Athlete Sponsorship and Funding Ideas
10 Tips for athletes…
Finding sponsorship is no easy task for any athlete, and tips for finding sponsorship are no easier to put into a Summary! However we hope you find the below of some assistance in how to go about finding sponsorship / support to assist athletes.
This is brief and not extensive, but will hopefully give you some background information for moving forward.
1. Types of Sponsorship
Sponsorship
When a company invests money into you with the expectation that they will receive some commercial benefit there will normally be a contract signed between the parties. (ie Vodafone Warriors) The "Business” Company
Donations
When a company/organisation/individual donates money or product to a project with no commercial expectation of anything in return, but may like other things in return. "The community company”
Trust funding and grants
Regional Trusts and Liquor outlets that have "pokie” machines on site are required by law to donate a percentage of money from these machines to community projects. There are a wide variety of trusts set up to do this, funding different projects across a wide areas. Many of these trusts support sports but their criteria should be
read carefully. For many of these trusts require endorsement and application from the NSO/Regional Sporting organisation. IE Lion Foundation / NZ Community Trust / Southern Trust.
Fund raising
Where individuals or groups work to raise money by encouraging public and community support through things like bake sales, raffles, sausage sizzles, chocolates, fundraising dinners etc. Raffle tickets whereby the prizes are donated from friends and families, sausage sizzles, fundraising lunches with auction etc
2. Should I go for sponsorship / donations / trust funding / grants?
Sponsorship where the sponsor is looking for a commercial return is difficult in sports where TV coverage is minimal – choose your target carefully.
Donations are about who you know and what you can offer them in return that gives a "Feel good” factor to the Organisation
Trust funding is great to apply for – there are lots of things you need to be aware of including that you cannot apply for trust funding grants if you are an individual. You can apply as the "Auckland Triathlon Club World Long distance Championship Team” through your triathlon Club as a team. A team can be made up of a group of individuals, but the application must come from a club / association. Go to the NZ Funding Information Service website for more information on applying for trust funding and visit the SPARC website for a list of Trusts throughout NZ: www.sparc.govt.nz
Be sure to discuss trust funding applications with your club – if they are happy to submit an application, this should incorporate all club members attending world champs and if successful the money should be evenly distributed between all athletes. Clubs may not be able to apply for trust funding with certain trusts if they have already applied to them recently or if the application affects funding opportunities that the club relies on to operate. Clubs have sole discretion on submitting funding applications on behalf of athletes.
Fund raising is not as popular as it used to be, often because people do not want to put the time into it and are looking for a quick return. However, if you have contacts where you can have raffle prizes donated for free, it can be a great way to earn some money. IE: Raffle tickets at $5 each selling 200 tickets gives you $1000!
3. What sort of support are you looking for?
Write a list of all the things that are going to cost you money between now and the World Championships.
Are you after money, product or service? This could be things from paying for your air tickets, needing carbo shots to buying a new bike or paying for your race entry. Separate it into product/service and $$.
4. Why should an organisation invest in you?
Ask yourself, why an organisation would want to invest in you? Write a list of what reasons a company might have to be involved in your campaign. It could include things such as:
- You have proven yourself nationally / internationally
- Your sport has a high profile that we can benefit from
- You are giving something back to the community that we can associate with
- We think you have potential to succeed and we want to help
- You have similar values to our organisation and we want to get behind you
- We can measure the return we will get from sponsoring you
5. What can you offer a sponsor / supporter?
What might be some of the ways you can show acknowledgement to a supporter / sponsor for their support? Create a list of all the different ideas you can think of, which may include (but not limited to):
- Signage on clothing / equipment / vehicle etc
- Visiting the company and talking / making presentation to
- Working for the organisation
- Sending regular newsletters / thank you cards
- Providing key sponsors with framed photos of you "in action”
6. Who currently supports you and what do you do for them?
Who is currently involved in supporting / sponsoring you as an athlete? Write a list of all the people that are behind you. These could include parents not charging you to live at home, employers giving you time off work to train, the local bike shop giving you a discount, gym membership, great aunty jean who sends you $500 every year and many others! Once you have this list, write next to it what you are currently doing for them. Do you currently treat these people as a sponsor? How do you show this? Do you send a thank you card or regular newsletters, do they get invites to watch your events, do you carry their logo on your car / racing outfit etc?
7. How to target potential supporters / sponsors
Asking for sponsorship from random large companies that you have found on the internet often doesn't get you anywhere. There needs to be a connection somewhere between you and a potential sponsor. Write down a list of all your friends and family (ie everyone you could call and say hello to). Then write a list of those people you know that might be able to help you or that know someone that knows someone that might be interested in sponsoring you. Write down a list of other organisations that you would like to approach. Next to each person, write down why they might want to help you - research these organisations / individuals and find a connection (is there are community connection, is the CEO also a really keen triathlete, does your brother / sister / uncle happen to know the Marketing manager). Narrow this list down to the people that you want to target.
8. Putting together a proposal
Once you know who you want to target, then you need the information to go with it. Do you have a sporting CV/sponsorship proposal? An organisation will probably spend a maximum of 2-3 minutes glancing at your proposal
What message do you want to get across in that time? How do you want to get that message across? Some things you might include are:
- Who are you? (what do you do, where do you live, background information)
- Some background information on your sport (interesting facts and figures)
- What have you achieved in your sport? / What are your future goals in your sport?
- What sort of support are you looking for?
- What can you offer a sponsor/supporter in return
9. You have a proposal… now what?
Posting out 10 proposals to 10 different companies you have found from the yellow pages is not going to give you a successful return. It is about getting face to face with a company or getting their attention. This can be in the way you present your proposal or how you go about making an appointment. Using your contacts can be the foot in the door that you need. Finding sponsorship takes time, and remember most of the time you are asking for a favour, so if someone doesn't return your call straight away – don't be offended, they just have lots going on! Don't waste their time if you do get in to meet with them, and focus on building the relationship with them first.
10. How successful am I going to be?
If you are looking for $10,000 you need to think about it in terms of how long would it take you to earn that amount of money. EG: If you could earn $40 per hour, it would take you 250 hours to earn $10k. Therefore if you are only prepared to invest 10 hours into finding $10k in sponsorship there is a good chance you are not going to be that successful. If you are looking for $500 in sponsorship, the time you would put into the sponsorship would be relative. It might take 3-6 months to happen, or you could be in the right place at the right time and it could happen straight away! It is all about who you know.
The key thing we have learned with sponsorship is that it is not about the money / product, but more about the relationship you have or can build with a potential sponsor. Too often we see people that get too caught up in the money they are after, that they forget to build the relationship. This is why targeting the right people, starting with people you already know is so much more successful.
We hope this is of some assistance. It isn't easy, it takes hard work and we all make mistakes along the way with it! Good luck and happy sponsorship searching!
