4 Ways to Optimize Your Association’s Sponsorship Program

Association professionals like you know that a lucrative sponsorship program is crucial to your organization’s bottom line. Not only do sponsorships generate important revenue for your day-to-day operations, but they also allow you to strategically plan for the future and expand the important work you’re doing to serve your members. 

If you already have a sponsorship program—great! How can you make it even better? Taking a hard look at the program and finding ways to optimize it has a number of benefits for your association, including, among others, boosting revenue, strengthening partnerships, and broadening your member base. Consistently iterating on and improving your corporate sponsorship programs ensures that you can provide the best experience possible for both members and sponsors.

Let’s explore these key ways your association can optimize your sponsorship programs to generate more revenue in the short and long terms.

1. Dig Into Your Sponsorship Data

Your association’s database is a gold mine of important information you can segment, analyze, and use to improve your sponsorship offerings. By understanding what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what you can improve on, you can create better-tailored sponsorship pitches and packages that make them a win-win for your association and its sponsors. 

Consider these best practices to help you make sense of your data:

• Follow data hygiene best practices. NPOInfo’s guide to data hygiene recommends frequently conducting audits for outdated or unnecessary data and cleaning it out. Keeping a clean database makes it easier to accurately segment your audience.

• Regularly pull data points. This doesn’t mean you have to pull reports every day but find a cadence that lets you see changes and trends in your sponsorship program. so you can quickly act on them. Set regular check-in meetings with your sponsorship team to review any updates, identify new performance metrics, and track new data points in your database.

• Use your data to tell a story. Your association’s data is clean. You’re regularly pulling reports. Now you need to better understand what it all means. Find the story in your data and use it to shape your sponsorships moving forward. For instance, when you raised the price of your hole sponsorships at your golf fundraiser, you raised an additional $2000 and onboarded an additional 10 new sponsors.

Once you understand the data and the meaning behind it, take action on your analysis. Start by tailoring your sponsorship packages accordingly. GolfStatus recommends building custom sponsorship tiers based on the target sponsor’s size, existing relationship with your association, and desired engagement with your event and organization. For instance, if you have a potential small business that doesn’t have the budget to contribute financially but can provide in-kind donations of goods or services, you can use the information gleaned from your database to help craft the best option for them.

2. Set Mutually-Beneficial Sponsorship Goals

Sponsorships work best when it’s a true partnership between your association and the sponsoring business. This takes work, finding common ground, and common goals to ensure you both get what you need out of the relationship. Perhaps the business just wants exposure to your association members. Or they want the chance to engage with your members in a more intimate setting. No matter what the situation, work closely with the sponsor so both your needs are met. 

One way to sustainably grow and improve your association’s sponsorship program is to set macro- and micro-goals. While you might have overarching goals for your sponsorship program as a whole, it’s a good idea to set specific objectives for each component. For example, you might set a goal to raise $10,000 in sponsorship revenue for your convention and work directly with the sponsors to create a strategy for achieving both of your shared goals. 

3. Curate Unique Sponsorship Benefits

Businesses are eager to sponsor association events and programs due to the visibility and access to members. That being said, it’s crucial to highlight the unique value proposition that you can offer, along with unique benefits and perks, in your sponsorship pitches. Here are a few ideas to fold into your offerings:

• Branded association resources

• Year-round publicity and visibility even after the event ends 

• Member or event attendee contact lists for marketing purposes

• Meet-and-greet sessions where sponsors can network with members

• Spots on panels and other convention events

• Data insights sharing and strategy recommendations

Offering valuable opportunities like these not only boosts your sponsorship’s value but also your member experience by connecting them with industry professionals. Publicize your sponsorship program’s benefits on your website so interested businesses can find updated information, browse available packages, see benefits, and have a way to get in touch.

4. Implement Smart Technology Solutions

Fortunately for association professionals, there are a number of technology solutions on the market to help support and improve your sponsorship program. Beyond your CRM, look for options that help provide sponsorship benefits, manage communication with the sponsor, and help prove ROI for the business’ investment in your organization.

For example, you can leverage solutions like these to improve efficiency, sourcing, and outcomes:

• Event management. Event management software can facilitate and streamline planning, provide visibility for sponsors, and save event organizers time throughout. It’s a good idea to get your event management platform in place early in the planning process so you can reap the benefits.

• Sponsorship sourcing. Software exists that helps connect your association with like-minded sponsors. You can set parameters around the types of businesses you’re looking for and filter accordingly, create reports, and help illustrate the sponsorship’s impact.

• Association management. You likely already have a version of this type of software in place, but it can be used for logging deal progress and touchpoints with sponsors.

Wrapping Up

Whether you’re trying to boost revenue from a fundraising event or simply make more waves in the business world, these ideas can help your association make meaningful improvements in your sponsorship program. Consistently taking a hard look at your program’s successes and challenges is key to driving more sponsorship revenue for your association over the long term.

Logan Foote Sales and Education Manager at GolfStatus

Logan Foote has been around the game of golf nearly his entire life. He first picked up a club at the age of four, and despite thousands of attempts, he’s never had a hole-in-one. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and pursued a career in sales. Logan came to GolfStatus in 2017, where he channels his passion for golf to help nonprofits raise money through the game. As Sales and Education Manager, Logan oversees a team that works with thousands of nonprofit clients to maximize their golf fundraisers with the GolfStatus platform, and shares his golf fundraising expertise through GolfStatus’s free educational webinars. He lives and golfs in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife and three sons.

Jen Wemhoff Communications Manager at GolfStatus

Jen Wemhoff accidentally discovered her passion for nonprofits in college. An internship while earning a degree in Communications from Doane University led to a 20 year career in the nonprofit sector, where she found a strong desire to be part of something bigger than herself. Her vast nonprofit experience includes roles in marketing, fundraising, and direct programming. When Jen came to GolfStatus as Communications Manager in 2020, she was struck by the power of the sport to raise money to power nonprofit missions. She tells GolfStatus’s story across platforms and channels and develops educational tools and resources to help nonprofits tap into golf’s giving power. Jen, her husband, and two daughters call Lincoln, Nebraska home