 Hi there and welcome back to the nonprofit show. Thrilled to have you here with us today. Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy is our guest today. So as you know, if you've joined us before, we like to turn the seats on one another. So Julia's here to talk about what corporate partners really want and what you should consider when it comes to selling event sponsorships. But before we jump into this, we want to remind you who we are again. You just heard Julia is our guest, Julia C. Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, non-profit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. We are so very honored to have the ongoing support from these amazing presenting sponsors. So shout out of immense gratitude goes over to our besties at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy, National University, 180 management group, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, JMT consulting, nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. Again, thank you to these companies that allow us these conversations. And if you missed any of our previous episodes, we are now over a thousand episodes and you can find them right here. So go ahead and scan that QR code on the screen, download the app and you can find us also on your broadcast and your podcast platforms. So Julia, we are jumping right into this and our first topic as we look at this is really the secret. What is this all about when it comes to selling corporate partners? Cause you have here, it's really not all about the event. So what is it about? You know, it's so interesting, Jarrett. Everybody's getting ready to get their corporate sponsorships nailed down for a busy summer or even going into the fall. And a lot of people think, oh, it's about the event, but it's not really corporate sponsors are going to have a minimal impact if there's a ballroom of 500, maybe they're lucky, a thousand people. That would be a big event for a lot of organizations. A lot of communities can't even hold that many people. So the event is not really what it's about. It's about all the other things that go on. And so you've got to think about the event is one part on the dial, but it's really an entire ecosystem. And so we're going to be talking about that because it's really a different way to think about it. This is the way that your corporate sponsors are thinking about it. Yeah, and they're also looking at the long-term value. So not just that event, the long-term value and that community connectivity. Talk to us about that. So a lot of times they want to be associated with a cause or a mission or a concept. So let's say you're a healthcare organization. You might want to really be associated with issues around wellness or science or discovery or care, right? And so these are the things that an organization can attach themselves to and really be perceived more as a community partner, is having goodwill. Most of the time these decisions are made by the marketing departments, right? Because for the most part, corporate sponsorships come out of budgeting line items for marketing, right? We think, oh, it's philanthropic, but that's not really the case. It has to really be filtered through that lens of marketing. And so how you're being associated with something is really, really important. And I'll tell you, it's a dicey thing because let's go to the other extreme and let's talk about domestic violence. There are a lot of organizations that don't even want to be associated with it. They might be like, oh my gosh, it's really important and we believe that this is a scourge, but they don't necessarily want to have their logos associated with it. It's kind of heartbreaking, but tougher topics. Yeah, tougher topics. Hard to say. I've never heard, yeah, I've never heard that. You know, it's funny that you say about the marketing. As you know, my brother does fundraising for a university and I was talking to him about an event that I was helping one of my clients with and I said, oh, so-and-so company is a sponsor and he said a sponsor or an advertiser, right? Cause it really does come to, are there dollars being used for marketing? Like they want to have their logo and their product in the room of these potential consumers. And so your topic here really aligns with that question because sometimes it is advertising, you know, when it comes to that product placement or the logo placement, but not always, right? So let's move into the media partners because there's a lot of partnerships and media is one of them. What are we looking for when it comes to exposure with our confirmed media partners? And on this image, you have a beautiful camera and a camera woman. So yeah, what does this look like? So Jared, I think this is the starting point. If you are working on an event, then you're gonna go back out and sell sponsorships. And yes, I think your brother's right, it is advertising. I think that this is where you start because most decisions are going to be made on who else is coming to the party, so to speak, in terms of where are we going to get added exposure, right? Where are we gonna see our logo and even our people represented? And so if you can come to the table and say, well, we have XYZ newspaper and they're gonna run so many ads and we have XYZ radio station and they're gonna do a live remote and we have XYZ TV station, they're gonna broadcast post coverage or be their day up. I mean, there are a lot of different traditional broadcast media outlets, but you wanna break it down into three places. You wanna do print, you wanna do broadcast, which we call TV, and then you wanna do radio because generally you won't get more than one per segment. So it'll be really hard to get more than one newspaper or more than one magazine or more than one radio station for the most part, right? So you've got to kind of pick your battles and figure out where you're gonna get all these pieces to fit in. And then when you go to prospective sponsors, it's a much easier sale because you can say, look, this is what our media campaign looks like. And here's another secret, Jared. It's pre coverage, it's event coverage, and it's post coverage. So it's three avenues in to promoting your event. Right, so you mentioned print TV broadcast as well as radio and I'm really curious where does new media fall into this? Social media influencers, like where does that fit into the current trends? You know, that's gonna be something that is more driven internally, right? Because you'll be able to push out. It's really hard to go in front of let's say YouTube or Google or Facebook and get them to pull in and make a commitment on something so broad. So you're gonna have to drive that bus yourself, which most nonprofits already are. And so they'll understand that. And that's a whole nother discussion because what that does, that means that you're gonna have to create some artwork and some pieces so that those things can be posted by potential sponsors because you want them sharing the news as well. But I think for the most part, that, as I said, is an internal thing. Now, when you get these other media partners, you have to give over control, right? I mean, they can talk to you about what they're gonna do and what their plan is and what they've boarded up in terms of placement. But if there's breaking news, all bets are off and you might lose that opportunity. You don't ever know. You just don't ever know. So it's about control at that point. We have a question and I wanna ask it, but Julie, I'm curious if it might be more appropriate later. So I'm gonna share the question with you and you can decide what advice would you give to building and growing a sponsor relationship beyond that event sponsorship? Love this question, whoever you are. Maybe I know you, maybe I don't. I don't, yay team. It's anonymous, sadly. Oh my gosh. Well, you know what, this is the secret sauce to the whole thing. And remember the first slide we talked about. It's not just one thing, right? It's a compliment. And if you think about all the things going on, 1.8 million nonprofits, you know, I call it a 25 eight media climate, right? It's just so much is going on. If you can go to these partners and navigate a path for them, that's ideal, right? They don't wanna have to be recreating what their partnerships are every year, every month, every week. So if you can align with them and march in the same direction, you're gonna have a lot more opportunity, a lot more opportunities. So yeah, this is also, it makes it incumbent upon the nonprofit to think out and I gulp 18 to 24 months on their events, not just 12 months. You gotta be thinking out because this is the way that marketing piece goes in the for-profit world. Yeah, and I coach the clients and nonprofits that I work with. You wanna talk to your sponsors on an annual basis. So you're not just going to them for every single event or every single opportunity, you're going to them with an oligarch menu. Here's what a $50,000 partnership would look like and they get to choose, yes, I wanna be a signature sponsor of this event, I wanna be a program sponsor of this event and that way they're shopping with their philanthropic dollars throughout the year. So I hope that adds some extra value to the question because it is a really good question. It is and it's a question that when you understand it actually builds more opportunity. Yeah, it does. Okay, well, let's move into logo placements, marketing and hyperlinked because I think this also dovetails nicely into this annual partnership. Most of these galas, I'll say they have a gala page, a gala website, that's where you register and that's where the logo placements and marketing is but what happens Julia is after the event, that's gone. It's deleted. So talk to us about the best practices for this. So this is one of those things where it should be in what we call on a website in the folio. The folio means it's the bottom part and it should not just be on the event landing page, indeed put it on the event landing page but I think it's really important to also have a tab on every website that lists supporters of your mission, right? Because that is a really important part of the continuation of a relationship and it also brings some connectivity to other people that might be looking to invest with you, maybe going your board, maybe even seek services from your organization. So don't let those go and for those organizations who think, okay, the event's over, get that page down, it needs to go on an events page where it's archived. Look at the great time we have, look at the images, don't just take that page down. You wanna navigate it to a place where you can celebrate what occurred and also communicate about how your organization does something, right? Who was there? What did it look like? Those are the things I think that are really important to keep those relationships strong and to also communicate more about your organization. So really, really important. You're mentioning the halo effect and I remember learning that early in my career where other supporters, companies, they wanna know who else has already committed to this event because they want to be in the room or associated with or on the same platform with a lot of the same supporters and community champions. So I always think of that halo effect and it is nice when you say, here's who's already committed for these opportunities. Right, and here's who's marched with us. I think that's the thing, who has been with us and things change. Maybe they were with you for your community breakfast in the fall, but they're not gonna be with you with your spring luncheon or whatever. But I think also this goes a long way, Jared, for when you do have those dips in relationships that you can be like, hey, we never gave up on you. We never erased you. We always demonstrated to our community that you were a valuable partner. And so I think that this is just a good piece of stewardship, I really do. It's pretty basic, so. Well, and I love going back to see photos of past events and see what the event will look like. As a female, I like to see what is the dress code, right? Like, what is the best dress and those kind of ideas that you can glean. Okay, take us to stage time. How might we use the introductions as part of our branding? This is a strategy that I'm really curious to hear more. This is a very interesting thing and I'm on a couple boards where we've started doing this. I've been witnessing it and it is really interesting because what it does is let's say you have a utility, right? A regional utility, very large organization. And let's say you're going to do something along the lines of a conversation on DEI. You can have that organization's champion of DEI or maybe their executive vice president of DEI, whatever they have, come and make an introduction to your speaker, right? Or introduce some part of it so that they get FaceTime. This is a really interesting way of getting somebody on the stage without getting them on the stage, right? So it's basically, in many ways, a three-minute commitment, right? But if you think about an event, that person's name goes up on the screen behind you, they're on the program, they might be videotaped, they might be interviewed by another media company, our media partner, and it just helps bring together more voices in the room. And corporate sponsors love this because it's giving them FaceTime, if you will. They don't have to prepare a big speech, they don't have to get all stressed out about talking or making a big grand presentation, but it's like very simple. Hi, I'm Jer, our ransom nonprofit nerd, CEO of Raven Group, and I met Betty Smith 15 years ago when she started talking about blah, blah, blah, blah, help me welcome Betty Smith to the stage. So do you see what I'm saying? You're up front, you're there, you're moving the program along, you have your branding exposed, and then you move off and the speaker gets to speak. It's really an interesting thing. It takes a little bit more management sometimes. I think it freshens up the event, I think it moves the program along, and people love it, sponsors love it. And you might have to explain it to them if you're not doing this in your community. In our community, we're seeing it a lot. I mean, we started really seeing it before the pandemic. So this is something now that sponsors are asking for. They're saying, oh, do we have an introduction opportunity? So you have to be prepared. And really it doesn't cost you anymore. I mean, it is a wonderful add-on. I coach my clients to do this as well, and it just makes all the sense in the world, I think, and it's going back to, it doesn't cost you anything. It's just organizational. It's just organizational. You just have to get it on your script, and you got to make sure that somebody's there. And I've done events where the person didn't show up. So you got to figure out who's the backup on that. But again, it's an introduction. And it could be an introduction of a video. If you're doing the VOG of God video, it could be that. Yeah, get creative. Okay, well, I didn't think we would get through all of our slides, our key talking points today. We also have another question that I will ask here soon, but this slide that we're showing up, Julia, are the other factors, and there's seven other factors here. Walk us through them. This is today, I mean, in 30 minutes, I'm giving 30 years of information because I was on the other side of the table being in media and print media. This is what came to me all day long, people wanting us to partner with them. So I'm kind of giving you a piece of my brain about when all these people would come to us and ask what I was thinking, right? And how I was making decisions. So this is one of the big things, defined commitment levels with specific financial levels, you need, and you mentioned this when we started talking, you know, you need to have some opportunities for different levels of engagement, right? Not everybody is going to want a table. Not everybody's gonna want the tickets, but they're going to want to see some value layered in there. And maybe it's really important for XYZ company to be the presenting sponsor. Maybe it's not, right? So you kind of need to figure out. I remember years ago in one of the first boards I served, I came on to an organization, cultural organization, and they had secured a very large gift of support from a major grocery store chain. And then I was doing business with another grocery store chain and they said, you're on that XYZ board. And I said, yeah. And they're like, we want that presenting title. And I said, oh, well, I think it's already been sold too. You know. And they were like, well, who do we talk to about getting first rate of refusal so that when they leave, we can jump in? And it was like, yeah. And it was like, whoa, right? You know, I mean, to this organization, they wanted to be the presenting sponsor and they were willing to throw a lot of cash at it. So you kind of have to think about these things and how it works. You will also have folks that want to make sure that they dominate that one sector so that there's only one grocery store, right? Yeah. And so you have to understand, are you willing to reduce the cash flow somewhat in order just to protect that spot for one person? It's a big question. Next thing, we talked about that tickets and tables I mentioned that. I've had more and more organizations that are like, I don't want to have to be responsible for filling a table. It's just exhausting. I want to get up on stage. I want to be able to make an introduction and that's a value, but I don't need a table of 10 or 12, maybe two tickets, maybe four tickets. Now, if it's something really sexy, then yeah, they're gonna want the tickets or you can always offer them more upon request. But there's nothing worse, Jared, than having your big corporate partners at a gala in the very front prime table and it's half full. Empty seats. Yeah. No worst. Yeah. One thing I'm seeing here is the offer of the sponsor donating them back to the charity to fill with client or participants to attend speakers that are going to speak on behalf of the agency and then also volunteer seats. So allowing two tickets at each table to be donated back for any of those kind of opportunities for people to attend and I love seeing that and chances are the corporation always says, absolutely, we would love to have that. Yeah, Jared, I think you're right and I think it's just, sometimes it's a sigh of relief when that person knows they don't have to fill a table because you're not the only game in town. They're doing this full time. This is their job, right? These community partners or community managers, community engagement people, whatever you call them, those philanthropic officers, they're having to figure this out every day so it makes it hard. Another thing is that we're seeing more and more and Jared, I'm sure you know about this but having opportunities where volunteers from organizations can show up. We're seeing this a lot for check-ins, right? For an event where the corporation will all be in their blue t-shirts that are branded and then they're directing everybody in and saying welcome, come on in. And of course you get to see their logo and they're engaged and it's a great opportunity to build more community engagement as opposed to just that one table or whatever. Another thing that's a little bit tired and old but still I'm amazed at the number of corporations that have swag. And swag and giveaways could be everything from a box of mints with a logo on it to something that relates to their organization, right? I mean, during the pandemic and post-pandemic we saw a rise in bottles of hand sanitizer, right? Yes we did, I still have some inventory. Yeah, so I mean, you know what I mean? It kind of flows to whatever that looks like but I think that's something that if you're gonna do gift bags or you're gonna have something placed on the chairs or at the table, that's an opportunity. One of the things that I've seen and this was before the pandemic which was a little bit more interesting and innovative was organizations that partnered with like bakeries and maybe did boxed cupcakes or bags of, you know, custom cookies that were kind of used as a takeaway sweet or maybe even placed at a seating as a dessert. And again, it's branded, it builds goodwill but that I would call that a swag kind of thing. And then post-event recap, I can't tell you the number of sponsors that are like torqued. They wrote the check, they showed up, they did everything they were supposed to and then crickets. They never heard what happened. They never got a recap. They never learned about what the next thing was going on. No communication of impact, wah, wah, bad form. Don't be the organization that does this because you won't develop a relationship, you know? Who will come back with you? No, and in nine months they send an invite to the same people, right? That weren't thanked, they weren't steward, they weren't, I hear this all the time. I've been doing what I call my like 948 email which if the event ends at 930 at 948 there's an email already planned, scheduled and it's in their inboxes, right? So it's like, let's just get ahead of this and tell them thank you for attending this event either the morning, lunch, evening, you know whatever time of day, but having that touch point I think is so critical, absolutely. It's really true. Okay, go ahead. What about the, you have here is the final of the other factors, quantified outreach and impact numbers. I feel that tags into the post-event recap, am I right? It does, but I think it goes a little bit deeper. It's like, it's that e-blast that is sent, you know, pre-done and sent as guests are leaving. It's the communication that post coverage that goes to media with the images that were taken. If you have a step in repeat, where did those images go? How were they posted? What media did they go to? But more importantly, where did you place it? Because in new media you have that opportunity to control that, right? If you send, you know, post images to a society publication they may not publish that, but you can publish that. And that's what's critically important. So to go back, and I know we're getting ready to finish up but let's say you have somebody from one of your corporate sponsors making an introduction from the podium you wanna make sure that pictures of that person are included in this, right? So I mean, you can see it's a wheel. It's always running. It's always, you know, things are going on. It's not one thing. It's more than the event. There's a lot before and there's a lot after, but it's a wheel. And I want you to start thinking of it in that way and you'll be more successful. Well, great tips, really good information here. Before we wrap up the two of us here I wanna ask this question from the anonymous attendee. Have you seen nonprofits thanking their special event sponsors on their annual report or their impact report beyond those individual givers? Absolutely, and you should because think about it that's a strong dollar. And it ties back to what we were saying earlier about building community and demonstrating what went on, right? I mean, like you wanna be able to say we had this event and it was underwritten or supported whatever words you choose by these organizations. It's a great opportunity to express your gratitude, to show our just and also to say we have these heavy hitters. You know, this utility company believed in us. They believe in our mission, right? And so I think you need to champion that. And who doesn't love that, right? Yeah, it's, again, it doesn't cost you any more money. So I highly recommend it. Well, Julia C. Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. Thank you for sharing your 30 years of wisdom in 30 minutes. You knocked it out of the park. And I'm Jarrett Ransom, nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven Group. Together we wanna say thank you to these amazing partners. Shout out of gratitude to our friends over at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, nonprofit thought leader, fundraising academy at National University, 180 management group, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, JMT consulting, nonprofit nerd, as well as nonprofit tech talk. These are the companies that keep us going and growing this week, I almost said month, this month, but this week in particular, we broadcasted our 1,000th episode. So thank you to all, every single one of you for being part of this amazing journey. And Julia, thank you for being in the hot seat today. You know, as we wrap up every day, we use the same mantra. And we wanna encourage you to stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Thank you, Julia.