Nonprofits fund their projects and activities through grants, donations, and sponsorships. If they’re lucky, they can get by with this for a long time, especially when they have several willing individuals and groups giving regular donations. However, Fortune reveals that fewer households are donating to charity, primarily because they feel wealthier individuals and organizations aren’t paying their fair share. As a result, nonprofits may find it more challenging to raise funds that will help them keep running.
In this regard, getting corporate sponsorships will be a great help. Businesses can grant bigger funds than individual donors, providing nonprofits with more stable resources. However, it can be challenging to begin if this is your first time diversifying your nonprofit’s revenue streams. To help you out, here are some tips and tricks that will help you navigate corporate sponsorships:
Reach out to businesses that align with your cause
Corporations that have similar goals to your cause are more likely to sponsor you. For instance, if your nonprofit involves providing children with disabilities with supportive equipment, a healthcare corporation will be more inclined to support you. Also, look for businesses that have sponsored a nonprofit like yours, as this gives the impression that they’ll agree to your proposal.
That makes it vital for you to research potential sponsors before reaching out. That way, you’ll only need to expend resources on wooing corporations more likely to sponsor you.
Perfect your sponsorship letter
Sponsorship letters raise awareness about your organization, inform corporations how their funds will be spent, and convince them why they should support you. You thus need to craft the perfect letter to guarantee you cover all your bases. This can make or break your chances of acquiring sponsorships, so make sure to spend as much time as you need on it.
Don’t know where to start? Our post “Messaging Strategies in the Nonprofit and For-Profit Worlds” recommends using a messaging framework to get your point across successfully. This involves stating “why” they should care about your mission, “what” your nonprofit does to reach its goals and “how” it does so uniquely, and the “way” you wish to realize these objectives—such as through acquiring adequate funds. By following this framework, you’ll be able to write a convincing sponsorship letter to corporations.
Offer different sponsorship packages
Some corporations have more funds than others. By offering different sponsorship packages, potential donors can decide which best suits their ability to provide funds and what benefits they’ll get. For example, a basic package may include logo placement on your marketing materials, while more expensive ones can offer both that and prime physical locations for exposure at your next nonprofit event. Be sure to inform them about what each package entails.
Aside from including a list of available packages in your sponsorship letter, you can dedicate a page of your website to explaining package details. You can use a website builder like Wix for this. With its AI-powered tools, you can format the page to include text and images according to your needs, all without requiring you to have prior coding knowledge. That way, potential sponsors can access complete and comprehensive information about your packages as soon as possible.
Streamline sponsorship revenue management
Now that you’re offering various sponsorship packages, you’ll need to streamline revenue management. In doing so, you can organize sponsorship funds, analyze how much you’ve gained, and put your newly earned resources to good use. While you can do this by multiplying the package price by the number of sponsors, it can get too complex once your nonprofit builds a healthy list of donors funding your cause.
In this case, consider using SOFTRAX for assistance. This comprehensive revenue management system can automate repetitive manual tasks like billing, contract renewal, and revenue recognition so you can focus on more demanding responsibilities like writing sponsorship letters. By using such software to ensure continuous accounting, you can automatically have sponsorship revenue recorded and organized on a regular basis. You can then more easily keep track of nonprofit funds, allowing you to plan nonprofit operations according to the amount you’re currently earning and maximize the resources you have on hand.
Getting corporate sponsorships can be challenging but necessary for nonprofit operations. Try these tips to make the process easier.
