Schools play a huge role in their community, yet many struggle to convert that to sponsorship revenue.

If you’re wondering why, keep reading as Sponsorship Ready covers off the most common mistakes schools make with Sponsorship.

1. They talk to benefits instead of understanding objectives

​All too often a school will engage with a prospective sponsor and just start offering benefits like signage, or apparel positions or activation opportunities but they are making a BIG mistake. How could they possibly know their marketing and business objectives without having this ‘discovery’ meeting. Your school will find once they explore the prospects commercial, brand and community engagement objectives it will be decidedly easier to find the right sponsorship platform.

2. They confuse fundraising and sponsorship

If your school can deliver on business objectives it can succeed in sponsorship and change the narrative from a $500 donation to that of genuine sponsorship. Schools are powerful conduits to thousands of people in a catchment and this is worth more than mere donations. Think in terms of what the prospect is spending on its current marketing activity and raise the bar!

3. They go to market and pitch for Sponsorship with collateral which misses the mark

An invitation to sponsor the school is an opportunity to engage with the community, improve outcomes for students, showcase programs the school is running, professionally promote its purpose, vision and values and good governance and so much more. It has some specific and unique ingredients which includes but is certainly not limited to a) great photography and an image bank that captures the heart of the school (and not all enrolment facing images!), b) compelling copy and c) defines the schools reach and impact.

Some other key reasons include:

• They have not considered what they really have to sell
• Their selling tools do not target the audience
• They are simply not sponsorship ready when they approach the market
• Who is going to manage a sponsorship program once its created?

Sponsorship Ready’s leading and proven 3-step framework provides peace of mind for school’s wanting to successfully deliver on business, brand, and community engagement objectives, while effectively conveying their school’s purpose, vision, and values.

Find out how your school can become Sponsorship Ready with a FREE 30-minute strategy session and start succeeding in sponsorship at your school today.

Your brand is your identity and the way your school becomes recognisable and can be differentiated from other schools in the eyes of your school community.

So much so that today, 89% of people stay loyal to brands that share their values.

So, when it comes to building a strong school identity and connection to community, one of the ways to ensure your school team understands your school brand is through creating a set of branding and logo guidelines.

So, what exactly are brand guidelines?

Simply put, brand guidelines are a set of rules, definitions and examples that explain your brand and how to utilise your brand assets. This includes colours, logos, fonts, imagery and more.

From print to your school’s website and social media, the intent of branding guidelines is to ultimately drive a consistent and feel across all your school assets.

That’s why, here at Sponsorship Ready, we work with schools to provide brand guidelines that save you and your team time by having an easily accessible document, that’s simple to navigate and comprehend and includes:

Logos

• How to use your logo:
• minimum sizes, spacing and where not to place it
• secondary logos (a school crest, or house-specific logos), include them as well.

Colours

• A clear outline of your school’s primary and secondary colour palettes

Typography

• A clear guideline of typefaces that you use at your school for headings and body copy across the web and print, and how to access them.

Imagery

• How to use imagery across photo and illustrations
• Different platform usages
• Examples of how all your assets work together
• a screenshot of your website homepage
• a social media post
• a brochure
• a photo of school merchandise (such as a water bottle or backpack).

Sponsorship Ready has a talented team of marketers and graphic designers who can build your school brand and logo guidelines and support in driving brand consistency.

Can our community alliance program run alongside our sponsorship program?

Yes, it sure can.

Keeping in mind there is a big difference between fundraising, donations, philanthropy & genuine sponsorship.

While there are a select number of schools that seem to have an event series that underpins the basic structure to a community engagement initiative or alliance, the revenue derived from them is often negligible, notwithstanding they serve their purpose for sure.

To realise real sponsorship revenue, it’s crucial that a considered and strategic approach is required and that is where Sponsorship Ready’s 3-step framework comes in.

How do we manage our existing sponsors if we introduce a new strategy?

It seems many public and independent schools have some semblance of a sponsorship program in play.

Some even have a family of sponsors with a reasonable sponsorship revenue baseline.

The catch is – how do you unpack an existing program? Do you even have to? How do roll existing sponsors into a new strategy?

All this is part of the Sponsorship Ready program scope.

What support can you give my staff tasked with driving sponsorship?

• Educate them on how to talk to sponsors about their objectives rather than just trying to sell them on benefits
• Help them understand what your school has to sell
• How to ‘change the narrative’ when selling sponsorship. For example, position for perception of ROI versus Philanthropic donations.
• Provision of a framework or scaffolding and ongoing support
• Preparing your school to go to market both strategically and with transparency.

Find out how your school can become Sponsorship Ready with a FREE 30-minute strategy session and start succeeding in sponsorship at your school today.

Sponsorship Ready is a professional development and capacity building program, with an unwavering solutions-based approach to sponsorship in schools.

Now in its third year of operation, Sponsorship Ready continues to go from strength to strength, with over 25 schools throughout Queensland since supported in driving sustainable revenue solutions in school sponsorship.

One of the many schools supported includes Mackay-based St Patrick’s College, Mackay and Mercy College, Mackay.

Assistant Principal of Curriculum at Mercy College and Confraternity Carnival Convenor, Scott McSherry engaged Sponsorship Ready after being granted hosting rights for the Confraternity Carnival and QISSN for 2022.   The brief was set the host school up for success in monetising the carnival and then to bring to life a sponsorship strategy for the two schools that are merging in 2023.

“As an active participant in elite sporting competitions for many years, sourcing financial support from local businesses has always been crucial to help reduce costs for students,” Scott said.

“When we were granted hosting rights for the Confraternity Carnival and QISSN for 2022, we realised that our previous efforts were not going to give us the financial support required to deliver a top-quality carnival,” Scott continued.

“Sponsorship Ready has not only provided us a fresh take on how to attract education sponsorship opportunities, but it’s also helped us to form mutually beneficial relationships with businesses while creating an income stream beyond our expectations.

“The education and support provided by Sponsorship Ready has been outstanding and has truly transformed our thinking when it comes to funding school team competing on a state and national level.

“This also enabled us to deliver excellence in co-curricula opportunities for our students that are commensurate with any school in Queensland, now and into the future.”

Sponsorship Ready’s leading and proven 3-step framework provides peace of mind for school’s wanting to successfully deliver on business, brand, and community engagement objectives, while effectively conveying their school’s purpose, vision, and values.

Find out how your school can become Sponsorship Ready with a FREE 30-minute strategy session and start succeeding in sponsorship at your school today.