Event Sponsorship Advice: Partnering with Colleges and Organizations

Posted in:Advice Compensation Events Fundraising Tech

Hi Elphas!

Great to connect with you all again! I wanted to reach out and ask if anyone has experience partnering with colleges or local organizations to secure event sponsorships?

If you've successfully navigated this process, would you mind sharing your experience? I'd love to learn more about:

How you established the partnership
How compensation was structured and negotiated
The timeline from initial outreach to securing the sponsorship

I appreciate your feedback and support! ❤️

Iynna·May 27

Great to see your name pop up, Tionna! :) I have but I have some quick clarifying questions for you (the answers to your questions will vary based on your answers to the following): what kind of sponsorship are we talking about $ or in kind (eg space)? And then what kind of entity is the organisation looking for sponsorship (not for profit vs for profit?)? And does it to have to be with the school directly eg. could it be a student run club or a group within the school?1. I had connected with someone who was doing work that was aligned with mine (at the time for my edtech startup), so it was easy to pitch to the, 2. Not sure I understand this one - we got some in kind sponsorship (they gave us space for free for a whole weekend for a hackathon we hosted and everything else that comes with it ie technology setup, security). But schools are usually structured as a non profit so not sure they can actually give any cash.3. A couple of weeks - again we had an in so it helped speed things up a bit

tionnawilsonpierce·Jun 01

Thank you for responding @Iynna! We are a small AI research lab based in New York seeking financial sponsorships to support one of our initiatives. We’re open to different types of sponsors as long as they align with our mission, values and ethics in supporting families and parental rights.

Iynna·Jun 01

Sounds very neat and interesting! I'd definitely research departments/labs at universities that give grants to other labs or research centres. For example Andrew Huberman over at Stanford gifted $100K to Joanna Steinglass at Columbia Uni for her work in eating disorders and finding cures. https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/illuminating-neural-basis-anorexia

tionnawilsonpierce·Jun 02

@iynna Thank for your suggestion, we're open to exploring this further and would appreciate any specific recommendations you may have. Currently, we started to reach out to colleges in New York, Georgia, and North Carolina. I really appreciate your guidance and support!