Fundraising Leadership ™

Executive Coaching, Professional Development, Training, and Career Advancement for Nonprofit Leaders in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Corporate Sponsorship: Get Clear and Think BIG

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Corporate Sponsorship photo of moneyLet’s get right to the point. Corporate sponsorship and corporate philanthropy are not the same. They are different—very different. And no matter which one you are considering, you probably aren’t thinking creatively enough.

Typically, philanthropy is done by individuals, not companies, but some companies still give for the sake of giving expecting nothing in return. Actually, that is philanthropy, especially when it comes to the Canada Revenue Agency or IRS. Philanthropy, or a donation by a company, is a gift made to a charity with no expectation of anything in return—no event passes or tickets to a gala, no logo inclusion, banners, tweets, or posts. Nothing! Zilch! Nada! Philanthropy comes from the heart; donations should be altruistic.

Corporate sponsorship, on the other hand, is a business transaction. The sponsor pays/gives the sponsored property money. In return, the sponsor receives benefits that will help them make more money, be it through alignment with the property, through sales, brand development, PR/GR, or employee engagement and such. It is a form of marketing, and like buying social, digital, outdoor, TV, or radio, they receive something of value in return for their investment.

Many nonprofits spend A LOT of time procuring small sponsorships.  Typically, this might look like a lower-level sponsorship of an event.  For a couple thousand dollars, the nonprofit has agreed to manage a long list of value in return: logos, seats at tables, program ads, speaking roles and other agreed upon benefits that can lead to a pretty high headache-to-reward ratio. My challenge to fundraising teams: how might you think BIGGER about sponsorships? How are you limiting yourself by getting stuck in this small transactional space?

Here are some stories and case studies that illustrate what I’m talking about::

  • Story #1: A Case of Mistaken Identity: I was with a brand / sponsor. They expressed to me that their “investment” with a hospital foundation was not delivering the ROI they had hoped for. They had agreed to a donation and took a tax receipt, but they had wanted an announcement, some fanfare, publicity, and PR. Brands / sponsors need to understand that if they want ROI, they should do a sponsorship deal. If they want to just feel good, promote internally, and contribute to a worthy cause, then they should make a philanthropic gift — but not expect ROI. This brand / sponsor gave a philanthropic gift and then expected sponsor benefits in exchange. That’s a recipe for disappointment all around.
  • Story #2: Un-Aligned Sponsorship Expectations: Another case I heard was a brand / sponsor that had bought a sponsorship, but really did not feel that they got the value they had wanted. They were complaining about the fact that they had invested $25,000 in a gala sponsorship and just gotten logos, tickets, name mentions, and banners. They had asked for more specific assets, such as a speaking opportunity, a chance to sample product (a high-end gift for attendees), and content in the quarterly newsletter. But they asked for all that after the fact. They were told they could not have those assets and their “package” was set. I told them it was their problem and fault, not the fault of the charity. If you cannot get what you need, don’t buy the product! They accepted that, but it was the last time they sponsored that event.  It’s best practice for BOTH parties in a sponsorship conversation to get very clear before agreeing to work together.
  • Story #3: How Less Clutter and Simplified Thinking Saved the Day: Here is an example where a sponsorship worked great after the charity learned from what wasn’t working. This was a national charity with an annual fundraising run. Historically, in each market, volunteer hours were spent begging local businesses to give them product to put in the run participants’ registration bag. Each market had a minimum of 1000 runners so that meant each business had to have a coupon or product for 1000 bags. They charged the businesses nothing because they were trying to build value for the participants by having lots of stuff in the bags. In reality, most runners threw the bags and contents away, and the recall on the offers from the bags was low. What the charity realized was that the runners weren’t there for the “great stuff” offered in the registrant bag… they were there either for the run or the cause. The charity changed the format so that only sponsors who were investing a minimum locally of $1500 could have the right to sample a product in the registrant bag. The bag went from 25-30 items down to 5 or 6 items. Sponsors had to pay to be in the bag now. Registrants saw less product, but they actually started looking at it — and it was of greater value to them; the redemption rates were about 3 times as high as when those sponsors put it in for free and were in a clutter of 25-30 other products in the bag. The result: each of the local evets were now raising $7,500 to $8,500 cash – this is cash to those events which they had never gotten before. There were no complaints or negative feedback on less “stuff” in the registrant bag. Also, less volunteer time was spent collecting product and stuffing the bags. And with 100 runs across the country, the total new source of revenue  meant $750,000 additional cash dollars to the cause. It was a win-win for the sponsors and the charity. This is true sponsorship that works. Here the charity shifted their thinking from “asking or begging” the business to help them by providing product for the bags to showing the business how the run could actually help them drive traffic to their business and then charging them for the right to reach this audience. Costco charges all those companies who sample food (or before COVID used to sample food) to sample their food to Costco customers… why are you as a charity not charging for the same exposure?
  • Story #4: Another Success Story: And here is another example of  a true partnership that delivered the ROI desired. It was a between a post secondary institution and an alumnus who owned a car dealership. They went through the major gift process and after 18 months, the school got a $15,000 major gift from the alum. When they better understood sponsorship along with philanthropy, they went back to see that alumnus with a new and creative idea. Together, they built out a sponsorship marketing program for the dealership that offered great discounts to graduates who bought a car from this dealership. The dealership used their marketing budget to invest $20,000 a year (and still running after 7 years… at a higher level now) to help them sell cars through this program, which includes a college hockey team sponsorship along with a social media campaign. The dealership tracks the ROI so they can see that it sells cars to this audience really well. What the school has now: instead of a single $15,000 major gift, they receive an “annual” contribution of $20,000 a year for multiple years. We also know that the alumnus made a substantial personal gift several years.  This scenario shows how some creativity and big thinking can design a program that really benefits both parties.

We need to understand sponsorship and philanthropy are different and treat them accordingly. And we need to think bigger and more creatively – in ways that go well beyond logos and speaking opportunities if we want real money from business-nonprofit partnerships.


Brent Barootes is the President and CEO of Partnership Group – Sponsorship Specialists® an integrated sponsorship marketing agency that works with both sponsors (brands / companies) and properties (those selling sponsorships and looking for money such as charities, non profits, pro and amateur sports, municipalities and such) to help them both put more money on their bottom lines. Brent has been with the Partnership Group – Sponsorship Specialists® since its start up 20 years ago and has been working directly in the sponsorship and charitable / non profit sector for over 30 years working both as a Director of Development for a national charity and working in professional sports from a sponsorship perspective.

What is a “Personal Board of Directors?”

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board room table with brown leather chairsMentorship is an evergreen topic of discussion amongst leaders and those aspiring to it. Wonderfully, today the conversation continues to evolve to intersect with issues of equity, diversity and inclusion to unpack the need for not just formal mentorship, but sponsorship and organizational responsibility.

But for many who work either alone, freelance or are just not supported at work, this is a journey they must take personal responsibility for. I firmly believe that in fact, any professional who cares deeply about their career needs to cultivate a healthy “third space” outside of work and home life. A professional sphere where they are not defined by their job title or technical capabilities. For me, a new world was opened up when I read the work of Dorie Clark pushing past the scarcity of the “gig economy” and instead proposing that we are all consultants now ( since hey, who will have a job for life any more ) and we hold “portfolio careers”.

On top of this concept that we will be flexible in our work space and the work we do over a lifetime of work, is the idea that we need to be creative and flexible in the mentors we seek too.

Yes, mentors with an “s”. You need multiple, and in fact when I’ve supported peers to really sit down and think about it, we all have several but it’s not a thought out process. And there’s nothing more dangerous than a mentor you didn’t choose. [Read more…]

Collecting Courage: Traversing the whiteness of the philanthropic sector as Black fundraisers

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“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”  ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love is a perfect example of what happens when two parallel paths converge to create something special and of significance.

On one pathway was Our Right to Heal, an initiative featuring the voices of ten Black Canadian fundraisers sharing their journey towards healing from painful and traumatic experiences. In May 2020, a few days before George Floyd was killed at the hands of the Minneapolis police on May 25th, the stories were published by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (Global). His death served as a flashpoint triggering worldwide outrage about police brutality against Black people and igniting protests against anti-Black racism.

On a related and separate path, our group of Black Canadian fundraisers selected Cap in Hand: How Charities are Failing the People of Canada and the World by Gail Picco as our book club selection for December 2019. When Gail joined us for the discussion, she shared her idea about a compilation of writings featuring the voices of Black fundraisers. In March 2020, Gail became the Editor-in-Chief of The Charity Report, a new digital magazine, and at the same time launched Gail K. Picco Books, an imprint under Civil Sector Press.

These two convergent paths intersected, creating a perfect storm and genesis for the book. Conditions and timing were right to address historic exclusion and oppression in the charity sector. In June, discussions got underway and Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love was born. [Read more…]

4 Common Fundraising Challenges – And How To Overcome Them

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A plant growing out of a vase filled with coins.

Raising enough money to support programs and services can be challenging, especially for small and medium sized organizations.

This year, Covid and the resulting inability to have fundraising “as usual” has brought even greater obstacles and anxieties to many organizations.

Are any of these four common fundraising challenges tripping up your organization?

[Read more…]

Building a Thoughtful Fundraising Career

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Laptop with a You've Got This Sign beside it.The year was 2009. I had just graduated from university and knew I wanted to work in the non-profit sector but, like so many others, I had no clue how to go about building my career. None of my relatives were fundraisers or non-profit executives. No one I knew even worked for a charity. Without special connections or outside assistance, I had to learn how the non-profit sector operates the hard way. Despite this initial setback, I achieved several career milestones at a relatively early age and these accomplishments did not go unnoticed. As a result, aspiring and mid-career fundraisers often reach out to me to ask for career advice; to help them weigh the benefits of taking a specific course, program or designation; or to understand how they can emulate my success.

I think many are disappointed to hear me say that there is no silver bullet. I attribute my success as a fundraiser to being very thoughtful about my career development rather than to any one specific thing I’ve done. In order to be successful, you have to know where you want to go, develop a plan to get there, and then actually follow your plan. Of course, you will have to put in a lot of hard work along the way too. Success doesn’t happen overnight, and you will have to adjust course as challenges present themselves and new opportunities become available to you. Creating a plan doesn’t mean that your plan can’t change. But, if you don’t create a plan for your career, your career will happen to you instead of you taking charge and making it happen the way you want it to. [Read more…]

It’s All About Impact

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lightning strikeI’ll never forget the day, my staff member, whose role is Latino Outreach, came into my office to let me know that a family who had lost everything in a fire had called our center in order to ask if we could provide them with a house full of furniture. They had lost everything in the fire, had no insurance and little means to replace their furniture. This is not an unusual request, in that our humanitarian center regularly helps people with all kinds of needs, whether that be food, clothes, furniture or mental health counseling.

What was unusual that day, was the fact that on the exact same day, we received a call from one of our regular donors. She wanted to donate a house full of furniture to our center. She knew that by giving us this furniture, we would normally turn around and sell these items through our thrift stores, which in turn directly supported our many outreach programs like our food pantry. Her furniture was very nice and would sell for a good price at our stores.

Before hanging up the phone, she asked if by chance we had a family who was in need of furniture. While she was fine giving it to us to sell through our stores, she would prefer it be given to a family who really needed it if there was someone who presented a need for it. [Read more…]

Stay Curious, Play the Infinite Game

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In 1986, American philosopher James Carse introduced the concept of two types of games – finite games and infinite games. Finite games have a winner and loser. Infinite games have no finish line and the goal is to keep the game going as long as possible. More than 33 years later, Simon Sinek gave voice to this philosophy in his leadership touchstone, The Infinite Game.

Even if you haven’t read the book (though I highly recommend that you do), the tenets of it will likely feel like second nature to those of us in fundraising: we over me, progress over perfection and the importance of always keeping an eye on the big picture. To break it down in our industry’s nomenclature, meeting a fundraising goal is a finite thing; building a movement is infinite. [Read more…]

Creating an Environment for Fundraising to Thrive

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Too often in charitable organizations, fundraising is seen as distinct from delivering on mission.

Yet fundraising cuts horizontally across an organization, touching virtually every aspect of its work. And, in order to raise money effectively, you can’t simply work hard at fundraising, you must also work hard at creating the right environment – the enabling ecology – for fundraising to thrive.

Fundraising’s enabling ecology approach suggests that the sustainability of your fundraising program depends on the strength, interconnectedness and balance of each of the approach’s four elements: strategies, infrastructure, culture and principles. And you must purposefully plan for each if you want to have the full involvement of your organization and ultimately raise more money. [Read more…]

Is Your Money Story Affecting Your Ask?

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Spoiler alert: I strongly believe that the answer to the question in the title is YES.  And not only that, but there’s a decent chance the impact your money story is having isn’t pretty.

So, what is a money story, exactly?

Most of us learn “stories” about money from the Big Three Influencers: our families, our communities and our churches (and other religions). Sometimes the messages are lovely, about sharing and abundance and villages raising children.  MUCH more often, people are taught that money is scarce, that it must be earned with sweat, that it is infused with power, that it is linked to greed and evil. They learn that money is something others have more of, and that it creates imbalance. They learn that there isn’t enough.  They learn that it comes with strings attached.  They learn that asking for it is bad. [Read more…]

Put on Your Cape and Let’s Get Going! Embracing Vulnerability in Fundraising.

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Vulnerability is a big word. It has twelve letters and many connotations, depending with whom you speak. It’s also a word I used to fear. Being vulnerable meant leaving myself open and unprotected, travelling into unknown territory. Quite frankly, it was my least favorite state of being.

Philanthropy is also a big, twelve-letter word that means something different depending with whom you are speaking. Unlike vulnerability, philanthropy has been a word I’ve confidently lived with for the past 30 years. Despite the constant “I just don’t know how you ask people for money” comments from faculty and friends, philanthropy is my happy place.   [Read more…]