Sponsorship Packages: A Guide for Non-Profits

October 19, 2023
SponsorPulse Staff

Image courtesy Scott Graham via Unsplash

So you’ve built a strong sponsorship deck outlining in-depth audience insights and demonstrating the tangible sponsorship benefits for prospective sponsors, you’re all set to start pitching right? Almost.

Now that you’ve quantified the sponsorship opportunity with all this robust data, the next step is leveraging that data to ensure that your organization is getting what it needs from sponsors.

What is a Sponsorship Package?

A sponsorship package is a piece of collateral, often in the form of a pitch deck, that outlines the sponsorship opportunity and all the supporting data - both qualitative and quantitative - to help prospective sponsors understand the opportunity. It should clearly outline what sponsors are receiving from your organization, and what you are receiving from sponsors.

In our previous articles, you’ve begun building out your sponsorship deck - building out key audience insights to help sponsors understand the reach of your cause property, the frequency of engagement and even which demographics are hyper-engaged with your organization. You’ve also added in key brand impact metrics to help sponsors understand the value of engaging with you - things such as excitement and momentum and going so far as to quantify both favorability and purchase consideration.

Now that you’ve made your case, it’s time to provide prospective sponsors with a few options as to how they can get involved. Enter sponsorship packages.

Building your Sponsorship Packages

While there are many different approaches to sponsorship packages, the tiered approach is a great place to start. It not only provides ready-baked options for sponsors to select, it can also lead to designing custom packages for sponsors who want to take a little from column A and column B.

Step one is simple - each tier needs a name. Whether you design custom names or follow the tried and true olympic model of Bronze, Silver and Gold - make sure that each tier is distinct from one another.

From there, a detailed explanation of sponsor benefits is key to highlight the opportunity each tier holds.

Branding & Marketing Opportunities

It’s a well known fact that consumers care about how brands engage with causes, in fact 73% of Americans consider companies’ charitable work when making a purchase.

This is why branding and marketing opportunities are essential goods when it comes to sponsorship packages. Here are are a few examples to consider:

Digital Logo placement
In-person logo placement & signage
Social Media posts
Content Marketing

Brand visibility is an important part of sponsorship and we all know it takes more than once to remember something, so make sure that your tiers provide the right amount of exposure for the investment.

Business Development Opportunities

One of the reasons brand fit is so important for sponsorship is that brands are essentially buying access to a new audience - one that they hope aligns with their customer base. This is why highlighting who your audience is and how they can engage is a huge value add for any sponsor. Things to think about:

Lead generation opportunities
PR and Media coverage
Networking opportunities
The size of your causes social following
Email marketing list
Audience demographics

Brands are always looking for new ways to engage with consumers and cause sponsorship provides a great opportunity for them to do good while meeting new potential customers.

Pricing it out

After outlining all the benefits, it’s important to assign a cost to each tier. There are a few key elements to consider:

Audience size - different channels have different reach. Spend some time investigating the total reach offering for each tier.
Frequency - as mentioned earlier, it takes more than once for someone to remember an ad or a logo. Determine the approximate frequency with which the audience will be exposed to the brand sponsoring.
Access - each tier should have increasing access levels to your audience, reinforcing the value of the potential customers and the value of being attached to your cause

Pricing can often feel daunting as nonprofits don’t want to scare prospective sponsors away. This is where the data comes in! Brands that are genuinely interested in partnering will value being able to see the numbers behind the ask. Lean into your internal data and amplify it with the right consumer data and you’ll be off to the races.

Don’t forget to customize

The beauty of sponsorship packages is that they offer a rich foundation to support you and your cause in bringing in essential dollars. But don’t be fooled - it is imperative to spend time customizing each deck to ensure that you are reinforcing brand fit for each prospective sponsor.

Afterall, we all know the spray and pray strategy rarely gets us the results we want.