How to Maximize Your Event’s ROI with Strategic Sponsorships

Guest post by Bloomerang

Event planning can be one of the most engaging and exciting parts of your nonprofit’s year, or it can be a source of worry and stress. There’s an element of unpredictability and uncertainty to events. Will you have enough attendees? Will it improve member retention? Will it inspire people to donate, or will it raise the awareness your cause needs? 

Your nonprofit can take steps to mitigate some of this stress and maximize your event’s potential return on investment (ROI) through pursuing sponsorships. A strategic sponsorship can be one of the most rewarding and supportive partnerships that your nonprofit has. These guidelines will help you make the most of your connection with your sponsor and strengthen the impact of your event.

Identify and clarify your event plans and the value proposition

Corporate sponsorships are a valuable addition to any nonprofit’s toolbox because they offer wide-ranging benefits for your organization, your sponsor’s business goals, and your community. In order to make the most of this opportunity, it’s important to identify your event’s needs and the value proposition for the sponsor ahead of time. 

Your Event Plans

You don’t need to finalize every detail of your event before you start reaching out to sponsors, but your team should aim to have a broad outline in place. Sketching out a general plan will help you identify the right sponsors to approach and ensure you ask for the specific support or resources you need.

Some questions that you should answer before you start talking to potential sponsors are: 

• What is our timeline for this event?

• What are the largest expenses we anticipate during this process?

• What role will volunteers play in our event?

• What in-kind donations would be most helpful for this event?

• Do we have the right event management tools in place?

• What is the focus of this event, and what businesses would be most interested in our cause?

Having a basic idea of the event as a whole will allow you to target your outreach to the right potential sponsors with a clear ask.

Your Value Proposition

Before you reach out to a potential sponsor, you need to put yourself in their shoes and understand what partnering with you will mean for them. Though more and more businesses are interested in doing good work for the sake of doing good, they still need to consider the costs and benefits of their decisions before making any commitments. 

Build a compelling case for supporting your nonprofit by thinking through how their sponsorship of your event will help their business thrive. Selling points may include advertising opportunities on any merchandise or swag, the opportunity for face-to-face time with potential customers at the event, or even the tax benefits of a donation. 

Sponsors will appreciate that you’ve done your homework about their business and that you’re considerate of their needs.

Keep everything in writing

The process of acquiring corporate sponsorships can and should include face-to-face, personalized meetings. However, your team should also track every touchpoint with the sponsor in a centralized location, like your CRM, and follow up in writing after each interaction.

This attention to detail has two important benefits: 

• Everyone on your team knows where the relationship with the sponsor is. If someone is on vacation or takes a sick day, another team member can make sure that you don’t miss any follow-ups or accidentally make a repeat ask of the sponsor. This will help keep the relationship stress-free and make sure the sponsor feels like their efforts are important to your nonprofit.

• By completing all follow-ups in writing, your nonprofit and the sponsor are always on the same page regarding expectations and agreements. While it may feel overly formal, it’s vital to your long-term relationship to manage expectations on both sides so that the event goes off without a hitch and no one feels as though promises were broken or results were not delivered. 

When you know exactly what forms of support your sponsors are willing and able to provide, you can direct your nonprofit’s existing resources to other areas. 

Apply donor stewardship best practices to your sponsors

Your strategic sponsors are a critical part of ensuring that your event provides as much value for your nonprofit as possible. By repurposing your donor stewardship practices for your sponsors, you’ll ensure they feel appreciated and included through the event planning process. 

The following tips can help you keep your sponsors engaged and potentially deepen their involvement with your event: 

• Start with a positive first impression by showing sponsors you’ve done your background research and making them feel welcome at your organization’s offices or headquarters. 

• Maintain a structured communication cadence, with regular check-in calls and emails. 

• Prove that you’re using their support as promised by delivering ongoing updates before, during, and after your event. 

• Use software to keep track of touchpoints and responses to maintain continuity in sponsor interactions. 

• Ask for feedback and incorporate your partners’ insights into your next event planning process. 

• Create personalized moments for sponsors, such as special shout-outs during your event or a handwritten letter from a beneficiary after your event wraps up. 

Bloomerang’s donor stewardship guide also recommends incorporating corporate partners into your nonprofit’s overarching community. Show them that you value their partnership long after your event wraps up by sharing ongoing mission updates or reaching out during special times of the year, like the anniversary of their business’s founding.  

By integrating stewardship through the event planning process rather than leaving it for the end, you can deepen sponsors’ engagement and keep the relationship healthy.

Plan for a long-term partnership

Corporate sponsorships are amazing for improving event ROI because they take some of the burden of planning and funding off of your nonprofit, but their impact can be much farther-reaching than just one day. When you create a relationship with a sponsor, consider how you can turn that relationship into a long-term partnership that benefits you both.

Though your nonprofit’s immediate need is support with the event, include your sponsor in discussions about the future and see if you can find other common areas for collaboration. They could become a recurring donor in exchange for visibility on your website or other public outlets. Their staff could become part of your nonprofit’s volunteer strategy. Their CEO might even consider joining your board, if you have an opening!

This is an opportunity for your nonprofit to ask for feedback from the sponsor as well. How would they like to remain involved? How do they envision the future of the relationship with your nonprofit? Keeping open lines of communication will help you maintain the relationship and drive value for you both in the future. 

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With corporate sponsorships, your nonprofit can maximize the ROI of your events and focus more on what matters: your mission. Use Bloomerang’s free ROI calculator to keep tabs on your event results and find new ways to adjust your approach for better outcomes. Stay curious and creative, and you might find new avenues of support in the most unlikely of places. 

4Creative Fundraising Strategies for Animal Shelters

Guest post by Gingr

The ASPCA estimates that roughly 6.3 million dogs and cats enter animal shelters annually in the U.S. As an animal shelter manager yourself, you know how overwhelming it can be to keep up with the intake of new animals, offer them quality care, and adopt them out to loving forever families. Your shelter may be overcrowded, understaffed, and underfunded more often than not. 

However, fundraising can alleviate some of these challenges by providing your shelter with much-needed resources from animal lovers willing to help. As Gingr’s guide to pet industry trends highlights, Americans spent more than $147 billion on their pets in 2023—and that number is expected to grow. What can your shelter do to carve out a place in their budgets?

Take advantage of this growing industry with these creative fundraising strategies that will help you reach potential donors and inspire them to give.

Organize fun, relaxing events

A survey conducted by the American Heart Association found that 95% of pet owners rely on their animals for stress relief. Help your supporters soothe away the stress from upcoming exams, a rough week at work, or a hectic move across town by organizing calm events with your shelter’s animals!

Have supporters pay to attend events such as:

• Puppy or cat yoga: Hire or partner with a yoga instructor to lead the class and let the cats or dogs roam freely. Pets may curl up on the yoga mats for a nap or perch on attendees as they flow through a cat-cow sequence or push up into a downward-facing dog. Not only will your supporters get some relaxing movement, but they’ll also be surrounded by adorable, adoptable animals.

• Cat cafe: Convert a room in your facilities into a cat cafe for an afternoon (or long-term if you have the space) and allow attendees to book time slots. Offer drinks and snacks and allow people to work, study, or just hang out with the adoptable cats in the cafe.

• Kitten and puppy cuddle sessions: These sessions allow you to socialize your kittens and puppies, secure funding, and relieve stress all in one. They are the perfect event for worn-out college students, frazzled new parents, and anyone else who needs a quiet moment with a fuzzy baby animal.

If you can, consider holding these events weekly or monthly. In addition to helping you raise money, they’ll serve as informal adoption events that allow supporters to bond one-on-one with your animals.

Start a Pet of the Month subscription program

Recurring or monthly giving programs are an excellent way to secure reliable revenue and foster deeper relationships with supporters. Supporters simply agree to donate a fixed amount each month, meaning your shelter doesn’t have to put in hours of work for each donation.

Get creative with your recurring giving program to keep supporters engaged. Frame it as a monthly subscription through which they sponsor a specific pet or pets in need. Depending on the size of your program, you might:

• Select one high-needs animal per month for your recurring donors to support. For example, perhaps you take in an injured dog in need of extensive veterinary care. If you pick that dog as the pet of the month, all of your monthly donors’ contributions will go toward that dog’s surgery, medication, and rehabilitation.

• Select multiple “pets of the month” and allow members to sign up for a specific pet they’d like to sponsor. Each pet might have two to three spots donors can claim. This keeps donors looking forward to each new month and eager to know about their animal’s progress.

Provide regular updates to your monthly donors to show them the impact of their contributions. Highlight the specific medications, care, toys, or bedding that their support provided, and share photos and videos of the animal’s progress.

Additionally, strive to attract new recurring donors by marketing these services across digital marketing channels. During the busy spring season, for instance, you might post photos of new mother cats and their litter of kittens on social media, urging followers to sign up for the program and sponsor them.

Work with local businesses

Local businesses and corporations in your area may be interested in partnering with your shelter for  corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. CSR is the concept that companies should consider their social, economic, and environmental impacts and strive to better their communities.

By forming relationships with these companies or simply spreading awareness of corporate philanthropy, your shelter could enjoy the benefits of CSR programs like:

• Matching gifts: When an employee donates to a charitable cause, like your shelter, their employer will match their donation. Matches are typically offered at a 1:1 ratio, meaning that a $50 donation could become $100 without any added expense for the donor.

• Volunteer grants: Companies may also make financial contributions to the organizations employees volunteer with frequently. Spread awareness of these programs to your volunteers, help them track their hours, and encourage them to seek volunteer grants from their employers.

• Corporate sponsorships: The company partners with your nonprofit to support specific campaigns or events. For instance, a local running store may sponsor your charity 5K in exchange for featuring their logo on event signage.

• In-kind donations: These non-financial contributions may include items, equipment, or pro bono services (e.g., a dog groomer providing free baths, haircuts, and nail trims to your shelter’s dogs).

Additionally, CSR programs may incentivize volunteering by offering volunteer time off (VTO). Similar to paid time off (PTO), VTO is time off reserved specifically for volunteering—in other words, employees can spend the time they would normally be working volunteering at your shelter. As Double the Donation’s guide to VTO explains, taking advantage of these programs provides a larger pool of support, opens the door to long-term partnerships, and allows you to devote more time and resources toward mission-critical work.

Hold percentage-of-sales donation day fundraisers at pet businesses

Speaking of local businesses, consider pairing up with a pet business like a dog daycare or kennel, pet groomer, dog training, or pet store to hold a percentage-day (or week, month, etc.) fundraiser. These businesses share a core value with your shelter—a deep passion for animals and their well-being. 

During the fundraiser, a portion of the store's proceeds will be donated to your shelter. For the best results, your shelter and the pet business should jointly promote the campaign in advance, encouraging supporters to patronize the business while the campaign is in effect. When pitching this idea to local businesses, let them know what is in it for them—increased foot traffic, higher sales, and maybe even new customers!

To maximize these campaigns’ impact, you could also incorporate a donation drive. Put out a bin at the business to collect in-kind donations, adding a sign with your logo. Ask staff at the pet business to encourage customers to donate. Ensure you get the items you need most by auditing your nonprofit’s current inventory and creating a wish list.

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It’s no secret that people are passionate about animals. These fundraisers could attract first-time donors to your shelter who are primed to become long-term, loyal supporters—as long as you cultivate relationships with them. Be sure to thank them for their support with personalized, donor-centric thank-you messages, share regular updates about your shelter, and recommend other ways to support your cause.