During the coronavirus pandemic, many nonprofits needed to navigate their in-person fundraising events to the virtual space. And while many aspects translate seamlessly, one of the questions we hear time and time again is: “How do I get sponsors for my virtual event?”
It’s a great question, because a solid group of sponsors can completely change an event. It’s also a question with a big answer: there are quite a few things you can do to entice sponsors and get them excited about your event.
That’s why we’ve created this full guide to recruiting sponsors for virtual events. Let’s take a look at the best ways to recruit sponsors for your virtual fundraising event.
The most important question, and the guiding principle for all of your sponsor recruitment, should be “what do sponsors want?” If you know what sponsors are looking for, you can provide benefits that will meet their needs. Met needs=sponsors signing on.
In general, here’s what sponsors are looking for:
One of the best things you can do is work individually with sponsors to create options that they’ll love. Get to know individual sponsors so that you can anticipate the kinds of benefits they’re interested in.
For example, if one of your sponsors always wants the biggest and best placement for advertisements, create a pop-up option on your event webpage with their logo and name.
On the other hand, if you have a sponsor who desperately wants to talk directly to potential clients, give them “office hours” where they can schedule one on one time with interested participants. Don’t be afraid to ask them what they’re looking for!
One of the biggest challenges many nonprofits face is where to start with sponsors. Who do you reach out to? Here are some of the best kinds of organizations and businesses to connect with:
The other element to consider when you’re putting together benefits to entice sponsors is the price point. If you’re thinking of your sponsorship as a marketing opportunity, you want to find the sweet spot of cost: if it’s not worth it to sponsors, they won’t purchase, but if you price too low you won’t make money.
Keep in mind that virtual events don’t come with many of the expenses that are involved in in-person events.
Historically, you may have needed sponsorships to cover food costs, the ever-flowing coffee, or a venue. It may also have cost you to include each sponsor: table rentals, limited space, added electricity. These costs don’t apply virtually.
In addition, many sponsors don’t see as much value in having their logo shared digitally: being face to face with potential clients is more of a premium. You may need to adjust your price points to reflect these facts. However you can still have a strong ROI thanks to the lower expenses.
Think about adjusting your sponsor budget to account for lower costs. A slightly lower price point can bring in more sponsors and end up giving you higher revenue.
Now it’s time to get to the good stuff: what types of benefits can you offer to your sponsors? We have so many ideas we’re going to split them up based on when they occur: pre-event, during the event, and post-event.
As you lead up to your event, you’ll want to include sponsor names and logos in as many places as you can. But you can also get creative about sharing sponsor information. Here are some ideas.
SOS Children’s Villages of Illinois had each of their sponsors create team pages. This gave each sponsor a prominent space on the front page.
Summit Assistance Dogs used the sidebar on their CauseVox page to highlight their sponsors:
Here’s where you’ll probably find the most interesting and creative options for sponsor benefits. One of the best strategies to take when brainstorming sponsor benefits is to focus on what’s unique about your event and include sponsors there. But there are also some great options that will work for any event.
Your sponsors don’t stop paying attention once an event is over. Just as with individual donors, the follow up and relationship building are incredibly important. Here are some great ways to show sponsor love after your event is over.
CauseVox helps you raise more with less effort and gives your sponsors an amazing experience.
Use CauseVox to easily spin up crowdfunding campaigns, donation pages, and peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns, plus integrate event ticketing and management directly into your fundraising.
Learn more about how you can use CauseVox for your online events.
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