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Corporate sponsorships are one of many ways that nonprofit organizations can raise money, but why does it seem like some nonprofits manage to get corporate funding and sponsorships where it's such a struggle for others? In this video I'm going to talk through some of the basic strategies that nonprofits use to successfully get corporate sponsorships. Welcome back! My name is Amber Melanie Smith, and I make these videos here on YouTube to help aspiring changemakers with tips and strategies to help you change the world and live a life of impact and purpose. So I've been running the nonprofit organization that I started a while ago for some time now, and I can tell you that figuring out how to get corporate funding and corporate sponsorships was something that took me a while. Once I finally figured it out though, a lot of strategy started to make sense. I learned that getting corporate sponsorships is a lot like any other kind of fundraising - it's all about relationships, it's all about figuring out how you can solve the sponsors problem as well as meet your own needs, and it's all about being clear about what you are asking for. In fact it's a lot like sales in that way. So without further ado, here are the steps that nonprofits can go through to get corporate sponsorships. Step one: lay the groundwork you want to be building a foundation to fuel your asks for sponsorships by building lots of relationships so you can try cold-calling a company to see if they'd be willing to sponsor your charitable effort but it's a lot harder fundraising across the board gets easier the more well-known you become in the community the more relationships you build and the bigger your network and that makes sense because people are more likely to invest their dollars and give you donations if they know who you are trust you and that you have a good reputation so you want to start by building your relationships and your reputation by getting out there in the community raising awareness about who you are and what cause you represent you can do this in a variety of ways from public speaking to attending networking events you can write articles guest blogs on other popular websites you can share your cause with the media and hope that they pick up on and do a news story about you you can attend other charitable that's going on in your community the people who are there already care about some causes in the community so they might be likely to care about yours too if you can get to know them generally it's all about becoming a known entity and getting a good reputation step 2 is to research your corporate sponsorship prospects it's very unlikely that a random company is going to sponsor your cause you have to figure out which companies are most likely to believe in what you're doing and align well with your cause and your brand there are a couple of ways of figuring out if a particular company would be a good fit for your cause you can go on their website look at their corporate social responsibility pages and they often will list the causes they care about right there from environment or poverty or whatever it may be they'll list them on their site you can also check out the websites and events fundraising events other types of events of other charities who are working a similar space as you so let's say you are working on a hunger related issue check out what other hunger related nonprofits are doing with their corporate sponsors who those sponsors are those companies are already proven to be aligned with that cause in this case hunger so they might be potential sponsors for your cause to ultimately just keep remembering that a company sponsorships have to align with their own brand and their own business goals so be thinking to yourself what mission does my nonprofit have that aligns with specific companies if you are a farming or hunger related nonprofit maybe a company that deals in agricultural products would be a good fit for you if you are a non-profit that deals in helping animals maybe a pet supply company could be a good fit for you because then they're gonna be able to put their name on the cause that aligns with what they're already doing to attract customers as well the third step is to understand how each individual company funds their charitable giving and sponsorships what motivates them in other words what's a goal that the company has that your cause can help them meet so that it's a mutually beneficial partnership a company motivated by getting some good public relations for example might be interested in partnering with a cause that aligns with their brand but also that has a really big audience since they're trying to get their name out there a company who is interested in getting their employees out there in the community building relationships might be interested in a partnership or sponsorship in which they can also volunteer with your organization so there are lots of different things to consider in terms of what the company is looking for when they are doing their charitable giving and how your cause can help them meet that need so step four once you think you've identified a couple of potential corporate sponsors you really want to figure out who the correct person is within each of those companies to talk to about a sponsorship the first thing I would do is take a look at my list of potential corporate sponsorship targets and think to myself do I know anybody who works at any of these companies or do I have any personal connections there because a personal connection can go a long way to getting your foot in the door if you have a personal connection there great you can ask that person who the correct person in the company would be to talk to about their charitable giving their social responsibility and their sponsorship efforts consider that every company does this a little bit differently one company might have their Human Resources person in charge of their charitable giving another company might have the CEO in charge of their philanthropy and charitable giving and yet another company might have a whole committee of employees they've nominated to take in applications for sponsorships and make a decision every company is different so if you ask the wrong person you might not get a response and it might be a dead end for you so figuring out who the correct person to ask is really important if you're not sure where to start and you don't have a personal connection at a company one strategy you might consider is contacting an administrator there and just asking them very simply hey I'm and learning more about your company's charitable sponsorship efforts where can I find more information about that who is the correct contact for questions then that person will hopefully respond to you and you will have a lead there that you can start the conversation with about partnering and sponsoring in the future step 5 now before you actually ask for a sponsorship you've got to decide on what you are asking for in your sponsorship you're going to have better odds of securing a sponsorship if you make your sponsorship ask very specific you want to create a brief ideally visual one-pager or brochure that outlines what you are looking for from the company in terms of sponsorship now this document needs to include a little bit about your cause of course your website it needs to include what you're asking for that could be either a specific dollar amount or an in-kind ask which means something that's not monetary but something of value to you like media exposure or an item you want to include what the benefits are for the sponsor and then how those dollars will help you further your cause when you're thinking through what kinds of benefits to offer a sponsor you just have to be a little bit careful because there's something called the unrelated business income that means that if you are generating funds for your nonprofit in a way that has nothing to do with your mission as a non-profit the IRS can actually penalize you by charging you taxes because in their perspective you strayed from your mission of your nonprofit and you're just generating income in some random way so you need to be treated more like a business in that case now what this has to do with sponsorships is that there are certain rules you have to follow in sponsorships to avoid getting penalized through this unrelated business income tax just be sure to look up what those rules are before you proceed with offering a potential sponsor some of those perks I can tell you right now certain kinds of advertisements violate this IRS policy you are unable to for example include coop that offers 50% off for the company that is sponsoring your cause because that from the IRS his perspective is like you are becoming a marketing arm of the private company and that is unrelated business to your mission so just be sure you review those rules and make sure you are on the up-and-up there are plenty of ways you can acknowledge your sponsor however that are totally fine things that are pretty common include logos on websites logos on t-shirts social media shoutouts and acknowledgments doing a video together in which the sponsor has an opportunity to share what the company does or have a speaking opportunity at your event again this is where you want to think through what problem you're solving for the company and making sure that the benefits can help them meet their goals then they're gonna be more likely to want to partner with you once you have that document together you want to go ahead and make your ask you want to talk to the contact you found at the company you want to introduce yourself and let them know what you're hoping for and invite them to have a discussion with you you want to always end your email or your correspondence with a question that prompts them to respond something like would you have an opportunity to chat with me about this or what other information would be valuable for you in considering partnering with our costs step 6 is to follow up a lot of companies get a ton of requests for charitable donations or sponsorships throughout the year and they can get quite busy with these requests so don't be shy about following up on a request that you previously made politely follow up ask if they have any additional questions or if there's any other information that they need that would be helpful for them and then if there are any updates or if any decisions have been made about partnering with your cause of course if they do have questions answer them thoroughly and transparently step 7 and this is a hard one you've got to learn from rejections also keep in mind you're gonna hear no a lot just keep on moving it's okay you're gonna get that yes at some point and that's what's gonna carry you forward so if someone tells you no they will not sponsor your cause the is actually a great opportunity to learn and grow and make your next sponsorship request whether it's to that company or some other company more successful if they say no it's really important that you respond politely that you thank them for their time and that you ask them if they'd be willing to share any feedback with you about their decision you would be really surprised what you can learn from this exercise maybe for example they told you that they actually did like your cause but your timing wasn't very good because they make all of their budgeting decisions in one month of the year and it's not that month this gives you a lot of information this means that you can go back to them when it is that month and try again or maybe they liked what you were trying to do but felt that you were a little bit too new or unproven as a nonprofit that means that maybe after a couple of years of getting some more experience under your belt and showing some more impacts you might be able to go back and try to re-establish that relationship or maybe someone at their company had a bad experience with your nonprofit it sucks to hear this but it's really important to know that it happens that you can try to get to the root of it and fix it sometimes you might also learn that they're just not a good fit for what you're trying to do that's okay that means that you don't have to spend time pursuing that relationship any further and they don't have to pursue a relationship with you any further and you can part ways and it'll be fine and you can go off and spend your time finding a better fit for your work step eight if you get a sponsorship follow through on the promises that you made through the partnership acknowledge the company and the sponsor how you promised you would in the very beginning this is going to build credibility and Trust and believe me companies talk to each other if one company has a great experience supporting your cause they're gonna tell their friends and other companies I've had this happen to me so I know for sure that it's a thing finally step 9 and this is really important for your future success say thank you and keep building that relationship throughout the year many businesses will return year after year to keep sponsoring your cause if you maintain that trust and keep that relationship going you want to be talking to that company throughout the year inviting them to other things that you're doing sharing blog articles you've written about your cause just generally keeping up communication so that the only time that they hear from you isn't when you need money so those are the basic steps I would love to hear from you if you have tried to get corporate sponsorships in the past what kind of success have you seen what strategies did you try to be successful or if a company said no what kind of feedback did you get share in the comments below let us know I've met an amazing amount of folks on this channel and I just know that we will have a great conversation about it before we wrap up one final thought and that is that if you are in Facebook don't forget to check out my group change the world or bust where myself and other change makers are having great conversations around making an impact nonprofit social enterprise work and so much more once again my name is Amber Melanie Smith thank you for checking out this video please like subscribe to ring that Bell and I hope to see you again soon