Sponsorship

I just look at the website for the St Anthony’s Parish Primary School and the second line is :”A Catholic school in the Tuggeranong Valley”

Why would a school affiliated with the richest organisation in the world need donations?

Can’t you just ring up the Pope and ask him for a some cash?

A couple of million would be loose change to him.

notdingers said :

Try The Burns Club or another local Club. I think they have a certain percentage of pokie revenue they have to return to the community through sponsorships etc.

The Burns is a bad idea- they are Loyalists (Protestants) who would rather see St Anthony’s (Catholics) burnt to the ground.

Harvyk1 has some great advice me thinks.

tatef15, I don’t mean to be harsh, but I read about 20% of your letter and got bored…

As a business owner I wouldn’t care how many kids go to the school, I don’t really care as to the function of the P&F association (and I can probably guess, so don’t insult my intelligence), and as for the block of what I could get, well it’s a massive block of text.

I’d suggest completely re-writing the letter, state your writing on behalf of St. Anthony’s Parish School, that your looking for sponsorship for these projects \ events (list them out using dot points), and that you would in return be able to provide the following forms of advertising (list them out using dot points).

Give basic numbers for exposure. Also give businesses a much greater time to decide (as it stands now they only have 7 business days to decide, some businesses would be hard pressed to arrange an appointment with their accountant in that time).

Also work out who your going to target. Work out the types of businesses who could most benefit from your sponsorship package and target them.

Finally, check out https://www.sponsorsselect.net.au/

Good luck

Try The Burns Club or another local Club. I think they have a certain percentage of pokie revenue they have to return to the community through sponsorships etc.

Marketing 101: Sell the benefits and opportunities to the potential sponsor before you sucker punch them with the cost.

A letter was sent out. This is it below:

We are writing to you on behalf of St. Anthony’s Parish School P&F Association regarding our school’s three major annual fundraising events. St Anthony’s is a primary school of around 340 families with some 520 students enrolled from Kindergarten to Year 6. We are located in the Tuggeranong Valley of Canberra, in the suburb of Wanniassa.

One of the main functions of the P&F Association is to coordinate donations of goods and services that may assist our school community in its major fundraising efforts.
How can you help us?

Our school community will gratefully accept any donations of goods and/or services (incl. gift certificates etc), which provides items to be auctioned, raffled or offered as prizes at one of the above events. All funds raised from these events go directly to the improvement of our school facilities. The past generosity of businesses has assisted St Anthony’s to upgrade computer hardware and software, library resources and classroom facilities. We are very conscious of the fact that businesses are approached regularly to make donations and we therefore wish to assure you that ALL donations will be gratefully received & will be used as stand alone prizes or in a packaged prize.

How can we help you?

We will provide you with a “Certificate of Appreciation” in recognition of the support you have shown our school. In 2011 we will be providing our sponsors with one certificate when all donations for the three events have been confirmed. In addition to this, on an annual basis, we produce a fridge magnet which lists all of our important school contact numbers. This magnet is distributed to all families across the school. Your business name will appear on this magnet, ensuring all of the school community are aware of your support to their school. We will also have a sponsorship board at the fete in May. We would be more than happy to receive your advertising material for use on the board at the fete. Finally, St Anthony’s encourages all families and their friends to support the businesses that are able to support them through the P&F. But be quick! Due to printing deadlines, for your name to appear on this magnet we must receive confirmation of your intention to provide sponsorship in 2011 by no later than Friday 1st April 2011.

Tate – businesses receive heaps of donation letters and as good as most of them are if that is all you have done, it is no wonder you have been unsuccessful. In my experience to get a bite you need to establish a relationship with the manager by approaching them personally, followed by a letter – they will either have the authority to make the donation or be able to promote you to the person who does in head office. Without that you are just another letter from yet another deserving cause.

I would also suggest that you tap into the parent body – surely there are parents in businesses who can support the cause or know someone who can?

If your 500 sponsorship requests were the same as this request then I’m not surprised you have got no response.

You need to answer the question on every potential sponsor’s mind: What’s in it for us?

You need to tell potential sponsors details like how many families they will have exposure to, what region the promotion will occur in, how will their business be promoted, how will the events be promoted in the community, and how much money you are looking for.

Consider developing a number of sponsorship packages where for different dollar amounts they get different levels of exposure. Target your requests to businesses that will benefit from the exposure and set the sponsorship prices at levels that the business can afford.

For business, sponsorship is just another form of advertising. As many get lots of approaches for sponsorships and donations, your ‘offer’ needs to be competitive.