Sponcer Appreciation

[SeanM]

I was just wondering what any of the teams here do for Sponsor Appreciation, we just recently received our first Major sponsorship and we just want to know what we should do to show our appreciation for their Sponsorship.

[jack]

make sure you spell check whatever you send them...

[RiNaZ]

[Denny Trimble]

Speelcheck? I'll have to look that up tomarrow.

[J. Schmidt]

never trussed yore spell chequer

[SeanM]

Anybody with anything productive to say?

[CMURacing - Prometheus]

Sean-

We had a lot of ambiguity with our major sponsors for the first few years, but as long as there were some nice words and the occasional update on what their money was going to, the funding source was secure. This year, I prepared a packet like this for all the sponsors and lots of potential new ones, detailing what they get for how much money. If you look around at other FSAE team websites, you'll find similar stuff from the big programs.

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~msmiles/s...packet0905.pdf

[TG]

Originally posted by CMURacing - Prometheus:
Sean-

We had a lot of ambiguity with our major sponsors for the first few years, but as long as there were some nice words and the occasional update on what their money was going to, the funding source was secure. This year, I prepared a packet like this for all the sponsors and lots of potential new ones, detailing what they get for how much money. If you look around at other FSAE team websites, you'll find similar stuff from the big programs.

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~msmiles/sponsorpacket0905.pdf

Mike,

a suggestion on the packet. You should bulletize the benefits so they are clearly showing. Also, I don't think anybody is going to want to read through 3 pages of text.

What I have in ours is several subheadings including: who we are, how we compete, etc. There are one or two sentences after each describing it. You just want to give them a basic outline of what you are doing in the shortest amount of time possible. Then I stuck in a contacts section and then have each sponsorship level with the benefits bulletized below it. Finally, an important part is to have the budget of your program in there. You can be somewhat BS but it goes to show what sort of things need to be bought to have an FSAE program.

Good luck on getting sponsorship. We aren't really having much So if anybody out there wants to help us out, contact me and we can probably work something out

[CMURacing - Prometheus]

Tim --

I see where you're coming from with the comments, and I had considered it all. When it comes to our recurring sponsors, you're right, they don't read through it. I also have a budget, cover page, cover letter, and team organization chart, and its a lot of stuff to look at. However, when I've approached new sponsors, they like having all the information. Its all pretty standard stuff for an FSAE team, you could probably change the name and use it as is.

We've been fortunate to have a guy very early on in the program who secured a large amount of yearly funding from the big three (and, because he went to ford, when they cut back, we still got funding), but we're in a big push to get our program to the next level through lots more sponsorship. So far, we've increased our sponsorship level about 40% this year.

Tim (and others), there's two big ways we approach companies to get sponsorship. One (and big schools get big benefits from this) is alumni. We go through and find alumni working at large corporations (engineering related, component related, or just local), contact them, send info, set up meetings, and see where we get. Its the primary way that Ford and Chrysler give out money, as well as companies like Kennametal. The second is through recruiting. We're fortunate in that we have a large amount of on-campus recruiting for such a small school, and we use that to spread initial interest in sponsorship through the packet above. In speaking with a recruiter from a large Pittsburgh corporation, actually, I discovered that a certain school in Rolla, MO had also approached the recruiter with a sponsor packet and follow-up. So I guess I'm doing something right.

[TG]

Mike,

yeah, money is just really tight. I can get just about any material I want, just getting any money is a pain. We've had some promising chances, but they've all backed out which is frustrating. I follow up probably as much as people can stand before it gets annoying (I get well past annoying with people in the school because shit takes soooo long with the school).

As far as the packet is concerned. I let it be just an introductory piece to get someones attention. After that you get presentations and personal meetings where you can more fully tell them about the project. Also, with larger corporations, the guys that control where money goes won't take much time looking at something. I don't really try to go for anybody but the high people in corporations because I have talked to guys before that said they'd help us out with plenty of money only to be told later on by a guy higher up that they can't provide any money at all.