Fundraising events remain a crucial component of nonprofits’ overall fundraising strategies. A major key to the success of a fundraising event is securing corporate sponsorships that cover fixed costs, build relationships for broader support and boost event attendance. So as you begin planning your fundraising event, keep the following strategies in mind to position your fundraiser as a compelling opportunity for prospective sponsors.

Define your event’s fundraising goals

One of your first planning tasks is setting event fundraising goals. These goals should be clearly defined, attainable and specific to the type of event you’re hosting. Why? Your approach to sponsorships in terms of asking price, benefits and businesses to target will be very different for a charity golf tournament versus a run/walk or large-scale gala with a high-end live auction.

You might also break down your goals for each event component, such as registration, raffle ticket sales, auction proceeds and sponsorships. Setting these goals during the event planning stage will help you craft your sponsorship packages and pitches so that you’re more likely to hit your objectives.

Research potential sponsors

Before you build your sponsor packages, it’s important to understand the needs and motivations of potential sponsors so you can appeal to them in your pitch. Businesses are usually looking to boost brand awareness, get exposure and make connections with potential clients and customers—and demonstrate their social impact by supporting a worthwhile cause. Make a shortlist of sponsors, starting with any previous event sponsors, vendors, partners, others you have a good relationship with and companies where you have connections. GolfStatus recommends looking at the following industries.

Next, do your research on these businesses and companies to help refine your approach for a sponsorship ask.

This background information will be helpful when you make your formal sponsorship ask, as you’ll know which elements to highlight.

1. Food and beverage
2. Health and fitness
3. Financial services
4. Home services
5. Luxury brands
6. Travel
7. Engage in informal conversations with your contacts at companies to gauge their interest and goals for sponsorships.
8. Check their website for press releases, blog posts or other mentions of philanthropic efforts to see if they align with your cause and event.
9. Do some digging on their social media accounts to get some background about where they dedicate their charitable dollars and how they like to be recognized for their support.

Build and customize sponsorship packages

A good place to start when creating your sponsorship offerings is to think about your event’s hard costs and how you can cover them via sponsorship revenue or through in-kind contributions. Think creatively about what you can sell as a sponsorship, keeping this in mind: If you can put a logo on it, you can sell it as a sponsorship! Your event management platform might also come with exclusive exposure opportunities, like a technology sponsorship. A good rule of thumb is to offer packages or tiers at assorted price points to appeal to a wider variety of sponsor budgets. NXUnite recommends naming each sponsorship to help distinguish the value of each package, such as gold, silver and bronze.

You can also create sponsorship packages specifically for a potential sponsor. For example, if you have a catering company or restaurant that has expressed interest in supporting your event, consider a custom dinner sponsor package that you only offer to them. Or if you’re planning a virtual or hybrid fundraising event, you might consider proposing an in-kind sponsorship for tech support to your managed IT provider. Or if you’re hosting a junior golf tournament, approach a sporting goods store or golf outfitter to donate golf balls or clubs for pin prizes. The point is to appeal to your supporters’ interests and capabilities when thinking through custom sponsorships.

Offer compelling sponsorship benefits

Fundraising event sponsorship packages should offer robust benefits for the sponsoring business and enough ROI for that business to justify the spend. A combination of straight-up brand exposure, engagement with event participants and public recognition is likely to get businesses’ attention.

Typical sponsor benefits you might feature in some or all of your packages include the following.

• Logo on your event registration website and mobile app
• Logo on promotional materials, emails and signage
• The chance to interact with attendees before, during and after the event
• The opportunity to speak at the event
• Complimentary registrations, tables or teams (depending on the event)
• Social media mentions
• The opportunity to add promotional materials to attendee gift bags
• Registrant information for marketing purposes

Don’t forget about the on-boarding and event experience, either—it should be simple for sponsors to commit to your event, share brand assets and work with your team throughout the process.

Communicate your event’s value proposition

Your fundraising event is in a unique position to help sponsors meet their objectives, so your sponsorship value proposition should highlight this fact. There are several ways to do this. First, use data about your audience and how it overlaps with the target audience of the business. For example, if you’re holding a charity golf tournament and you’re going after higher-end sponsors, be sure to highlight golfers’ typically affluent demographic. Second, leverage data and key performance indicators from previous fundraising events (such as number of attendees, impressions and reach of email marketing and social media posts, number of television or radio ads where the sponsor would be mentioned) to paint a better picture of your event’s sponsorship value. Finally, share success stories or testimonials from previous sponsors that highlight their positive experiences.

The end goal here is to effectively communicate how your event—and your event alone—is a vehicle for the company to reach its target audience while supporting an important cause.

Collect KPIs

Key performance indicators, or KPIs, help you not only evaluate the success of the event as a whole, but drill down to identify which sponsorship packages with the most successful in terms of revenue, demand and sponsor response. This information helps your planning team make changes and improvements for future fundraising events. Post-event surveys and conversations with sponsors and attendees will help you gather some qualitative feedback, but you might also dig deeper to track some sponsor-facing metrics, such as the following.

• Lead generation

• Return on investment
• Social media engagement
• Sponsorship renewal rate

These metrics, combined with survey data, will help you measure sponsor satisfaction and event impact, laying the foundation for success in subsequent years’ fundraising events.

There’s no doubting it—sponsorships are a major factor in a successful fundraising event. Starting with clear, defined goals for your fundraiser makes identifying sponsors, crafting attractive sponsorship packages and communicating your value proposition straightforward for you and your planning team. What’s more, you’ll set yourself up for future success by collecting KPIs that give you valuable insights into your sponsors’ needs and experiences with your fundraising event. So no matter what type of event you’re planning, these strategies will help you create irresistible sponsorships that maximize your event’s fundraising power.

Logan Foote has been around the game of golf nearly his entire life. He first picked up a club at the age of four, and despite thousands of attempts, he’s never had a hole-in-one. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and pursued a career in sales. Logan came to GolfStatus in 2017, where he channels his passion for golf to help nonprofits raise money through the game.