¶ Head of Sponsoring - How Does it Works
As Head of Sponsoring, you can expect a significant workload. The key to your success will be your ability to keep yourself organized and share tasks with your team.
You'll be responsible for renewing contracts with current sponsors, and managing your team in order to contact new companies and establish new collaborations. You'll also need to keep in good touch with sponsors to maintain a good and active relationship through the year, in the hope of a contract renewal and increased support.
Keep in mind that you are NOT alone !!
It is important to share the work between your team members to keep them involved and motivated, but also to be efficient and for you to keep a healthy life balance.
On this page, you'll find most of the information you'll need to efficiently manage your work and your team.
¶ Sponsoring Documents
You'll be using several important documents over the course of the year, so it's important to get familiar with them as soon as possible. If a system doesn't seem optimal to you, you're free to improve it by discussing it with your team and implementing it.
→ 
Sponsoring Database 24-25
Lists all sponsors currently partnering (usually under contract) with the ERT. You'll find useful information such as the dates of any contracts, details of the nature of the support and contact details for company representatives.
→ Contacting List 24-25
This document lists all the companies contacted since the start of the academic year. Check it BEFORE each contact and keep it up to date IMMEDIATELY afterwards to avoid potentially embarrassing double contact (happens more often than you think...).
→ Stakeholders List
This document is of immense value. It contains all the contact details of the association's past and present stakeholders. Don't forget to keep it up to date.
¶ Important tools and accounts
You'll need to add new sponsor logos to the website, create sponsor slides and revise the sponsoring brochure.
→ We have access to Canva Pro, Affinity Publisher and WordPress. Ask your VP to give you access to these platforms, which will be very helpful throughout the year.
¶ Sponsoring Renewals
The thread running through your year will be contract renewals. These are discussions that can take a looooong time, with people who are sometimes hardly available. So remember to plan ahead (one month before the end of the contract) and organize yourself for the busiest periods.
Recontacting the sponsor with a concrete offer will save time and
simplify the renewal process. Don't hesitate to discuss the needs of the team in advance, so that you can prepare a proposal and present it to the sponsor in time.
You'll find all the renewal dates and the suggested time to recontact the sponsors in this document → [ When to recontact the sponsors]
¶ Interface with the Communication Team
An important part of the services we offer our sponsors is communication (networks, displays, etc.). To ensure the success of these services, it's important to have strong links with the communications team.
In order to organise the sponsoring posts, the communication team needs to know three essential things:
- Which sponsor
- What service (post, video, mention,...)
- How many (in a one year span)
¶ How to Find New Sponsors
The core of the sponsoring team's work is finding new sponsors. As Head of Sponsoring, this will only be one part of your job, but it's certainly one of the most complicated.
Here are a few examples of how to find new sponsors :
Prospecting → At the beginning of the year, draw up a list of companies within and outside the industry that could offer the association material and/or financial support. The challenge will be to catch their attention before drawing up a quantified request.
Team Requests → The technical team identifies sponsorship opportunities related to its needs and formulates detailed requests. Thus, you can contact companies with a clear, quantified need, and the success rate is often higher, but almost exclusively for in-kind sponsorship.
Events → The opportunity to talk directly with people that work in a specific firm that could support us! Remember, having a direct contact exponentially increases the chances of concluding a partnership with them.
New Sponsor Procedure¶ How to Maintain Relations with Current Sponsors
Keeping an active relation with our sponsors is essential! It is the only way to thank them for their support and continue to collaborate with them, possibly, for more than a year.
Here there are some suggestions that could help you maintain contact with the sponsors:
Events: every year we organize the Reveal of the Competition Rocket (Reveal Event), it is a perfect opportunity to invite our sponsors and show them what we are able to do with their support and show gratitude for their cooperation with us.
Newsletter: it can happen that events to which our sponsors are invited are not organized for months. To remedy this, the creation of a newsletter could be ideal to convey to them how the various projects are progressing and generally keep them updated on what is happening in the association. We are ideally trying to do seasonal newsletters.
Christmas Gifts : The Christmas period is the perfect time to give our sponsors a special treat. In the form of a gift (chocolate, merchandise, etc.) or/and a greetings card, it's a gesture that's sure to please. However, it's important to plan well in advance, and to set aside a budget in advance.
Shipping can be expensive!
¶ How to Manage the Team
¶ Team Members Recruitements
It's your job to recruit members at the beginning of the year. The sooner this is done, the sooner the work can begin.
There are several channels for recruiting members:
- Association's recruitment process: Candidates can apply to join the team. Set up a meeting with them, get to know them and analyze their motivation and skills.
- Personal contacts: If you have friends who, through you or other people, have heard about the association and would like to join, ask them for a short interview, and make sure you remain serious so that you can maintain a professional relationship during meetings.
In both cases, here are a few important points to consider:
See if he/she seems at ease and nice when he expresses himself in front of you.
Organizational skills
Experiences (can be useful, but never forget that people are here to learn. It is important to offer a first experience if possible)
/
Good knowledge of written and spoken English (or German)
Just an advice, be at leat 4 and at most 10.
¶ Weekly Meetings and Team Motiation
You need to keep members informed on a regular basis. It's also important to maintain frequent contact to create a bond and a group atmosphere.
For this reason, you need to organize weekly meetings to assess completed tasks and new activities to be undertaken.
It's an important moment for managing and assigning tasks, initiating group discussions on complicated issues, keeping members up to date on the life of the association as a whole, but also a good way of keeping an eye on the efficiency of the team's work.
- Use the
Meeting Document to prepare your meeting and to keep track of the work and discussions - Use
When2Meet to suggest times and find the ideal meeting slot. - Use the EPFL
outlook room reservation system to reserve a room for a weekly slot. (If from HEC - sorry for you)
First come, first serve !! Book your room early
¶ How to share the work between the members
It's not always easy to give members the right amount of work. Discuss the expected number of hours in advance, and make sure to check with your member if he's ok. If they have too much work to do, they should inform you. In such case, you can reassign the task to someone else, or just help your team member.
¶ Team Communications
It's important to communicate ONLY via slack, and to avoid private discussions as much as possible. If the discussion concerns other people, make sure it takes place on a channel.
Sponsoring has two dedicated channels. One public and one private.
#m_sponsoring
→ This channel allows the technical team to submit sponsorship requests. You can use it to send updates to the whole Association about sponsorship news.
#m_sponsoring_team
→ This channel serves as the internal communication place for the sponsoring team. You can share the meetings slides, the important documents and the tasks assignements here.
Please DO NOT use WhatsApp or other apps → It is important to keep a record of each communication for future years and slack makes this possible.