most of the sponsorships are small dollar amounts and offers specific advertizing opportunities. Here is their example from 2007. Libertyville Sponsorship package

In another trip to Boonton later that year, I learned that Karen adopted this concept of a yearlong sponsorship package to fit her own organization.  She added some colorful graphics and a simple form to fill out by the sponsor.  See both of these documents here.  Boonton_sponsorship_form and Boonton_sponsorship brochure

I will discuss other year-long sponsorship packages in the months to come with comments about their differences and special features.

Next week:  Diversifying your revenue sources, no really!