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Fundraising Tuesday: How to Build Long-Term Partnerships with Corporate Sponsors

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A guest post by Adam Weinger, Double the Donation

As your nonprofit strives to make a positive impact on society, forging connections with like-minded businesses can extend your reach and help you pursue your mission more effectively. Cross-sector partnerships involve more than just financial transactions—they demand a strategic approach, effective communication, and a commitment to shared values.

In this guide, we’ll explore four best practices that will enable your nonprofit to secure corporate sponsors and nurture these partnerships for long-term success.

Understand Their Goals

According to 360MatchPro’s guide to corporate social responsibility (CSR), businesses often have several objectives in mind when sponsoring a nonprofit. For instance, they might be looking to engage employees, connect with new customers, improve their reputation, and make an impact on their larger community.

Take these expectations into consideration as you develop an overarching goal for the partnership, ensuring that it is mutually beneficial and SMART:

  • Specific: Sponsorship goals should be clearly defined and focused, leaving no room for ambiguity.
  • Measurable: Include specific metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) to allow for quantifiable progress tracking.
  • Achievable: Ensure that the goals are attainable within the context of your respective time, reach, and resources.
  • Relevant: Align the goals with the overarching objectives of both your nonprofit and corporate sponsor.
  • Time-bound: Setting a specific timeframe or deadline for achieving the goals creates a sense of urgency and helps with project management.

Let’s say a nonprofit focuses on providing education to underprivileged youth and partners with a corporate sponsor that shares its commitment to community empowerment. An example of a mutually beneficial goal for the partnership could be to establish a mentorship program and provide career guidance to 100 underprivileged high school students within the fiscal year.

Customize Sponsorship Proposals

Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach to sponsorship proposals, customize them to meet each sponsor’s needs and demonstrate that your organization is committed to delivering individualized value.

For the best results, incorporate the following details into your sponsorship proposal:

  • Contribution expectations: Conduct thorough research into the business’s financial well-being and past CSR initiatives. Then, use these insights to build your case for support and define the financial or in-kind contributions that you expect to receive.
  • Target audience: Corporate sponsors are often interested in reaching new customers through a nonprofit partnership. Research their target demographic and explain your access to that audience. For example, you might say something along the lines of, “We understand that your customers are primarily college students. At our last benefit concert, 87% of the participants were young adults aged 18-24.”
  • Tailored benefits: Offer incentives that cater to the sponsor’s interests, such as logo placement in promotional materials, recognition in targeted communication channels, or exclusive access to VIP events or programs.

Consider creating an enticing menu of sponsorship tiers. Ask potential sponsors to choose a sponsorship package with the benefits and involvement that best suit their needs. For instance, the lowest level might require a $1,000 donation in exchange for a social media shoutout, whereas a $10,000 donation will result in a full-page spread about the business in your newsletter. This system allows you to accommodate large corporations seeking extensive exposure as well as smaller businesses looking for more modest involvement.

Deliver on Promises

Fulfill all the promises made in your sponsorship agreements, whether that be providing the agreed-upon marketing opportunities, promoting the sponsor to a specific audience, or extending the appropriate recognition.

For example, let’s say your education-focused nonprofit promises a sponsor that their funding will provide scholarships to underprivileged students to attend a summer enrichment program. In this case, ensure that the scholarships are awarded as intended and students have access to the program. Then, summarize your efforts in a report that you provide to the sponsor, outlining the number of students benefiting, their progress, and any notable success stories.

When businesses see that your nonprofit can hold up its end of the deal, it validates their decision to invest and signals a willingness to nurture a long-term relationship. This can lead to more sustained support and ongoing collaboration, as both parties recognize the value of the partnership beyond short-term transactions.

Promote Open Communication

Maintaining open lines of communication is a basic tenant of professionalism. Use the following channels to connect with sponsors and gather feedback about their experiences with your nonprofit:

  • Email: Send personalized updates, newsletters, and event invitations directly to sponsors’ inboxes.
  • Social media: Leverage social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to share the impact of their contributions and tap into their potentially expansive networks.
  • In-person meetings: Organize meetings or conferences to connect with sponsors face-to-face, answer questions or concerns, and discuss future initiatives.

Additionally, consider designating a point of contact from your nonprofit staff to communicate with corporate sponsors and serve as a liaison between the two organizations. They can provide timely responses to inquiries, address concerns, and coordinate logistics, creating a positive experience for the sponsor.

Show Appreciation

Don’t underestimate the power of appreciation. eCardWidget’s guide to donor recognition recommends taking the following steps to acknowledge and thank your corporate sponsors for their support:

  • Personalize thank-you letters. Send personal thank-you letters to express your sincere gratitude for their support and highlight the specific achievements that you’ve made with their help.
  • Provide public recognition: Recognize corporate sponsors on your website, your digital donor wall, social media platforms, and in your marketing materials to publicly showcase their commitment to your cause.
  • Host exclusive events. Host recognition events or ceremonies where sponsors are celebrated to create a memorable partnership experience and positive impression of your organization.
  • Publish impact reports. Provide corporate sponsors with impact reports that detail the outcomes resulting from their support and demonstrate how their contributions have made a difference for your nonprofit’s beneficiaries.

These forms of recognition not only inform sponsors about the tangible results of their support but also reinforce their sense of purpose and commitment to your organization.

Adam Weinger is the President of Double the Donation, the leading provider of tools to nonprofits to help them raise more money from corporate matching gift and volunteer grant programs.

Double the Donation’s robust solution, 360MatchPro, provides nonprofits with automated tools to identify match-eligible donors, drive matches to completion, and gain actionable insights. 360MatchPro integrates directly into donation forms, CRMs, social fundraising software, and other nonprofit technology solutions to capture employment information and follow up appropriately with donors about matching gifts.

Fundraising Tuesday: Having Second Thoughts about Giving Tuesday?

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Perhaps you’re one of the nonprofit organizations that has had great success raising funds on Giving Tuesday. You jumped on it early, got your donors to make it a habit, and kept the momentum going strong for the last decade.

Congratulations. This post is not for you!

But if your organization has put a lot of effort into Giving Tuesday and seen the returns decline, maybe you decided to give it a rest this year. Or maybe, you’re one of the many groups that never jumped on the Giving Tuesday bandwagon.

And right now, a couple of weeks out, you’re having second thoughts.

“What if I’m missing out? What if all the other people gearing up for the Tuesday after Thanksgiving are right and I’m wrong? Should I put something together in a rush before I head off to my holiday dinner?

NO. The answer is a big, fat NO.

If you're not already committed to Giving Tuesday, here are three reasons to take a deep breath and let it go. Share on X
  1. Doing a good fundraising message takes time. Doing a bad fundraising message is a waste of time.
  2. When Giving Tuesday was new, it was easy to get donors’ attention that day. Now, every other email in their inbox says “It’s Giving Tuesday!” Don’t get lost in the crowd.
  3. There are many other things you can do right now, and before the end of the year, that will raise more money than a slapdash Giving Tuesday email.

How to Raise Money without Giving Tuesday

Take the time you would have spent on creating an effective appeal for the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving and put it into these steps instead:

Fundraising Tuesday: How a Capital Campaign Fuels Sustainable Nonprofit Growth

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A guest post by Andrea Kihlstedt of Capital Campaign Pro

When was the last time your organization conducted a capital campaign? Ten years ago? Twenty? Even longer? Many organizations undertake capital campaigns because of specific needs, or perhaps a crisis that has arisen.

You may complete a strategic planning process that points to the need for more space or new programs and systems, and bingo—that leads to a capital campaign. Or, perhaps you are losing your lease, or a flood or earthquake has destroyed your facilities. A crisis like that often jump-starts a campaign.

But you will be well-served to think more broadly about how a campaign can help your organization grow and develop in more than just these ways.

This post will review the many reasons that capital campaigns are good for an organization’s growth. The reasons fall into two categories: specific things a campaign can raise money for that will help an organization grow, and the ways in which the process of a campaign boosts an organization’s strength and growth.

Specific Projects or Initiatives that Can be Funded by a Capital Campaign

Keep in mind that capital campaigns occur only once every 10 or 15 years. They don’t replace annual fundraising but are rather special initiatives that raise funds that boost an organization’s productivity.

These funds typically fall into these categories:

  • Infrastructure and Facility Improvements: Campaigns are often used to expand existing facilities, renovate outdated spaces, or build brand-new facilities. These improvements to the infrastructure enable an organization to do more and to do it more effectively for a period of years.
  • Technology: Organizations often use campaigns to invest in new systems and technologies that will make them more effective and efficient. These might include development systems, website improvements, scheduling systems, information tracking, and data analytics. The nonprofit world often lags behind with these investments, but when made wisely, they can transform an organization’s ability to function efficiently.
  • New Programs and Service Expansion: While campaigns typically don’t fund general operations, they can be used for front-end expenditures for new programs or rapid program expansion. Those programs can start more quickly with an infusion of resources from a campaign and then gradually fund the ongoing expenses through an increase in annual operating funds.
  • Board Restricted Endowment: While campaigns are not the best approach to build an organization’s endowment, most campaigns include some endowment component which provides opportunities for donors to contribute to the campaign through planned gifts that will not be needed for immediate cash investments.

Capital campaigns are excellent catalysts for growth. But they also have powerful transformational effects on an organization’s fundraising and visibility.

Capital Campaigns Strengthen Organizations in Other Ways, Too

Aside from the direct investments that a capital campaign funds, consider the diverse other benefits that it can bring:

  • Strengthening Donor Relationships: Capital campaigns are not just about fundraising. Campaigns foster meaningful connections with donors, as they inspire people to invest deeply in the organization’s mission. Through personalized cultivation and stewardship efforts, nonprofits can engage donors on a more profound level, turning them into lifelong supporters. These strengthened donor relationships extend beyond the campaign, providing a sustainable base of ongoing support.
  • Raising Visibility and Awareness: Capital campaigns also present an excellent opportunity to raise awareness about an organization’s work. As the campaign gains momentum, it generates media coverage, public interest, and word-of-mouth endorsements. This heightened visibility attracts new donors and volunteers who may become long-term advocates for the organization’s cause.
  • Building a Culture of Philanthropy: Successful capital campaigns involve the entire organization, from the board and staff to volunteers and beneficiaries. This collective effort instills a culture of philanthropy, where everyone is invested in the fundraising process and understands its importance. Such a culture ensures that fundraising continues to be a priority even after the campaign ends, sustaining the organization’s growth trajectory.
  • Capacity-Building and Professional Development: As organizations prepare for capital campaigns, they often invest in capacity-building and professional development for their team. This can include training on fundraising strategies, donor stewardship, and financial management. These improvements make an organization better equipped to handle the challenges of growth in a sustainable manner.

Careful planning, adherence to capital campaign best practices, and a hands-on approach will set you up well to achieve these long-term benefits, especially if you work with a campaign coach or advisor who can guide you through each step of the process.

More Than Just Money

Capital campaigns offer more than just financial boosts; they serve as catalysts for sustainable growth by forging strong donor relationships, increasing visibility, and fostering a culture of philanthropy within the organization.

 

Andrea Kihlstedt, Capital Campaign ProAndrea Kihlstedt | CEO & Co-Founder of Capital Campaign Pro

Andrea is the author of Capital Campaigns: Strategies that Work, now in its 4th edition, as well as How to Raise $1 Million (or More) in 10 Bite Sized Steps, in addition to other books. Andrea has been leading successful capital campaigns for more than 30 years. To learn how Capital Campaign Pro can support you through a capital campaign, visit capitalcampaignpro.com.

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