Unit 4: Sponsorship Lead – NEW

THE PLAYBOOK

Sponsorship Lead

SPONSORSHIP LEAD

Your ability to motivate and coordinate the efforts of your team can make an enormous difference to the experience of your event guests, and to the overall financial outcomes the campaign can deliver to your chosen organisations. While you lead this function, the best results come when the team works together to bring their contacts into the campaign. Based on past experience, most sponsors are grateful for the opportunity to get involved in supporting innovative grassroots organisations in the local community.

There are four different types of sponsorships available to support your initiative:

1 – Donor matching programs
E.g. Your workplace pledges to match the donations made on the night

2 – Major donor contribution to the campaign
E.g. A local business or family trust, donates a sum of money directly in support of the campaign.

3 – Donating products/services as raffle or auction prizes
E.g. Donating a skincare hamper or local gift voucher that can be used as a raffle ticket prize

4 – Food and beverage sponsorship
E.g. A local brewery donates beer for the event

TIP: Read this unit and when you are ready, schedule an agenda item with the Project Lead to introduce the team to your plan for bringing sponsors on board – the earlier you start motivating and collaborating, the better your results will be.

Sponsorship Packages

The 10×10 Sponsorship packages featured here are the culmination of extensive collaboration and refinement by Project Committees from around the world. We have included a few documents to help get you started, however please note that a pitch that works in London, Hong Kong or Sydney, for example, may not be relevant/transferable to New York, so it’s best to personalise the pitch to the region and/or sponsor.

For each event, we will look at four key sponsor types:

2: Cash Event Sponsorship
We offer different packages ranging from $500 to $10,000+. Cash event sponsorship will provide funds that can be allocated to event expenses where necessary, such as food and/or beverages – essentially all the operating costs of the event.

Excess funds will be held, managed and acquitted by the Head of City, to be utilised in support of future events.

3: Major Donor Giving and/or Matched Giving
This is where a corporate, trust, foundation, or any other supporter wishes to donate to the chosen charities on the night using matched giving. Matched giving is a proven and effective strategy for larger donors to create an incentive for smaller donors to give as generously as possible.

For example, the matched donor announces that they will DOLLAR:DOLLAR or $2DOLLAR:DOLLAR match all donations to every organisation up to a maximum of $10,000. The guests at the event will feel that they are doubling their impact by taking advantage of the matched giving opportunity. Matched gifts are tax deductible and the donor receives a tax deductible receipt.

4: Corporate/Staff Matched Funding
Corporates bulk pledge for a certain amount of employees to join a 10×10 event. There are multiple formulas for this, including:

Corporate donor matches the staff (ticket) pledges, e.g. an employee makes a pledge of $50, corporate matches this pledge with another $50.
Corporate donor matches all fundraising results by a staff member, e.g. a Project Committee member raises $3,000 by attracting 15 friends to a 10×10 event + successfully brings in a $1,500 event sponsor and their employer matches this result with a direct $3,000 donation to the campaign.

Example sponsorship packages:

Sponsorship Principles

Each region may have a slight variation on how charitable sponsorship works, so here are some basic principles in the design of charitable sponsorships to consider:

Tax Deductible Gift
(Donor and Major Donor)

– Must be made to a charitable entity entitled to issue tax-deductible receipts (this is covered in our due diligence).

– Must be a gift or donation, with no expectation of value exchange (something in return).

– It is possible to acknowledge the donor by naming them at a public event or in various communications. However, the inclusion of promotional-style content is not possible.

– Private Trusts, Foundation, Ancillary Funds and other giving institutions will use this giving structure and may require evidence of 10×10 and beneficiary charitable structures.

– Ideally, these gifts will be made through the donation platform. However, they may require an invoice from 10x10HQ – we’re on standby to help!

Sponsorship
(Corporate or other partnership)

– Money is paid upon issue of a tax invoice and may include GST/ VAT etc.

– An exchange of value exists and may include sponsor logo, speaker, presentation, recognition, brand, storytelling, staff training, hospitality and other benefits.

– A structure often used by corporates/businesses who will gain the tax advantage as they claim the contribution as a marketing, communications or other business cost.

10×10’s Events Lead will provide you with a Sponsorship Deck inclusive of your Committee’s chosen organisations to send out to potential sponsors! The sponsorship matrix sent is tailorable to what the committee feels it can find.

Securing Auction/Raffle Prizes

This is a big job and requires all Project Committee members to get involved.

Reach out to your networks and local businesses to source donation items for a raffle or auction on the night. Prizes donated should be of at least $50 in value (e.g. restaurant vouchers, wine, spa vouchers, etc.) You might like to create flyers or social media posts to garner the donation of prizes.

Here is a template to help you keep track of your prizes, and to assist 10x10HQ in naming all prizes in your Event Program. Be sure to make a copy and save it in your Google Drive folder.

Example call out for prizes:

Click to zoom

TIP: When looking for prizes reach out to all the places that you visit on a regular basis – your local cafe, gym, barber, hairdresser, nail salon, restaurant, etc. You will be surprised what most are willing to offer.

Managing Sponsor Relationships

Congratulations – you have sponsor relationships to manage! Your next task is to start the Sponsor Management Process:

1 – Confirmation
The Sponsorship Lead will confirm sponsor commitment in writing and send a copy to 10×10 HQ. This is how 10×10 can provide in-kind sponsorship thank you letters where appropriate, which are tax deductible (for Australia only).

2 – Brief Leads
Brief the Marketing, Event and Finance Leads on the package offered to the sponsor. Ensure that the team fulfils on promises to the sponsor (branding, speaking role in running order, recognition in MC script, logo on website, social media posts)

3 – High Resolution Logos
Request high res logos for use in marketing collateral and provide to the Marketing Leads.

4 – Invite Sponsors
Invite key sponsors to attend the event and ensure they are thanked on the night. This might include an agreed number of tickets for a live event.

5 – Invoicing – Cash Sponsorship

The committee needs to request for an invoice to be raised by 10×10 HQ. Email Lauren with the donor name, address, email address, agreed sponsorship amount ($), and any other requirements (i.e. for inclusion in the invoice). The cash sponsorship will be paid to 10×10’s bank account, details will be on the invoice. (Very important to note: this invoice is a business/marketing expense and not a tax deductible donation.) 10×10 HQ will then pay the event expenses as requested by the committee, e.g. for food and wine etc. out of 10×10 bank account.

Ensure that the Finance Lead is looped into all communications around invoicing and payments so that relevant information can be recorded in the finance spreadsheet.

TIP: Ensure that you keep Lauren informed of all sponsors as they are onboarded so they can keep track with you of the inclusion of logos, provision of invoices etc. 10×10’s Events Lead will also coordinate appropriate acknowledgement in the Annual 10×10 Impact Report.