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Whether you use brochures, videos, personalized proposals, telemarketing scripts, solicitations letters, newsletters, social media or all of the above, potential donors and sponsors to your cause typically want to know specific information about you before contributing.  Donations and sponsorships are investments. Unlike investing in stocks or other financial vehicles, investing in your cause is meant to generate a positive return for society and/or a promotional return for the contributor.  Despite these differences, the key to successfully securing funds from both sets of investors rests, in large part, on answering two overarching questions:

• What level of value will you provide thanks to the investment?
• Why is your organization and project the one to deliver that value?

Providing Value: Value to Society

Every cause either helps people or animals.   Even causes that do not directly focus on people such as some environmental organizations do so for the benefit of people such as future generations.  It is important that you make this people (or animal) link as strongly as possible. Furthermore, potential supporters want to know the value to people you have or will have on three levels:

1. The value of your organization
2. The value of the project in question
3. The value of their specific contributions.

At all three levels, you need to answer questions such as:

• How many people benefit?
• How greatly does each person benefit on average and in what ways?
• How long does the benefit last?
• What are some very specific examples of individuals that have or will benefit?

Providing Value: Value to the Sponsor or Donor

Even the anonymous donor or sponsor has a reason for giving.  It is important to understand the motivations of people that will support you and to address those drivers.   Sponsors typically seek marketing benefits, while donors may seek the good feelings that come from being generous,  recognition or direct benefit from the work being conducted.  For further background, see Six Reasons Donors Give Their Money Away and Why Companies Will Sponsor You.

Your Ability: Resources to Deliver

When investing in stocks, you are typically advised to judge the abilities of the management team.  While this is not always as explicit with sponsors and donors, they too want to know your team is up to the task.  You also want to address any other resources you have or need that are vital to fulfilling your mission.  You need to answer questions such as:

• Do you have the facilities you need?
• Do you have the working capital required (cash reserves)?
• Do you have the institutional expertise required?
• Does your organization have a relevant and proven track record?
• Why are you the logical organization to conduct the project?

Your Ability: A Sound Plan

In addition to having the resources you need to succeed, you must also demonstrate you have the plan to achieve success in effect what your business plan is.  Like when you demonstrate your value, your plan must be presented on three levels:

1. Your organization’s strategic plan.
2. The operational plan for the project being presented.
3. The plan for the funds being requested.

Key elements of your plan include the following:

• Your overall vision.
• The actions you are or intend to take.
• The timeline you expect your plan to require.
• The resources required.
• The ways you will be accountable to your stakeholders including sponsors and donors.

Understanding What is Important

Ultimately, what you need to tell potential donors and sponsors is the information that is important to them.  While there are questions you can anticipate, the best way to know what information potential supporters need is to ask them. Whether you start with a market research exercise such as a feasibility study or you talk to each prospect before asking them for money, if you take a prospect centric approach to your messaging, you will be well on your way to showcasing your cause in a compelling light.

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Often, larger contributors will get the benefit of being at the top of the list thanks to the time-honoured Gold, Silver and Bronze designations. If an organization is successful enough and secures many supporters, these logo arrays can begin to resemble a word search puzzle. Being a sponsor listed as one of a myriad of contributors provides little value. When you are listed as one of many, it says there is nothing special about you except maybe that you gave more putting you at the top of the list. Fortunately, there is a way you can provide your supporters with more wholesome goodness than a serving of logo soup.

At the heart of your sponsorship efforts are properties — the programs, facilities and other aspects of your organization that are available for sponsorship. The first step in avoiding logo soup and providing more value to sponsors is to develop a properties map.  A properties map shows the levels of sponsorship opportunities available in your organization.  It should list anything that could be sponsored, not just those areas for which you are raising money.  Once you have a list of properties, the next step is to determine for each property the sponsorship fee you would charge and the corresponding benefits you would provide.

Example of a Sponsorship Property Map for a Forest Centre

To view an example of a detailed version of a property map for a large zoo click here.

 

Exclusive Opportunities

With a broad array of sponsorship properties, you can offer each sponsor an exclusive opportunity. You may have more than one sponsor on a project, but where possible, each sponsor should own a unique part of it. The performing arts provide  a good example.  At the top level, an arts organization might have a season sponsor.  

[pullquote3 align=”right”]You may have more than one sponsor on a project, but where possible, each sponsor should own a unique part of it.[/pullquote3]Under this they might offer several series such as a drama series, a comedy series and musical series.   The next level down could be productions such as a two-week run of Cats followed by a run of Chicago.  Each production would have a number of performances. Each performance, could have a program, an intermission and so on.  So, each performance could have multiple sponsors, but each sponsor owns something unique.

If you feel you do not have enough properties for this approach, there is a good chance you have not identified all of your opportunities.  With combined experience of many decades, Pitcher Group team members have never seen an organization with more sponsors than properties.

Sponsor Recognition

Using this approach, the way you recognize each sponsor becomes a fairly straightforward task. Wherever you mention the property the sponsor is supporting, you should mention their support.  For example, if you have a brochure with your projects listed, you might have an overall sponsor listed on the cover with sponsors of each project listed next to each corresponding project description.

While a comprehensive properties strategy is meant to reduce the occurrences of logo soup, you may find you cannot totally eliminate them. Sometimes a key sign or poster needs to list key or all sponsors. That said, your goal should be to make such listings your last resort, not your first. Identifying properties and connecting a specific sponsor to each can require more planning work upfront and more logistical work with communications.   However, reducing logo soup can make fundraising easier and help you secure more funds.  In the end, you will probably save time and effort because raising funds is often the hardest task of all.

The Pitcher Group specializes in building comprehensive systems of properties and mapping them to assist sponsorship sales and recognition.   We have provided such solutions both to sponsorship seeking organizations such as arts centres and tourist attractions as well as to charitable fundraising organizations such as national health organizations and educational institutions.

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The reasons that donors give can be broadly classified into the following six motivations each of which drives people to varying degrees.

1. Impact

A key reason that donors give is that they want to make a positive difference in the world. Saving lives, reducing suffering, feeding the hungry, eliminating disease are at the heart of the original definition of a charity; and many are still motivated first and foremost by this most philanthropic of reasons for giving.  Even when a donor says they want nothing in return, they want to know they are making a contribution for good.

For the donor motivated by impact, you want to show the difference your organization is making. Regular reporting is typically highly valued by the impact donor. When an issue is too large for any one donation to make a dent, you want to break the issue down into small parts you are improving. This is why sponsoring a single child in Africa or adopting a single endangered animal are popular.  You can also counter a feeling that one gift does not have an impact by showing donors how far you have come, and not just how far you have to go on the issues you address.  For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched their Living Proof Campaign to remind people about the incredible number of lives that have already been saved in the developing world thanks to vaccines, clean drinking water and other measures.  Sometimes causes get so focused on their needs, they forget to celebrate their accomplishments. It’s these accomplishments that the impact donor wants to see.

2. Appreciation

The grateful hospital patient and the successful university alumnus are two examples of the type of people who give because they wish to show their appreciation to an organization.  Appreciation can come from something an organization did for us directly, for someone we care about or simply from gratitude for good work being done.

A key strategy with those who feel appreciation for a cause is to convert them from roles such as student and patient into participants such as volunteers and members.  If you build a new relationship on the foundation of original one you will find such individuals stepping forward to donate.

3. Mission

When people have a vested interest in the work of a charity, they give because they share the same mission. Cancer patients who raise money for the cause whether to support research for their own illness or that of others do so because of a sense of common purpose or mission.  Engineering companies provides scholarships to colleges in hopes that more students will pursue a technical education.

Mission donors can be the most motivated givers because of a sense of stake in the outcome.  To appeal to the mission donor, you want to empower them and treat them like a partner in your effort as much as possible.  Build on the concept of working together to achieve results.

4. Impulse

Sometimes, people give even when there money is beyond what was sought. A $5,000 campaign for a bullied women on a bus raises $700,000.  When the Red Cross said it was going to direct some 9-11 money to projects that could save lives, people were enraged. So instead, some widows of victims received as much as $7-million with the wealthiest families receiving the most money. It’s not that these people are undeserving.  However, if your spouse was killed on September 10th or 12th or your being bullied did not go viral online, you may not have gotten anything from anyone. Certain issues just have an emotional effect that causes people to give even when that gift could have greater impact elsewhere.

If you are fundraising, instead of being frustrated by this, you need to consider how to increase the emotional impact of your cause.   Prospects always need to hear from those you serve. Testimonials and quotes are important tools. Photographs and videos can help you tell the story.  Some of the most effective pitches from Humane Societies have been those written in the first person (canine) as if from a dog in need.  If one death, and therefore one story, is a tragedy, but one million is a statistic, make sure you pick one story to tell.

5. Recognition

Some donors simply like the attention that comes from donating. This can be a company seeking exposure, but it can also be an individual that likes the events, project naming and publicity that can come from making a donation.  Some donors simply like the positive feeling they receive from being appreciated.

When a large donor gets his or her name on a high-profile building, the recognition is obvious, but even smaller donors can value recognition. To some, a donor wall or plaque might not matter at all, but to others, it might be the most important part of their contribution.  Recognition can also be more personal and even private. For example, many donors especially like the personal touch of being recognized at an event or receiving a behind-the-scenes tour.

Do not be afraid to ask donors or prospects how they would like to recognized.  In particular, ask them what they most appreciated from past donations they made to other organizations. You can even ask this sort of question of direct mail donors on the pledge card they return with contributions.  You can then use this information to tailor pitches to  different groups.  The key is to identify which of your prospects are most motivated by recognition and what type of recognition matters most to them.

6. Benefit

Perhaps the most controversial motivation for donating to a cause is for personal benefit. Tax law says if you receive something of tangible benefit for a contribution, the transaction was not a donation.  When attending a fundraising dinner, participants might receive tax receipts for the difference between their contributions and the value of the meal.  In effect, they are making two transactions in one — purchasing dinner and donating. In this case, the donation portion might be provided for philanthropic reason, but it could also be provided to procure non-tangible benefits such as the opportunity to meet a politician or celebrity.

Some types of benefits are generally considered inappropriate such as the right to dictate what is taught in a classroom or performed on a stage because of a donation.  Other types of benefits derived from donations though can be perfectly fine. For example, the owner of a software company gave a major personal donation to an arts centre not to sell more product, but so that developers would be more interested in working for the company.

When talking to potential donors, you want to ask if there are ways you can help them.  Just remember they will not always know, but this does not mean, there is nothing you can do.  For example, through conversation with a prospect, an arts centre learned that the woman loved Steinway pianos.  When asked if she would like a Steinway used for the productions at the Centre, she indicated she would be delighted if that were the case. So, she was asked if she would like to fund a Steinway and go to the New York headquarters for Steinway and help select one for the Centre.  A $100,000 donation resulted.

Ask Prospects What Motivates Them

One of the most powerful questions that you can ask a potential donor is, “What do you want to get out of donating?”  Do not let them protest with false modesty. Tell them that even the anonymous donor has a reason for giving. You simply want to determine this motivation whenever you can.  In this way, you can better serve your donors; and when you better serve them, you will raise more money.

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While donor benefits can generate significant support, they can also be very expensive. This makes donor benefits a controversial subject in some fundraising circles. Today, charities have a new, more affordable option — virtual rewards.

Outside of fundraising, perhaps the first well known virtual rewards were high scores and free games on pinball and then video games. People will play a game for hours just to be atop a leader board. Clearly, playing a game to get a high score in a game is self-referential. The game changer (pardon the expression) occurred when game rewards started to be used to affect behavior outside a game. When Alternate Reality Games came along in the middle of last decade, people started to interact outside of games for the sake of rewards. For example, the game World Without Oil rewarded participants for coming up with real world solutions to a fictitious global energy crisis. The site Second Life became so popular that it developed a currency exchange where people paid real money in exchange for virtual currency that others had earned. Next, services that are not games themselves started to add game mechanics. Attaining achievements in Foursquare became so important to some people that many would go visit favourite businesses just to collect mayorships or badges. Meanwhile, on the cause-related front, sites like Crowdrise reward people for how much money they raise encouraging people to raise millions of dollars to date.

This brings me to a site that I have followed called Empire Avenue. Empire Avenue rewards people for being more active on social media. As an example, the more comments one gets on a social network, the better the score. This includes sites like the photo sharing service Flickr. So, I and others became active in the pursuit of photography because of the extra impetus provided by the game rewards.

You do not have to have your own game service to take advantage of game mechanics. Companies, charities and others can take advantage of sites like Empire Avenue to drive an audience to real world action. In October, I ran an experiment where I offered virtual rewards on Empire Avenue for anyone that supported the micro-lending charity Kiva. My goal was to secure 100 loans by Christmas — a target that was actually achieved by Halloween.

Now, Empire Avenue has officially joined the effort to reward charitable support with virtual rewards via their initiative Empire Avenue Cares (EAvCares). The first EAvCares project will reward participants that donate to the organization Charity Water. (Learn more or Donate here.) Donors will receive an achievement badge and virtual game currency. The goal is to raise $5,000 in just under three months. This is not a huge some of money, but it is an impressive start. If all goes well, the opportunity will likely be open to any charity that wishes to use Empire Avenue rewards to raise money.

I believe we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg and that a charity will come along that develops its own game and raises truly significant amounts of money from the initiative. Furthermore, I think game mechanics will be used to solve more real world challenges. If you have a cause you actively support, you owe it to yourself to look at how game mechanics could help you change the world. Let me know if I can help. Change is coming — will you be a part of it?

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Jessica is an entrepreneur in Santiago (Conchalí) Chile. She buys old shoes at a market, repairs them and resells them. In the process, in addition to helping support her family, she helps provide badly needed money to people with old shoes and provides shoes like new to people that can’t afford to buy new ones.   Jessica learned the trade of refurbishing shoes from her father and for eleven years, she has been selling her shoes at market stall Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Jessica’s business has been going well and she has a loyal customer base. However, to get ahead, small businesses need to be able to buy inventory in sufficient quantities and need to be able to buy product when bargains present themselves. For this reason, Jessica was seeking a loan. The amount she wanted was paltry by business standards in developed countries — just $186. She hopes the loan will help her grow her business and eventually permit her to buy a van for it. Her dream is that she will be successful enough that her two daughters currently ages 15 and 7 will be able to get a high school education; and therefore, good jobs.

Jessica is part of a community bank called Compromiso y Lealtad (Commitment and Loyalty). It is like a cross between a micro credit union and a small business incubator.  It is made up of 20 entrepreneurs who work in different fields, including selling clothes, shoes, cleaning items, helium balloons, roast chicken, inflatable toys for children, used clothes, tools; and services installing windows, confectionery, woven handicrafts, and other items. They all live in the community of Conchalí, support each other and receive small business training as a group.  Collectively, the group was seeking $3,725.  By working as a group, the entrepreneurs will be better able to repay the loan.

Lending these funds is where Kiva.org comes in. Kiva is a micro-lending charity. They provide small loans to entrepreneurs and others in developing countries. Their goal is to help lift people out of poverty and boost the greater economy. Kiva works with local partners around the world to conduct the appropriate due diligence on potential borrowers and to administer the loans. Kiva secures the loan funds from individuals around the world that just want to help a worthy cause — people that want to provide a hand-up rather than a hand-out.  Kiva pools the individual loans, as small as $25 to fund the various projects, entrepreneurs and people in need.  Borrowers pay the funds back like any other loan over a period of time — sometimes as quick as a few months. Lenders can then use the repaid funds to support another project or can even take back their cash.

Kiva is crowdsourced charity, and the power of the crowd is something to behold. I chose to help fund Jessica because her project had just been listed, and as part of a larger group, they were looking for one of the larger amounts of funds. I liked the idea of my friends being able to join me on the project. What I didn’t know was that her project would be fully funded in hours by other Kiva supporters. The flow of funds is humbling. This support is wonderfully captured in this data visualization video from Kiva.  If you are involved in a cause, you want to see this video as a great example of a way to present the impact of an organization. If you like to help others, this video will draw you in too.

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In place of the coin collection, UNICEF introduced a new month-long program in schools for children to raise funds for schools in Africa.  There were several reasons for this change. (Imagine the logistics of the cross-country coins.) However, the most important of them was the fact that there was little room to grow the program.   While many expressed surprise at the change, the ending of the coin collection is part of larger trend. Door-to-door solicitations have been on the decline and both telemarketing as well as direct mail appeals are under pressure.  However, events with peer-to-peer fundraising pledges are on the dramatic rise in terms of dollars raised and the number of events. This is the approach that UNICEF is now taking.

Perhaps the best example of the peer-to-peer (or social fundraising) is the Weekend to End Women’s Cancer (originally Breast Cancer). This year’s event in Toronto raised nearly $11-million from 4,600 participants and four other events across the country each raised millions of dollars as well. The key to this success are the thousands of participants that raise money individually or in teams.  The average in Toronto was more that $2,300 per participant.

Far more modest events as well are having great success from peer-to-peer pledging. The average golf tournament in Canada nets $17,000.  However, Victoria Hospital Foundation shows what’s possible when participant’s are turned into fundraising volunteers.  One participant, Rick Leaderhouse, raised $13,350 in pledges on his own for this typical golf event, and he was not alone with the next participant, Dr. Louis Poulin raising $12,145.   Golf tournaments where the participants get pledges is still a new idea compared to securing pledges for walks, bikes and runs. As the idea continues to grow, millions of dollars will be raised.

Some events come with much larger feats for the participants to complete including amounts that must be raised. These events usually involve overseas travel. The first of these that most people had heard of was a small group climbing a mountain such as Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for charity. Next, came people participating in overseas marathons.  Now, organizations like the Arthritis Society organize hikes in Iceland and cycling expeditions in France as part of their Joints in Motion fundraising program. For these more ambitious locations, participants must each raise or contribute more than several thousand dollars. Joints in Motion has raised more than $30-million since it began. Charities in Europe raise even more. Cancer Research UK has had as many as 60 of these expeditions in a year trekking destinations like the Great Wall of China more than eight times per annum.

The internet has transformed pledge-supported events. Blackbaud reports that those people using email and social media to seek pledges raise six times as much as those that do not. The reasons for this include the facts that more friends and family are contacted if the internet is used and people tend to give more when using a credit card versus cash.  Sites like FirstGiving.org and Crowdrise.com permit people to establish their own web profile and page to raise funds for their cause while services such as Memlink.com and Artez Interactive design custom pledge sites for charities.  The side benefit of these personal pages is that the participants that maintain an active presence tend to become more engaged in the charity.

Kiva.org, the charity that provides micro-loans to people in developing countries has developed a great visualization of the power of peer-to-peer engagement. In the video, you see how Kiva has grown to over 615,000 lenders.  This success is due in large measure to the power of social fundraising with lenders recruiting friends and family to join them.

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1. Relationship Building

Perhaps the most important reason companies and other organizations have for sponsoring a property is relationship building. Sponsors can seek to develop new relationships with access to your stakeholders. This relationship building can be at your location or theirs. For example, retailers can be interested in promotions that get your stakeholders to visit their stores. Sponsors may also wish to further their relationships with their existing customers and other stakeholders using tools such as corporate entertaining.   So, you want to look at how you can drive traffic to your sponsors; how you can provide them with opportunities to personally meet your audience; and how you can help them involve their customers and employees in your organization.

2. Positive Association

Another top reason that prospects choose sponsorships is to benefit from the positive association of supporting your organization and projects. With sponsorships, this is meant as more than goodwill. Many sponsors will want you to promote their participation. Often your communication efforts will be augmented by their own marketing. So, for these sponsors, you want to find ways to publicly express your appreciation, to showcase the impact of their support and for them to share your story with their audience.

3. Reaching a Target Audience

Some sponsors pursue partnerships because they provide an opportunity to reach a specific target market. For example, opera and and monster truck rallies attract highly specific and vastly different audiences. So, you want to provide potential sponsors with detailed information about the audience they can reach by partnering with you.  Numbers that you want to provide include the size of your audience, the amount of your interaction with them and the demographic breakdown.

4. Direct Sales

Some sponsors seek direct opportunities to sell their products or services through marketing partnerships via means such as official supplier status. Others actually desire agreements that would be more accurately described as an operating partnership despite a sponsorship framework. However, not all sales opportunities need to be about establishing major new business channels. For example, a car dealer could seek to have a special one-day promotional sales event in the parking lot of an arts centre as part of a production sponsorship. So, you want to be open to possibilities while developing a clear understanding of the types of arrangements that are not possible. For example, agreeing to exclusively sell a particular brand of coffee might be possible because people expect you to only carry a single brand while selling only one brand of carbonated beverages might not be possible because of people expecting you to carry their favourite.

5. Doing Good

Despite the fact that good sponsorship is about marketing, many sponsors truly do have a desire to support worthy projects. This social good concept can even apply to sponsorship of commercial endeavours if they are seen as good for the community or having some other benefit. Indeed many sponsorships and donations contain a blend of philanthropic and marketing elements regardless of how they are presented.  So, you want to be aware that a potential sponsor can be driven by both objectives, and play to both motivations while clearly delineating what is sponsorship and what is philanthropy in your organization.

6. Having Fun

Sponsors have become increasingly disciplined in pursuing opportunities consistent with their missions. However, sponsorship benefits such as meeting a celebrity or attending a highly-exclusive event can sway decision making. So, in addition to presenting the organizational benefits of sponsorship participation, you want to highlight any personal opportunities you will provide.

Determining Prospect Interests

When you know the potential areas of interest to a sponsor, you can identify relevant opportunities in your organization. The next step is to ask your sponsorship prospects which of these six motivations are important to them. (Although, you might not want to focus on the having fun element — just offer it.) When you develop strong dialogues with your prospects about there relevant interests, you are well on your way to sponsorship success.

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