Gala season is right around the corner, but based on experience (and from what I’m hearing through the grapevine), there are many nonprofits out there still struggling to get corporate sponsorship. Now, these types of events are all about relationships. If you’re running more of a grass roots organization, I've been told time and again that exposure isn't going to matter much to large corporations for you. However, if you’re running an event for a larger, more prominent nonprofit, of course exposure matters. While this article serves to benefit all, I’m always rooting for the underdogs, so let’s focus on the smaller orgs and start-ups for now. If you’re working towards helping your nonprofit secure those elusive funds, here are a few tips that just might give you that leg up you need.
Preparation
Before we get started consider these questions: What does the event committee look like? Who is the obvious leader of the organization? What sort of pull do they have in the corporate sector? Many start-ups or smaller orgs have a handful of goodhearted people with great intentions, but few resources. If that is the case, YOU are THE resource! And you have a HUGE job ahead of you!
Realize that taking on the job of soliciting corporations isn't a simple task. Unless you're asking for giveaways, or auction items, most corporations won't sponsor a start-up nonprofit with a basic request letter. At that level, it's all about relationships: who you know, who the Executive Director knows and who the board knows. At that level, you need to reach PEOPLE at the corporations, to show them why they should support the nonprofit's mission.
Ten Tips for Soliciting Corporate Funds
1. Secure a Chair
First and foremost, find someone who will agree to chair your event, even if it's as an honorary chair. The main reason you're going to need that person is to ask them to solicit their "friends". (But of course, you'll be sending out the solicitations on their behalf so all they'll need to do is sign off on the letters.) This means that the person/people you ask to chair your event have to be high powered decision makers. People who have clout. (They should have friends who are CEO’s of public or private corporations.) Your nonprofit board should help you select the chair, and if possible, one or more members should personally make the offer.
2. Provide Recommended Chair with Details
Prepare a packet of information for the recommended chair outlining what their expected duties will be. This packet can be a simple folder that includes a:
- Nonprofit Mission Statement
- Event Description
- Event Goals (including amount of funds expected to be raised)
- List of Past Contributors (to event, if available, or to org if not)
- Brief List of Duties (no more than five)
- Annual Report or Newsletter (or other description of services and programs offered)
3. Receive Contact List
Once the recommended chair has accepted the position, as part of their stated duties, they should provide a list of names that you can solicit for corporate sponsorship on their behalf. They should also provide a recommended amount to be solicited from each. (Be sure they already know your needs and levels of giving.) This is a good time to create a spreadsheet with each name and their contact information, including columns for Solicited Date, Follow Up Date, Response and Amounts.
4. Draft Solicitation Letter
Prepare the solicitation letter that will be sent on the chair's behalf. If you’re at all familiar with the chair’s style or personality, write to that. If you’re not, make sure the letter is extremely professional (no grammatical or spelling errors, must have good sentence structure, etc.) and written in an active, business-casual voice. (Remember that you’re writing to their friends!)
5. Get Approval
Get the Executive Director's approval of the letter, and then get the chair's approval. The chair should decide if they would like the letters printed on your org’s letterhead or on their company letterhead. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Your main concern with using their letterhead is you don’t want the letter to appear to be a sales pitch, but they will know their friends best, so go with whatever they decide. If they have no preference, put it on your organization’s letterhead.
6. Get Signature
Print the letters and take personally or mail to the chair to have them sign (at this late stage in the year, you will most certainly want to run them over there as quickly as possible!). Make copies of the signed letters for your files.
7. Do Follow Up
Also as part of the chair’s duties, it will have already been explained to them that they will be doing follow up on their solicitations. Within two weeks, prompt the chair to see if any follow up has been made. If none has been made, ask if you can make phone calls to the contacts on the chair's behalf (or send letters, or whatever the chair would like). If you do the follow up, be sure to communicate the following:
a. Ask if they received the letter (or state in your letter that you would like to confirm they received the chair’s initial letter).
b. Find out if they have any questions about the event or your organization and its programs (in a letter, be sure to include event materials).
c. At this point, they will probably still be considering whether or not to sponsor the event. Explain that you will let your chair know that you have followed up with them and will follow up again at the end of the month (or two weeks later).
Most likely the contact will respond with a decision letter or will speak with the chair individually.
8. Have Your Board Solicit
In conjunction with the chair’s solicitations, ask the board to provide a list of at least five people they know who are CEO's.
I know this is often a difficult task, especially with a community board. If you have a board like this, don’t worry. There are organizations in Milwaukee who can help get you in touch with the powers that be. One is a program of the Nonprofit Management Fund’s BoardStar called Greater Milwaukee On Board (www.boardstar.org). Another is one of Milwaukee’s oldest friends, Future Milwaukee, which is now a program of Marquette University’s College of Professional Studies (http://www.marquette.edu/cps/futuremilwaukee).
NOTE: If you don’t utilize these programs as resources now, I recommend you keep them in mind as grow your board. They are just a couple of Milwaukee’s gems!
9. Receive Board Contact List
It is now your job to enlist each board member to sign off on a solicitation letter to their recommendations, also including an ask amount, just as you did with the chair.
10. Do Board Follow Up
Repeat all of the follow up steps you did for the chair for each of the Board’s contacts.
As a final note, I can’t express enough how important it is to make sure you stay well organized throughout this entire process. The spreadsheet you create when you first receive contact information will serve as your best and hardest working tool that will work for you. Make sure to keep it updated as you begin, do follow up and secure your funds.
These tips are really just the “tip” of the iceberg and they aren’t by any means a direct link to the bank. What I’ve offered you are specific action steps on how to get that first foot in the door with corporations so you can work towards making your fundraising event a success. So if you’re feeling lost and don’t even know where to begin, I hope this article has helped give you that start you need.
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