Profiling Sponsors

Profiling Sponsors

Profiling sponsors is a creative way to connect them with your community.

I have often written about the importance of providing sponsors with value for their investment. While most are happy to support a good cause, there needs to be some benefit flowing back to their business. This will help to create a sustainable relationship over the long term.

There are plenty of ways to do this:

• Newsletter advertising
• Website and email 
• Brochure distribution
• Call-outs at events
• Certificates of appreciation
• Joint media release

Here’s a simple idea to provide your local sponsors with additional exposure: Profile them. It’s a creative and personal way to provide a genuine connection with your community.

In your newsletter, on your website and/or social media, prepare a profile of your sponsor. Even better, do a series of them over time! The more personal, the better. It’s a great way to highlight the level of support provided by the sponsor, any past relationship, and some background information. It can all be done in a way that’s interesting to your community.

I believe that this type of engagement makes communities stronger. It will almost certainly strengthen your relationships with the sponsors you feature and make future conversations easier.

The best way to explain the idea is to demonstrate it. For this visual, I used my favourite free tool in the world – Canva.com.

Obviously you don’t have to prepare anything as fancy as this (although it only took about 15 minutes using Canva’s drag and drop formatting) – you can simply include a Q&A in your newsletter. And yes, you guessed it, I have prepared some sample questions (below) to help get you started.

Happy Fundraising!

Written by Mandy Weidmann

PS It’s not actually ‘Bridget Jacobs’ in the photo – it’s me scoffing on some chocolate 😉 The name is a combination of two of my kids’ names 🙂

Sample Q&A-Style profile questions

Getting to know: [Person’s Name]

Age/ Suburb:

[Profile their history with your school, club or group]:

Favourite thing to do:

What do you like best about living in [this area]:

What is your favourite place to eat:

Where is your favourite day trip to:

Tell me a little bit about your business:

[Finish with contact details]