Know thyself. That is Tammy Tsang’s advice for club executives seeking sponsorship from outside organizations.
“You have to know your club and what your club needs to do,” said Tseng.
For the last two months, the fourth-year Woodsworth College student and about 30 others in her employee relations class (see picture above) have been developing materials to guide U of T club executives through the stressful process of finding funds.
Their findings have crystallized into a free workshop club executives are invited to attend, to take place on Friday, Nov. 24, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., at Woodsworth College’s Waters Lounge. The students were even able to find an outside sponsor of their own for this event, to show that their approach gets results.
“Your club will need branding and marketing, your club will need an event, and your club will need sponsorship packages,” Tsang explained.
Such packages should describe your club’s strengths, or “leverage,” as Tseng termed it: its size, scope, and reach. The process of finding a sponsor can take about a month, including several meetings with the potential sponsor, somewhat similar to an interview, Tsang said.
“Make sure what you do is what you tell them,” advised Athena Goodfellow, a fourth-year student in the class. “You can’t do a pub crawl, for example.”
Tseng recommended regular newsletters for sponsors, and Goodfellow said that sending them event photographs or other meaningful mementos from successful events will keep you in their good books.
“That really fuels it for them to follow up the next year,” Goodfellow said.
